9
Hunting for Converts
Individual and group conversions of noncombatants occurred most
often before the sultan in the forests of Rumelia when he was on
campaign or the chase. As numerous chroniclers relate, like other
early modern monarchs, Mehmed IV preferred hunting as his
favorite pastime, but rather than being merely a frivolous activity, as
modern historians have claimed, the sultan’s contemporary chroni-
clers argued that hunting demonstrated his bravery and courage,
hence manliness, and trained him for warfare. Reading archival
records together with the chronicles we learn that in addition, hunt-
ing allowed Mehmed IV close contact with thousands of his subjects,
and in these circumstances he personally converted Christians, in
particular, to Islam. Hundreds of men and women changed religion
at his feet during conversion ceremonies in which the sultan dis-
played his magnanimity by re-dressing the converts head to toe.
Conversion ceremonies suggest a hint of modern rulers’ interest
in promoting (a new) life rather than death, the decentering of power,
and the creation of new interiorities and subjectivities that discipline
the body of the individual.^1 The sultan fi rst directly intervened in
commoners’ lives, not to end them, but to promote a new way of
being. Ceremonies before the sultan mirrored birth, as the convert,
similar to a naked newborn, was named and clothed. Converted to
a Kadızadeli interpretation of Islam, which also emphasized new
interiorities, the new Muslim was encouraged to play an active role
in self-governance, regulating his or her behavior from within and