Zarinebaf|195IV (r. 1648–1687), which was a time when the disciplining of minorities, women,
and even a valide sultan were viewed as essential for the preservation of public
and moral order and the Islamic legitimacy and identity of the Ottoman state
and dynasty. This chapter links these two events through a discussion of how Ot-
toman court writers, such as Mustafa Naima, Mehmed Raşid, and Evliya Çelebi,
provided different accounts and explanations of these events based on their own
interpretation of the surrounding crises and how these accounts assert differing
views of what constituted proper Ottoman Islamic identity at this time.
A Time of Revivalist Religious Movements
Since the 1630s, the Kadizadelis had been calling on the populace of Istanbul to
fulfill their Koranic duty of “enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong.” Their
religious zeal and fanaticism caused great polarization among the leading reli-
gious figures and populace of Istanbul. Promoting a more rigid interpretation of
sharia, they preached against Sufi practices, such as ritual dance and music and
the consumption of coffee and wine. The Kadizadelis openly opposed the rulings
of leading religious figures and attacked the meeting places (tekkes) of popu la r
Sufi orders like the Halvetis and Mevlevis. They even enacted bans on their ritual
music and dance in 1651 and promoted the closing of taverns and coffee houses.
Despite the Kadizadelis’ close ties to the court, many leading religious figures
openly opposed them.
The Kadizadelis represented the provincial ulema households, who were
originally from Erzurum, had moved to Istanbul in the seventeenth century, and
gained enormous power when one of their members became the preceptor of
the young Sultan Mehmed IV. Without going through the normal procedure of
appointment for religious court officials, Sultan Mehmed IV appointed them to
powerful religious positions, such as chief judge of Rumelia and preacher at
the Aya Sofia (Hagia Sophia) Friday mosque. The young sultan and his mother,
Turhan Sultan, patronized the Kadizadeli preachers by giving them rich tax
farms and luxurious gifts. This patronage caused great rivalry and tension within
the Ottoman court.
During this period, the Kadizadelis also promoted sumptuary laws against
women and minorities with great zeal. For example, Jews could not wear green-
color clothes or white turbans on their heads, and Christian priests had to wear
black robes and were often targets of harassment and even execution during the
war with Venice over Crete. In 1661 Kadizadeli Vani Efendi, the sultan’s preacher,
was intimately involved in the expulsion of the Jewish community from the
neighborhood of Balık Pazarı in Istanbul after a major fire to make room for
the building of the Valide Turhan Sultan Mosque in Eminönü. Vani Efendi also
played an important role in the conversion to Islam of the Ottoman Jewish mes-
sianic leader Sabbatai Zevi and his followers.