Honored by the Glory of Islam. Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe

198 honored by the glory of islam

signals celebration of the religious change of Christians and Jews and their

sacred geographies.

Because sumptuary hierarchies distinguished Muslims from members of

other religions, changing the body by dressing in new clothing was fundamen-

tal to transforming Christians and Jews into Muslims. “The Statute of the New

Muslim” does not mention what type of clothing would be crucial in the trans-

formation of a Christian or Jew, but legal opinions from the leading Muslim

religious authorities concerning valid means of conversion demonstrate how a

mere change of headgear could be the fi rst step in causing a Christian or Jew to

become a Muslim. A turban of white cloth served as a mark of religious affi lia-

tion. Three legal opinions from late seventeenth-century Sheikhulislam Yahya

Efendi Minkarizade emphasize the central role it played in the conversion of a

Christian or Jewish man to Islam:

Question: If a Christian or Jew should wear a white turban on his

head and henceforth say, “I became a Muslim,” is his or her conver-

sion to Islam considered valid? Answer: It is.

Question: A Christian or Jew wears a white turban on his head. After

he became completely embellished by Islam, when two Muslims ask,

“what are you?” if he should say, “I am a Muslim,” is his conversion

to Islam considered valid? Answer: It is.

Question: When a Christian or Jew wears a white turban on his head

he is asked, “why did you wear it, have you become a Muslim?” If he

should say, “I have been a Muslim for a long time,” is his conversion

to Islam considered valid? Answer: It is.^40

Therefore, a Christian or Jew could change his status to Muslim when he wore

a white turban, a good type of muslin used for a turban, or a type of high head-

gear with a cotton interior over which a turban is wrapped, and then declared

himself to be a Muslim.^41 An indication of the trend arises from the fact that

Rycaut included the illustration of an unadorned white turban of a convert

in his history. It is most likely that converts also recited the Muslim credo in

Arabic, before two Muslims, declaring that there is no God save God and that

Muhammad is God’s messenger.

Commoners who appeared at court to convert removed their former dress

and donned garments of Muslims to symbolize their passage into the em-

pire’s privileged religion. The process of conversion was thus in part garment-

centered. The sultan inscribed his authority on the symbolic surfaces of bodies

when he cloaked Christians and Jews in Muslim dress at his court.^42 It was

an elaborate performance of supplication rewarded by a display of royal be-

nevolence. Petitions depicted the sultan as the benefactor to his supplicating