180 honored by the glory of islam
disciplining others by enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong of neigh-
bors. A hint of a turn to governmentality is inferred from the fact that three
to four times more people converted to Islam before Mehmed IV than were
executed before him. This chapter thus demonstrates the uniqueness of the pe-
riod and its convert-making sultan while utilizing the book’s themes of the link
between piety and proselytization, the key role of the mediator of conversion,
and the context of war and conquest in conversion.
Sultans and the Hunt
No modern scholar depicts Mehmed IV as a ghazi. He is damned, when men-
tioned at all, for his alleged “addiction to the hunt,” which acquired “a patho-
logical nature.”^2 To his chroniclers, however, there was nothing pathological
about hunting. If a sultan aimed to demonstrate his martial skill and prac-
tice for war, the struggle between man and beast was the best arena. This was
the case in Japan and other cultures where martial virtues dominated, such
as Qing China, as well as in western Europe, where monarchs also hunted.
Mehmed Halife writes that when the sultan returned to Edirne following his
trip to pacify the Anatolian countryside in 1 658, that winter and spring “with
complete pleasure he spent his time riding, hunting on the chase and drive,
throwing javelin, and engaging in preparations for war.”^3 Riding, hunting, and
javelin throwing recapitulated war. For this reason Abdi Pasha wrote that the
sultan shot arrows at targets in the plaza before the New Pavilion in the palace
in Edirne not merely for target practice or entertainment, but “with the de-
liberate intention of waging ghaza” while also impressing the spectators and
proving his manliness (merdānelik).^4
The term the Ottoman chroniclers used for “manliness” in the seventeenthcentury relates to the Islamic culture of chivalry signifying bravery. The Ot-
toman term is derived from Persian. In Persian, mard means a man, a hero,
brave, bold, and capable. The plural connotes heroes and warriors. Mardāna
means brave, manly, courageous, and vigorous; the term for fi eld of battle,
arsa-i mardānagī, where manhood is proven, stems from the same term. In
Ottoman, merd is used for a man, a brave, and a manly man; merdāne is brave.
Merdānelik, then, is bravery and courage, manliness.
Hunting appears as a defensible practice to Mehmed IV’s chroniclers.Prowess in hunting demonstrated courage in facing death and magnanimity
in either sparing a great animal or distributing the rewards of the hunt. When
hunting, one comes across commoners. There was no better opportunity for