the failed final jihad 209
Urmanus [Romanos Diogenes] gathered all Byzantines, Europeans, Georgians,
and Armenians to pray according to their corrupted rites at the largest church
in Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, and in 456 [ 1 064] set out. This cursed one set out
with 400,000 Christian infi dels and 2,400 carriages loaded with weapons and
arrived at Malazgirt setting foot upon Muslim territory. Sultan Alparslan was in
Tabriz and his army was dispersed. He only had an army of 1 4,000 Turks and
Kurds” (545b–546a).^4 With God’s intercession, “they defeated the infi dels, killed
or took their soldiers prisoner, and took their belongings as booty” (546a).
Vani Mehmed Efendi argues that Alparslan’s victory at the Battle of Man-zikert was a watershed for conquest and conversion. The triumph opened the
gates of Anatolia to Turks, who migrated in mass numbers, radically changing
the demography. They carried the ghaza and jihad in which they had engaged
in the East, sacrifi cing their lives for Islam against Turks who had not yet be-
come Muslim, to the West against Byzantium and the rest of Europe, replacing
the Arabs who had begun the struggle. Rather than being an ally of the Arabs
carrying the battle east, they eventually conquered Arab as well as infi del ter-
ritories. Conquest went hand in hand with conversion. Following the victory
at Manzikert, Sultan Danishmend Ghazi and many Turks settled in Anatolia.
With the arrival of the Danishmendids, people and places were soon converted
in Byzantine cities, mosques replacing churches and monasteries.^5
Vani Mehmed Efendi connects his narrative of Turkish conversion andconquest to the early Ottomans, the last branch of the Turkish genealogy. When
the Mongols (“infi del Tatars”) defeated the Muslims, “the Ottoman sultans’ an-
cestor Ertuğrul came to Greek [Yunan] territories and settled near Söğüt. Later
most Turks fl eeing the Tatars settled there and waged ghaza against infi dels
pursuing them.... Later, they conquered Constantinople and countless Euro-
pean lands and cities” (546b). He then switches again to fi rst person and re-
turns to his main point concerning the Ottomans heeding God’s call to pursue
conquest in the name of conversion: “This is my analysis of 9:39. That is to
say, ‘Oh Arabs! If you do not go out on the ghaza in Rum against Byzantium,
God will punish you and your enemy will occupy your lands.’... Now Turks
have become victorious over Arabs in the East and in the West. ‘And another
people will take your place!’ Indeed, the Turks have taken your place and wage
ghaza against the Byzantines” (547a). Thus it is now the Ottomans who serve
the religion, waging war against the Habsburgs and Romanovs, the successors
to the Byzantines, having inherited this duty from the Arabs and earlier Turks.
Vani Mehmed Efendi’s Qur’anic commentary produced convincing argu-ments that may have incited Mehmed IV and Kara Mustafa Pasha to continue
launching war in central and eastern Europe against Christian powers. This is
signifi cant, for conventional wisdom presents the latter as being responsible