Honored by the Glory of Islam. Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe

(Dana P.) #1

Dürrizade family while retaining the seaside mansion. The Dürrizade family boasted
many religious scholars. At the beginning of the 1 920s Sheikhulislam Abdullah Efendi
resided there. He gained fame, or notoriety, as the mufti who issued a fatwa calling for


the death of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) for rebelling against the sultan. The mansion was
later replaced by a corn oil factory, which was then converted into the mansion of the


tenth richest family in Turkey. The author of this book was the private tutor of the fami-
ly’s eldest son. See Kayra and Üyepazarcı, Mekânlar ve Zamanlar.



  1. The effort failed and the Jews were burned at the stake. Rozen, A History of the
    Jewish Community in Istanbul, 36–37.

  2. BOA, KR: 3430 is his last listing on the palace payroll. His replacement appears
    in 1691 , KR: 343 1.

  3. Defterdar, Zübde-i Vekayiât, 398.

  4. Silahdar, Tarih-i Silahdar, 2:578–79.

  5. Sultan Ahmed III ( 1 703–30) employed a German Jew and then a Portuguese
    Jew as his physician, and the latter played a role in Ottoman diplomacy. But these men


were rare exceptions to the trend, which led to the disappearance of Jewish palace
physicians who both cared for the sultan and represented the empire abroad. Levy,


Sephardim, 77.
57. Refi k, Onikinci Asr-ı Hicrî’de İstanbul Hayatı (1689–1785), 28–30.



  1. William McNeill, Venice, the Hinge of Europe (1081–1797) (Chicago: University
    of Chicago Press, 1 974), 2 1 3– 1 4.

  2. Levy, Sephardim, 77. The Venetian Israel Conegliano, a Jewish physician who
    resided in Istanbul serving Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha, served as secretary to the


Venetian representative.


chapter 7



  1. Mohammed Arkoun, Rethinking Islam: Common Questions, Uncommon Answers,
    trans. Robert D. Lee (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1 994), 89.




  2. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, 70.




  3. Vyronis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism; El-Leithy, “Sufi s, Copts and the Poli-




tics of Piety.”




  1. On this topic see Wolper, Cities and Saints.




  2. Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy, 2, 5–6.




  3. Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, 1 23.




  4. Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medi-
    eval Europe (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 8; Anthony Fletcher,




Gender, Sex, and Subordination in England, 1500–1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1 995), 3–29. See Elizabeth Badinter, XY: On Masculine Identity, trans. Lydia Davis


(New York: Columbia University Press, 1 995), 1 0– 1 3. Badinter argues that because men
defi ne themselves in relation to women, crises are set off when women question the role


of men and demand the overturning of gendered norms. Ottoman women may not have
demanded their overturning, but actively undermined them as they gained power.



  1. Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 1 54.


notes to pages 137–141 285
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