the failed final jihad 215much booty.^18 In the meantime, the Polish king, long a thorn in the Ottomanside, and a signifi cant army also headed for the city.
The grand vizier’s secretary was in high spirits, believing that the defeatand destruction of the enemies of religion was becoming as clear a reality as
the light of day. He displays historical consciousness by linking Mehmed IV
with his famous predecessor when he mentions that on July 1 3 the grand vizier
arrived at the spot where Suleiman I had pitched his tent in 1 529. He remained
convinced of imminent victory because of the piety of the grand vizier, whose
forces are constantly referred to as ghazis. According to the author, because
the heroic grand vizier was implementing God’s commands, such a country
had been seized and become a place where the horses of the army of Islam gal-
loped. He continued claiming that to those who know history it was unneces-
sary to show any more proof that until then no military commander had been
shown such clear signs of imminent conquest.^19
On July 1 4 the Ottoman forces arrived before the citadel of Vienna and
demanded its surrender. In an act illustrating the link between religious con-
version and conquest in that era, Kara Mustafa Pasha sent a letter in Ottoman
and Latin to the inhabitants of the city, referred to as being located in a country
made for Islam, and the forces guarding it.^20 The grand vizier states in the letter
that his innumerable, divinely assisted soldiers have arrived before the citadel
with the intention of taking it and propagating the word of God.^21 Following the
custom of Muhammad, he offers the citadel’s defenders the option of convert-
ing to Islam to be spared being put to the sword, or they could give up the cita-
del without a fi ght, and without changing religion they could still fi nd safety. If,
however, they neither converted nor surrendered without a battle, they would
be wiped out in the name of God, their wealth and goods pillaged, and their
children made into slaves. He thus urged them fi rst to submit to Islam and
surrender, or second, to at least surrender peacefully, either way agreeing to
live under Islamic sovereignty, whether with eternal salvation in the fi rst in-
stance or temporal stability and prosperity in the second.^22 He warned them
that if they refused to submit to the shadow of God on Earth (Mehmed IV),
who had sent him to take the city and propagate Islam, they faced death and
enslavement.
The inhabitants prepared to fi ght rather than become Muslims. The
Habsburg emperor at any rate had already fl ed to Linz. The Croatian who had
relayed the original letter and the response told the grand vizier’s messenger
to hurry up and go, otherwise he would be fi lled with bullet holes. When the
Orthodox Christian Alexander Mavrocordato, who served as Divan translator,
relayed the information, the grand vizier roared for the cannons to be ready and
the battle to begin.^23