Zarinebaf|205these boundaries. Interfaith sex attracted greater public scrutiny and scandal
since it violated the moral codes of the entire society and represented the cross-
ing of sexual, religious, and social boundaries that could lead to violent punish-
ment during political crisis and intercommunal tensions. The second half of the
seventeenth century witnessed one such episode as Muslim fundamentalism (the
Kadizadeli movement) clashed with Jewish messianism (the Sabbatai Zevi move-
ment) and undermined the relatively peaceful cohabitation in Istanbul.
Fourteen years after Sabbatai Zevi’s death, when wounds were still fresh and
the religious controversy was still raging and dividing communities of faith in
Istanbul, the above-mentioned Muslim woman and Jewish man were accused
of adultery. The Jewish draper may have been a follower of Sabbatai Zevi, which
might explain the lack of support by Jewish rabbis for him. It is also possible that
Abdullah Çelebi was a follower of the Kadizadelis since he chose the extreme
punishment of stoning for his adulterous wife.
The stoning to death acted as a blood-letting ritual aimed at purifying Otto-
man society, enhancing the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultan, resetting commu-
nal boundaries, and restoring the honor of Abdullah Çelebi and the sultan as the
protector of sharia and the enforcer of Muslim morality. The spectacle of violence
and overcharged popular passion took place in the Hippodrome, the site of royal
festivals and public entertainment located across from the imperial mosque of
Sultan Ahmed, thus underlining the religious and political symbolism of this ex-
ecution despite this act violating all the dictates of Islamic and sultanic law con-
cerning the crime of adultery. Cohabitation in Ottoman cities, however, required
greater toleration and less surveillance of interfaith relations as this era came to
an end and a degree of normalcy returned during the Tulip era (1703–1730) in the
following century.
***Ottoman identities were very fluid and layered in contrast to the rest of the Medi-
terranean world during the early modern era. While religion played a predomi-
nant role in the formation of identity in the Ottoman Empire, intercommunal
boundaries remained porous and flexible, in contrast to some European coun-
tries where the persecution of minorities and their expulsion had become the
norm since the late medieval period. However, during times of political and eco-
nomic crisis, the Ottoman Empire also witnessed socioreligious upheavals that
led to the solidification of Ottoman identities. The second half of the seventeenth
century was a period of long wars against Venice and the Hapsburg empires,
the Jewish millenarian movement, the rise of Islamic fundamentalist ulema, reli-
gious controversy among Muslim and Jewish communities, succession struggles
within the harem, and violent political competition between two valide sultans.