Introduction cient Persian sword (a symbol of the Sufis),^53 a long knife hanging on a
wall, and a whip in a cellar room, possibly relics of Shabbatai Tzevi,^54 the
house was empty.^55 What they found were implements of torture:
One of the houses belonging to the Avdeti was raided and a bloody knife
and flagellation set [bastinado rods] were found.... It was understood that
the blood did not belong to [the missing person] but to someone who was
a member of the Avdeti, those who appear in public as Muslim yet actually
follow a Jewish sect. They follow this sect to such an extent that just as they
had been punishing men and women who violated their rules and regulations
by flagellation with the bastinado, so, too do they also secretly execute those
who incline toward Islam. The aforementioned house is used as a place for
the meeting of their council and a house of punishment where male elders
meet at night and women elders by day to adjudicate cases and imprison of-
fenders.^56This document provides an unexpected glimpse into the central house
of worship and administration of one of the three Dönme sects and is the
first hint that the Dönme would be considered a problem in the future.
Evidence of a court, prison, and torture implements could be seen as
a challenge to state authority and to the organization of society. Otto-
man society normatively recognized four religious categories: Muslims,
Jews, and Armenian Orthodox and Orthodox Christians. Each commu-
nity was allowed a single judicial apparatus (judges, law courts, policing
agents, and jails, the latter two implying the use of force and violence)
for handling issues of personal law: marriage, divorce, inheritance, fulfill-
ment of religious obligations, and paying community taxes. Along with
the use of excommunication—causing one so sentenced to be boycotted
and shunned by the community, economically, socially, and religiously
until repentance—one could be deprived of canonically allowed food and
rites in the house of worship of the group, and one’s business might be
boycotted.
Although each group was diverse, there were no separate courts, for
example, for Ashkenazi (central European), Sephardic (Iberian), Arab,
Greek, or Karaite (those who do not accept the Talmud of Rabbanite
Jews) Jews. Communities that had adherents, such as Catholics and the
Alevi (a syncretistic offshoot of Shi‘ism), but no legal recognition, were
not permitted their own courts. The Dönme, as descendants of converts
to Islam, were officially considered Muslims. As Muslims, they had no