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

248 conclusion

Iran from the Sunni interpretation of Islam to Shi‘ism, and turned to con-

verted Christians to serve as their core military strength.^7 Yet both dynasties

(Ottoman and Safavid) struggled in later centuries to maintain authority as the

military backbone of the empire (Janissaries or Qizilbash) began to play a role

in making or breaking the sovereign, determining who would come to power

and how long they would stay there. Initially not only king and warrior (ghazi),

but also Sufi sheikh, the shahs of the Safavid dynasty were like their Ottoman

counterparts also considered the “shadow of God” (although with a different

eschatological understanding). They ruled over a predominantly Sunni Muslim

population, yet had as one of their central aims its conversion to Shi‘ism, which

they successfully accomplished.^8 Accordingly, Armenians, foreign Catholics,

Jews, and Sunni Muslims faced episodes of persecution. Jews suffered from

the whims of the shah, who more resembled a western European king, was

infl uenced by less-forgiving Shi‘i law, and was not constrained by the fi rmly

grounded religious autonomy prevalent in the Ottoman Empire. According to

Iranian Jewish accounts, between 1 656 and 1661 , Mehmed IV’s contemporary

Shah Abbas II (reigned 1 642–66) compelled whole communities of Jews to

convert, resorting to violence of a sort never seen in the contemporary Ottoman

Empire.^9 As they compelled Jews to convert to Islam, the Safavids promoted

Armenian traders. This is similar to how Ottoman policies adversely affected

Jews yet benefi ted Orthodox Christians in the same era. It illustrates how rulers

played groups off one another within their society and favored groups that prof-

ited the administration and dynasty. In the late seventeenth century the waxing

economic strength of Armenian traders in the Safavid Empire and Orthodox

Christian merchants in the Ottoman Empire was one of the reasons these two

groups were privileged to carry out important functions in their respective

societies.

In the Safavid Empire, Mehmed IV’s contemporary Shah Abbas II, unlike

his Ottoman rival, used Sufi s to fulfi ll his conversion aims. His chroniclers

refer to him as a “dervish-loving monarch” and patron of Sufi s, despite the

widespread discord among the religious class over the role of Sufi s at court

and the prominence of Sufi sm in the empire. He encouraged conversion of

the general populace to Twelver Shi‘ism in part by means of dervishes sent

to the four corners of the empire who, like Kadızadeli preachers, taught what

was enjoined and what was prohibited. He even paid for the hajj of converts.

At the same time, similar to Hatice Turhan, who had the Valide Sultan Mosque

built in Eminönü, he also demonstrated an understanding of the power of the

imperial gaze, for he constructed a pavilion on the portal of the palace facing

the main square in Isfahan, an elevated position that signaled his presence

whether he presided over ceremonies or not. This stage was “superimposed