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

78 honored by the glory of islam

But that did not happen. Instead, mosque prayer niches and minarets

transformed by crosses and church bells were rededicated to Muslim worship

as the landscape of the island was converted. Friday prayers were rendered

in spaces purifi ed and cleansed by rose water and perfumed with aloe wood

and ambergris. The island again became a Muslim space, “luminous with the

lights of the marks of Islam.”^77 Kurdish Preacher Mustafa also describes the

battle for Bozca Island and subsequent rededication of Muslim sacred space

in religious language: “The zeal of religion overfl owed in [Köprülü Mehmed

Pasha’s] breast and with a large, undulating army, he commanded a campaign,

whose fruit is victory, against the miserable infi dels.” When the naval forces

of Admiral Topal (Lame) Mehmed Pasha reached the navy of the enemy, “the

ships of the enemies of religion were scattered, routed, ruined, and sunk; with

divine aid the navy of the miserable infi dels was cut in pieces like their unlucky

hearts. And on that victorious day, the Qur’anic verse ‘those of the party of

God are successful and prosperous’ (Al-Mujadilah, the Disputation, 58:22) was

manifest. The Muslim soldiers and true monotheists raised the battle call and

prayer of conquest,” and the Ottoman forces “surrounded the island like an

ocean and the heavens reverberated with the echo of cannon and musket, and

the jaw-rattling sound of the kettledrum and horn of the ghazis.”^78 A miniature

from that era shows a drummer from the military band banging away on a pair

of very large drums half his height; another miniature illustrates a man play-

ing the shrill double reed pipe that, when accompanying the drum, must have

caused a chill to run down the enemy’s spine.^79 According to Kurdish Preacher

Mustafa, conquest and victory were facilitated by God. To thank God and sym-

bolize their conquest of the island over the enemies of religion, Ottoman sol-

diers “chanted the call to prayer and prayers in the masjids and mosques. The

call to prayer obstructed [stuffed straw into] the bells of the churches, the can-

dle of Islam illuminated every corner of the churches, and the Qur’anic verse

beginning with ‘revenge over the infi dels’ was manifest.”^80 This fulfi lled Kara-

çelebizade’s wish that “the sultan will cleanse the islands of church bells and

raise again minarets so Muslims can pronounce the call to prayer.”^81

The Weak Sultanate

Ottoman chroniclers praised the grand vizier for re-Islamizing islands in the

Aegean. Köprülü Mehmed Pasha is conventionally praised in modern histo-

riography for his dictatorial policies that brought order to the realm. His era

is referred to as a return to the status quo, in which the empire was soundly

administered, orderly, and militarily and fi nancially successful: the tenure of