Conclusion
Islamic Rulers and the Process of Conversion
Conversion of self, conversion of others of the same religion, conver-
sion of others of different religions and their sacred spaces within
society, and the waging of ghaza in part to convert others and their
religious geography abroad were all linked during Mehmed IV’s
epoch. His interest in conversion arose during a period of crisis
when the empire faced religious intensifi cation and revival. Most
notable about the ideology of Mehmed IV’s court was its marked re-
ligious piety: the sultan and his inner circle openly proclaimed their
own piety in their writings and through their personal behavior and
the policies they implemented. After experiencing their own con-
version, Mehmed IV, Hatice Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasha, and Vani
Mehmed Efendi considered themselves devoted Muslims returning
society to the right path, from which it had deviated. Mehmed IV and
his circle desired Muslims to convert to their more rational approach
to the religion. Reforms targeted ecstatic Muslim practices and those
who did not conform to the new piety. At the same time, they aimed
to have all members of society be transformed in similar fashion,
including Jews such as Shabbatai Tzevi who acted like antinomian
dervishes. This dimension of their piety went hand in hand with an
interest in Islamization of Christian and Jewish people and places
and impelled them to promote the adoption of the religion by Chris-
tians and Jews. Conversion at home and abroad, each associated with
ghaza, honored those facilitating it because the conversion of others
confi rmed for them the rightness of their own religious change.