60 honored by the glory of islam
who is the polytheists’ patriarch” was hanged at Parmak Gate for attempting to
undermine the Ottomans while they were at their weakest, a time when treason
was most dangerous. Immediately after describing the campaign of the Otto-
man ally the Crimean khan against Muscovy, in which he claims hundreds of
thousands of enemy were killed and tens of thousands taken captive, which
“made Muslims joyous and Christians hard-hearted in their resistance to God,”
Nihadi launched into a tirade against “the accursed one who is the patriarch of
the Greek infi dels residing in Istanbul.” He accuses the patriarch of secretly
corresponding with Venice and the Habsburgs, urging them to attack Istanbul
while the Ottoman military was in a precarious state. If the foreign Christians
would attack from without and the Ottoman Christians attack from within, the
patriarch hoped that they could “completely do away with the Muslims.”^118
When these letters, which had the patriarch’s seals on them, were seized, the
grand vizier ordered the religious fi gure to appear before him. After ascertain-
ing that these were offi cial patriarchal correspondence, a translator read their
contents. The grand vizier fl ew into a fi t of rage and asked how this accursed one
could dare engage in the sin of backstabbing. Instead of denying his activities,
the patriarch defended them, claiming that he desired calamity for the Muslims
and that he was willing to sacrifi ce his life on the path of his religion. At this
point the grand vizier tried another strategy: conversion. “Come,” he said, “be-
came a Muslim and this offense will be pardoned.” But the patriarch insistently
defended his actions, so the grand vizier immediately had him hanged.^119
Instead of rebellious Christians, for some Muslims the problems of theempire and dynasty all boiled down to not policing gender roles. A sheikh
named Mahmud came to Istanbul from Diyarbekir and withdrew to a dervish
cell for forty days of prayer. When he emerged, he told the head representa-
tive of the descendants of Muhammad that the reason Muslims were affl icted
with crises was because the Shariah had been abandoned and men and women
had switched roles. The valide sultan was a special concern. The sheikh argued
that it was necessary to marry her off to get her out of the palace; a husband
would presumably control her. The sheikh was admonished and sent to the in-
sane asylum that is part of Suleiman I’s mosque complex. There he continued
to tell his many visitors that if only the valide sultan were married, all prob-
lems would be resolved. He was fi nally sent back to Diyarbekir. Naima, who
frequently employs misogynist rhetoric in his history, here defends the valide
sultan by claiming that the sheikh misunderstood the interests of state, the role
the valide sultan played in palace and public ceremonies, why she was linked to
the honor of the dynasty, and how changes to her key role would be even more
damaging.^120 The valide sultan, the most important person in the palace in the
1 650s, was indispensable.