Ottoman Salonika
to marry the Muslim, and he was as dead set both against her marriage to
the Muslim and to her conversion. He refused to approve either. The gov-
ernor of Salonika referred the case to the meeting of Ottoman ministers in
Istanbul, where it was noted that Rabia was of legal age to decide whether
to marry or not, with or without her father’s approval. Thus they sup-
ported Rabia’s conversion and marriage to Hajji Feyzullah. But in order
not to create a scene in Salonika, the couple was secretly brought to Istan-
bul on the first available ferry, because it was deemed better for them to
marry far from the city where the Dönme were so prominent and might
try to hinder the marriage.
Several features strike the reader of the 1891 document. First, mem-
bers of the group are referred to as having long resided in Salonika. This
draws our attention to the fact that Muslims had been aware that the
Dönme had made the city their home—it was an open secret—for as
long as anyone could remember. Thus it appears that memory worked
for others the same way it worked for the Dönme: for others had always
known that the Dönme were there, that they existed in Salonika. And at
the end of the nineteenth century, others began to point them out, call
upon them, sowing the seeds for discriminating against them both in
Greece and in the Turkish Republic. Second, although Dönme should
have been considered Muslims, by this point at the end of the nineteenth
century, they were regarded as different from other Muslims. There is
no other way to explain how the term for conversion (ihtida) could be
used in this case, as if Rabia had been a Christian or Jew changing her
religion. The document even notes how the Dönme had not practiced
intermarriage with Muslims until now. Moreover, the Avdeti are referred
to as living under the cover of Islam. A distinction between Dönme and
other Muslims had thus by this point been made, which would have seri-
ous consequences for the next generation of Dönme.
The Dönme practiced both Levirate and first-cousin marriage. Among
the Kapancı, according to the genealogy extending to the eighteenth cen-
tury provided by the descendant of Yusuf Kapancı, this practice goes at
least as far back as İbrahim Kapancı (b. 1820 ). With his first wife, Hasibe,
İbrahim had two daughters and two sons, Ahmet and Mehmet. With his
second wife, Fatma, he had three daughters and a son, Yusuf. Ahmet, Meh-
met, and Yusuf are discussed at length in this book. Yusuf Kapancı ( 1858 –
1910 ) also had two wives. With his first wife, Aisha, he had three children,
including İbrahim, discussed here. With his second wife, Emine, he had five