256 postscriptclaims that he and his converted followers visited synagogues in Istanbul and
prayed in Hebrew.^5 He was even seen wearing a Jewish skullcap and phylacter-ies. The canonically required four Muslim witnesses testifi ed that they observed
that Aziz Mehmed Efendi continued to practice Judaism despite dressing as a
Muslim, and thus again stirred trouble when the Ottomans were in the midst
of a military campaign, this time in Poland. But the sultan, for the second time,
despite the convert’s apostasy, spared him execution. Aziz Mehmed Efendi was
instead exiled to Ülgün (Dulcigno or Ulcinj) on the Adriatic in Albania in 1 673.^6
Before he died several years later, he married a Jewish woman from Salonica
whose brother consolidated the fi rst community of followers.^7
After overcoming the shock of his conversion to Islam, most of the Jewish
followers converted back to normative Judaism. A second smaller group of fol-
lowers ostensibly continued to live as Jews, but as late as the eighteenth century
their descendants continued to believe Aziz Mehmed Efendi was a prophet
and to practice the rituals he had taught. For the fi nal group, however, which
coalesced in Salonica, the radical failure of their prophet led not to disappoint-
ment, but to rationalization, confi rmation, acceptance of the paradox of the
rabbi’s conversion, renewed confi dence, and the ecstasy of knowing that one
cannot know the mysteries of God’s chosen. They readily accepted the mes-
siah’s explanations for his act, that conversion was a temporary punishment
for Jews because they had not recognized the true God that he had discovered,
and redoubled their belief in the prophet by also converting to Islam.^8 Havingcome this far and severing many social ties in the process, they continued the
movement centered on the former Shabbatai Tzevi with a new name and new
practices.
Members of this group called themselves Ma’aminim (Hebrew, “believers”);Muslims called them Dönme (Turkish, “those who turn,” “converts”). They con-
tinued to possess distinct beliefs and enact unique rituals into the twentieth
century. Unlike Jews, the Ma’aminim ostensibly followed the requirements of
Islam, including fasting at Ramadan and praying in mosques, one of which
they built. Unlike Muslims, the Ma’aminim maintained a belief that the former
Shabbatai Tzevi was the messiah, practiced Kabbalistic rituals, and recited
prayers in Hebrew and Judeo-Spanish. They married only among themselves,
maintained detailed genealogies, and buried their dead in distinct cemeteries.
As the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Ma’aminim were compelled to settle in
Istanbul.^9 Thousands of corpses lie today in their major cemetery in the city,
a short minibus ride away from Vaniköy, the village on the Bosporus given to
Mehmed IV’s preacher. The descendants of those who found a syncretistic reso-
lution to seventeenth-century religious trends and the heirs of Vani Mehmed
Efendi reside together in modern Istanbul.