244 honored by the glory of islam
against the Commonwealth of Poland in 1 672–73 and 1 674–75, which contem-
porary Ottoman writers referred to as ghaza or jihad, Nihadi prefers to call
the sultan the “august ruler,” “the one exalted in stature as King Jem,” and the
“refuge of the universe,” imperial titles that harken back to the glory and pag-
eantry of ancient, pre-Islamic Iran, rather than refer to him as a pious warrior
for Islam.^21
Along with his active role in promoting military conquest of infi del lands,Mehmed IV’s conversion of Christian and Jewish souls and space also disap-
peared from the historical record after his reign. The sultan might otherwise
have been nicknamed “the Converter” rather than “the Hunter.” Mehmed IV’s
reign lent itself to erasure, in particular because it is remembered mainly for
the fact that at the end of his epoch, following the unsuccessful siege of Vienna
in 1 683, the Ottoman Empire began to contract territorially; this can be seen
as the beginning of a process that culminated in the destruction of the empire
in the ashes of World War I. It was therefore more satisfying for later genera-
tions to imagine Mehmed IV as a profl igate hunter than to memorialize him
as a strong ruler. It was, and is, less troubling to pin the blame for the em-
pire’s centuries-long dissolution on a few fl awed leaders than to consider the
actual values of that age and the complicated processes that led to the empire’s
dismemberment.