192 honored by the glory of islam
The statute makes no mention of the sultan. Moreover, emphasis is placedon the conversion occurring in the imperial council and the palace of the grand
vizier, which were in Istanbul. The imperial treasurer also plays a role in the
process. The statute thus emphasizes the role of those who ran the day-to-day
affairs of the empire and ignores the presence of any dynastic fi gures. This
illustrates the bureaucratization trend that had become so prevalent by the
seventeenth century, in which we can begin to speak of the operations of an
Ottoman administration. Again we see the routinization of offi ce, the bureau-
cratization of function, and the ritualization of ceremony that mark a sedentary
bureaucratic empire.
At the same time, this archival source illustrates how misleading it is torely exclusively on such documents (some might even say, engage in document
fetishism) and to ignore literary sources. The wording of the statute, although
compiled and fi rst recorded in the reign of Mehmed IV, was anachronistic
when it appeared, for it did not take into account the reality of the age, both
the fact that the sultan held court in Edirne or on the hunt or military cam-
paign in Rumelia, and that the sultan was very much present at conversion cer-
emonies. This fact serves as a warning to researchers who believe that reading
archival sources alone as repositories of factual data can provide an accurate
picture of an age. There are other elements of the statute, such as the reward
the convert received, which alert us that the statute was fi rst articulated prior
to Mehmed IV’s reign. The handfuls of coins delivered to the convert were Ot-
toman akçe, not the western European coins actually in use in the markets of
the empire at the time.
More interesting still are the elements that signify conversion as conceivedin this statute. Primary is the emphasis on desire. A Christian man had to want
to become Muslim, had to voluntarily intend to change religion. Nothing in
this statute would allow for a coerced or compulsory conversion. Abdi Pasha
compiled “The Statute of the New Muslim” prior to completing the Chronicle.
In his history, his making a dream serve as the cause of the drover’s conversion
makes even that change of religion appear voluntary. Second, agency is given to
the intending convert. According to this law, the court is not seeking converts,
but converts are seeking the court. The grand vizier acts after the Christian
approaches his palace or the imperial council. This leading minister of the
empire is not out in the countryside drawing Christians into the fold. After the
Christian has arrived expressing his wish to convert, the court then has the duty
to instruct him in his new faith. This raises the question of what the convert
thought he was converting to, and why the court saw itself as necessarily having
to teach the Christian about Islam. This assumes that the Christian man de-
sired to become Muslim without having much of a clue about what it entailed.