1 7. Anonymous, “Awzi/Caciator Reggio,” Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preußischer
Kulturbesitz, Kunstbibliothek, Lipperheide OZ 52, 1 30.
1 8. The entry is dated December 11 , 1 667.
1 9. Silahdar, Tarih-i Silahdar, 1 :223.- Covel, Covel’s Diary, 207.
- Spence, Emperor of China, 9.
- Hajjı Ali Efendi, Fethname-i Kamaniça, fols. 1 34b– 1 35a.
- The incident occurred March 1 2, 1 665. The story is also related in Raşid, Tarih-i
Raşid, 1 :94–95, without the sultan’s speech and the conclusion contained in Abdi Pa-
sha’s narrative. - See Kürd Hatib, Risāle, fol. 29a. In certain circumstances, this sultan used
sign language. He could not escape all the customs of his high station. Yet even when
using “the language of those who cannot speak,” with a harem eunuch at court in the
early 1 660s, in which the two signed with head and hand and “without sound or letter
understood each other’s wishes,” the sultan quickly broke the silence and turned to
palace imam Kurdish Preacher Mustafa, asking him if he knew sign language. When
the preacher replied negatively, the sultan taught the fundamental signs and explained
the conversation he had had with the harem eunuch. In this situation he dropped the
custom of speaking in sign much more quickly. - Covel, “Covel’s Diary,” 209– 1 0. For a description of the festival, see Nutku, IV.
Mehmet’in Edirne Şenliği. The princes were circumcised on the thirteenth day of festivi-
ties. Abdi Efendi’s Surname, the Ottoman narrative written to commemorate the princes’
circumcision, narrates how up to 3,500 sons of the Muslim rich and poor were circum-
cised by more than three hundred surgeons “deft of hand” gathered from Bursa, Edirne,
and Istanbul. Up to sixty boys at a time were circumcised amid musicians and jugglers
present to divert their attention. The festivities lasted a week and were accompanied by
the performance of archers, musicians, singers, and wrestlers. Abdi Efendi, Sur-name,
fols. 5a–b. See also Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire, 253. - Daniel J. Vitkus, “Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of
the Moor,” Shakespeare Quarterly 48, no. 2 (Summer 1 997): 1 45–76. - “Osmanlı Kanûnnâmeleri,” 542.
- Çetin, Sicillere Göre Bursa’da İhtida Hareketleri; Lowry, Trabzon Şehrinin
İslamlaşması; Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans. - Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans, 1 44. Seventeenth-century petitions
have been compared to modern petitions: standard applications for membership in the
Communist Party and applications by Turks in Bulgaria to have their names changed.
All appear equally unreliable sources for the study of processes termed “voluntary.”
Maria Todorova, Balkan Identities, Nation and Memory (New York: New York University
Press, 2004), 1 45.
- Minkov, Conversion to Islam in the Balkans, 1 24.
- The dispersal of clothing to new Muslims recorded in this register fi rst oc-
curred in 1 609, when Ahmed I was sultan. BOA, Ali Emiri Tasnifi , Ahmed I: 757,
January 3, 161 0. Seven documents registered the same day during the religious festival
of Id al-Adha record the distribution of muslin cloth wrapped around a cloth cap, which
notes to pages 184–194 293