206 | Policing Morality
The strangling to death of Valide Kösem Sultan and the stoning of the Muslim
woman and Jewish man accused of adultery were the direct result of this chaos.
The growing influence of the fundamentalist Kadizadeli ulema, the cultural
wars between them and the Sufis, and the Janissary rebellion of 1651 formed the
backdrop to the regicide of Valide Kösem Sultan. The clash between the Kadi-
zadeli and Sabbatai Zevi movements formed the backdrop for the stoning of the
Muslim woman and Jewish man accused of adultery. In an age of political cri-
sis and religious controversy, the state became the protector of Muslim women’s
morality and Muslim men’s honor against intercommunal miscegenation. It also
became the guardian of harem boundaries and gender roles within the dynasty.
These were all essential facets in creating and maintaining the empire’s “proper”
and legitimate Islamic identity and control over its diverse populations.
Some Ottoman writers of the time viewed the interference of harem women
in politics as a major factor leading to the decline of the empire. While Naima
saw the murder of the Valide Kösem Sultan and the punishment of her support-
ers as necessary for the preservation of the dynasty and empire, Evliya Çelebi
blamed it on the new grand vizier’s ambition for high office. On the other hand, it
appears that mainstream ulema like Raşid reached a consensus on the unjust and
illegal murder of the Muslim woman and her Jewish lover. They blamed it on the
Kadizadeli influence over the sultan, who had issued the ruling and found the ev-
idence (eyewitnesses) suspicious. The killing of these two women from opposite
ends of the social and political spectrum demonstrates that, even in a diverse city
like Istanbul, those who crossed the religious, sexual, or political boundaries of
their surrounding community (be it communal or harem) could be severely pun-
ished as a means to secure and impose public and political order and reinforce
“proper” Islamic identity in times of chaos and crises. The role of queen mothers
in politics diminished after the seventeenth century, and Ottoman princesses as-
sumed a more public role in the eighteenth century.
Suggestions for Further Reading
Baer, Marc David. Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman
Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. This book provides a political
analysis on the reign of Mehmed IV and his religious policies.
Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. This is a classic work on the institution of
the harem in the Ottoman Empire during the sixteenth century.
Zarinebaf, Fariba. Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700–1800. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2010. This is an analysis of social and economic changes, social
upheavals, and urban violence through the lens of criminality in eighteenth-
century Istanbul.
———. “Intercommunal Life in Eighteenth Century Istanbul.” Review of Middle East
Studies 46, no. 1 (2012): 79–85. This discussion of intercommunal relations in