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

conclusion 249

onto the lofty gate that commanded a panoramic view of the entire square from

which Abbas II could display his bravura of power.” As in the Ottoman Empire,

there was a backlash against the close affi liation between the ruler and Sufi s.

Numerous polemics against Sufi sm were written during his reign, and fi nally,

twenty-three years after he was deposed (two years after Mehmed IV was de-

throned), Sufi lodges were banned, and wine, singing, and dancing were pro-

hibited; in 1 694 gambling was banned and coffeehouses demolished.^10

The rulers of the Mughal Empire ( 1 526– 1 707), Sunnis with close relations

with the Chisti Sufi order, also had much in common with the sultans of the

Ottoman Empire. In the beginning they effectively ruled over a population that

was predominantly not Muslim, in this case Hindu. And like the Ottomans, the

Mughals did not aim to convert the majority of the population. Yet the Mughals

presided over just such a demographic change. Charismatic Sufi pioneers re-

ceived grants of land from Mughal sultans to clear forests and plant rice and

propagate Islam among forest people in new settlements replete with mosques,

incorporating them into a Muslim culture and political system. Over the course

of four centuries, western and eastern India developed large populations of

Muslim peasants.^11 The last major Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb (reigned 1 658–

1 707), Mehmed IV’s contemporary, according to some historians, attempted

to Islamize Shi‘i and Hindu regions.^12 And like Mehmed IV he cracked down

on illicit activities such as drinking, gambling, prostitution, the use of narcot-

ics, and the playing of music. He also was apparently the fi rst Mughal ruler

to impose the poll tax on Hindus and has a reputation for destroying Hindu

temples.^13 Like scholarly attitudes toward Mehmed IV, accounts of Aurangzeb’s

reign may also refl ect more the biases and interests of modern writers and

less the concerns of those writing during his historical epoch. Some Hindu

writers present this Mughal ruler as the paradigm of malicious Muslim rule in

southern Asia, manifested in forced conversion and the destruction of Hindu

temples. In response, some Muslim scholars have gone to the other extreme,

explaining how “tolerant” Aurangzeb was and claiming that he did not coerce

Hindus to become Muslim. Similarly, in some modern southeastern European

narratives of the second half of the seventeenth century, Mehmed IV is depicted

as the exemplar of what is considered the brutal reign of Islam, as he allegedly

forced tens of thousands of Christians to convert to Islam. In great contrast,

some modern Turkish accounts depict Mehmed IV as the worst example of

Oriental decadence, and never mention conversion.^14

One reason rulers in each of the three land-based Islamic empires became

interested in conversion at the same time was the symbolic power of demon-

strating the truth of the ruling religion by producing the visible signs of its vic-

tory. The acts of celebrating the conversion of Armenians, Orthodox Christians,