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

56 honored by the glory of islam

In these circumstances it is also not surprising that Venetian warships de-

feated the Ottoman navy in twelve of thirteen campaigns between 1 645 and

1 656, in part due to the Ottoman use of large, clumsy, slower, oar-driven galleys

rather than smaller, speedy galleons with sails used by the Venetians.^92 A rout

of the Ottoman navy in 1 655 was considered the greatest Ottoman naval defeat

since Lepanto nearly a century earlier: “Until today Muslims had never been

routed like this and the accursed infi dels had never celebrated such victory and

acquired so much plunder,” causing the evil eye to strike.^93 To Naima, when

people heard the news, “eyes which saw suffering cried blood.”^94 Muslims were

heartbroken; the soldiers were stripped of their bravery.^95

Ten years’ effort on Crete and still the island had not been completely sub-

jected; Ottoman forces had been besieging Candia to no effect. Soldiers suffered

without supplies; without supplies they could not be an effective fi ghting force;

not being an effective fi ghting force they could not protect the citadels they had

conquered up to that point, let alone conquer new ones. Not even receiving their

pay, or their pay being defi cient or in weak akçes, they sent representatives to Is-

tanbul. In Istanbul the treasurer was in diffi cult straits, paying in debased coins,

giving additional income with falsifi ed receipts from a treasury whose expenses

had already been doled out.^96

Janissaries, later joined by sipahis, again revolted in 1 656, mainly complain-

ing that they sacrifi ed their lives for the empire in ghaza and jihad but that

they were rewarded by being paid in weak coins that the merchants would not

accept.^97 They also demanded that the sultan order an imperial land campaign,

as only naval campaigns had been launched in the recent past. A throng thou-

sands strong marched on the palace and told the sultan that he had matured into

a young brave and had the power to take independent control of state affairs, a

statement freighted with irony given that the throng controlled the power. The

sultan offered to exile those who cheated them in this way, but they demanded

the corpses of numerous offi cials, subsequently delivered to them. The revolt

was named after the plane tree in the Hippodrome from which the treasurer

of the imperial harem, customs administrator, and many others were hanged

upside down. As Karaçelebizade wrote, “Go and see the tree which the gardener

of vengeance planted in the Hippodrome.”^98 For the treasonous crime of paying

in weak akçes, the former treasurer was also executed; his corpse hung for three

days covered in dust before Yedikule prison. The mob tied ropes to the feet of

corpses and dragged them from the palace to the Hippodrome, exposing their

genitals along the way as a form of humiliation. Mehmed Halife, whose aim was

to relate “the strange and wondrous events” that occurred during the era, then

claims that the Janissaries took the ritualized shaming of their enemies a step

further by distributing the fat and fl esh of those whose corpses were thrown to