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

238 honored by the glory of islam

ethos versus imperial ethos of a sedentary state) and erupted several times be-

tween the fi fteenth and eighteenth centuries. Janissaries deposed and mur-

dered Osman II because that sultan had plotted to destroy the sultan’s servants

recruited from Christian youth and replace them with a new army drawn from

Turks and Kurds from eastern Anatolia and Arabs from Syria and Egypt, and

move the capital away from the Ottoman heartland in southeastern Europe

to Bursa, Damascus, or Cairo.^10 Members of the Ottoman administration and

military rejected the project of “going in the direction of Anatolia,” perhaps be-

cause it ran counter to the Ottoman myth of formation, the water-crossing into

southeastern Europe that allowed the Ottomans to succeed as a world empire

based in Europe. Crossing the water in the other direction back to Anatolia

would violate the political imagination and serve as countermyth.^11 Meh-

med IV, however, crossed into southeastern Europe and remained there for the

majority of his reign; he moved there in part to wage war in Europe, engaging

in ghaza and jihad.

One can interpret the coup against Mehmed IV as another instance of the

clash between the former Byzantine capital, orphaned by Mehmed IV until the

end of his reign, and Edirne, the launching pad into Ottoman Europe, where

he spent most of his life. The sultan’s absence from Istanbul had been fi lled by

the symbolic acts of his mother, including the construction of her mosque in

Eminönü, but these were ultimately inadequate substitutions for those who fa-

vored the real thing in place of a substitute dynastic leader. In the end the pen-

dulum swung back in favor of the last Ottoman capital, although Suleiman II

and Ahmed II, remembering the many long years in captivity in the cage, spent

as much time outside of Topkapı Palace as possible. Ahmed II spent his entire

brief reign in Edirne out of fear of what awaited him if he returned. Suleiman II

soon realized that Mehmed IV had to be banished from Istanbul, for he could

not represent it, did not speak for its interests. Mehmed IV was condemned

to spend the rest of his days in the ghazi capital. Yet at the same time, his suc-

cessor had learned that campaigning in person was crucial to being seen as

a worthy sultan. Soon after taking the oath of allegiance, he set out to retake

Ottoman Hungary.

When Musavvir Hüseyin made another portrait of Mehmed IV in 1 692–93,

he simply labeled it “Sultan Mehmed Khan son of Sultan Ibrahim Khan.” The

only text accompanying the portrait offers the information that he “was en-

throned in 1 058 [ 1 648] and served as sultan for forty years, fi ve months, and

thirteen days.”^12 In the portrait, Mehmed IV, who wears a brown sable fur-lined

cloak, appears defl ated, defeated, worn out, even depressed. He is no longer

the shadow of God on Earth, or the sun spreading its rays about its surface. He

has been desacrilized. His heavy eyebrows are slightly raised, and he has two