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

66 honored by the glory of islam

on the acceptable use of violence by ordinary Muslims engaged in the practice.

He was opposed to commoners taking up arms to censure their sinning neigh-

bors and had declared, “God preserve us from those who show fanaticism in

religion.”^11 Birgili Mehmed Efendi had written a popular book in Turkish con-

cerning the obligations of a believer, which included forbidding wrong, and in a

more learned treatise promoted martyrdom in the name of the act. This radical

approach was contrary to the prevailing accommodationist stance to the diver-

sity of Sunni practices.^12 For Kadızade and the preachers who followed him,

however, forbidding wrong was their main obligation. Muslims had diverged

from the way of Muhammad, Kadızade argued. He urged those who engaged

in innovative practices to renew their faith and return to the straight path.^13

In every sermon Kadızade and his followers renewed old allegations and

objections against the “vile” dancing, whirling, and music playing of Halveti

and Mevlevi Sufi s, becoming their vociferous adversaries. Kadızadelis even la-

beled those who visited Halveti lodges infi dels.^14 They also publicly criticized

learned scholars by calling them unbelievers, heretics, and infi dels. More

disturbing to many Muslims was their condemnation of and labeling infi del

common Muslim practices not denounced in the Qur’an or Shariah. These

included blessing another by saying “God be pleased with him”; embellishing

the reading of the Qur’an; chanting the call to prayer with a musical tone; in-

voking blessing on Muhammad by offering the benediction “May God shower

benedictions upon him and bless him,” a phrase that Solakzade purposely de-

ploys while mentioning Kadızadeli detestation of the phrase; and supereroga-

tory services of worship performed on the night of the fi rst Friday of the month

of Rajab and the night of the twelfth of the same month, the anniversary of

the conception of Muhammad, and on the Night of Power, the twenty-seventh

night of Ramadan, when Muslims mark Muhammad’s reception of the fi rst

revelations of the Qur’an.^15

Kadızade’s fi rst target was the consumption of tobacco; he advocated the

execution of those who engaged in the habit.^16 In 1 633, after he had become af-

fi liated with the palace, and following a massive fi re in Istanbul, he convinced

Sultan Murad IV to raze all the coffeehouses and ban the consumption of to-

bacco, prohibitions maintained by his successor, Ibrahim.^17 Kadızade preached

“every Friday from the pulpit of this very Hagia Sophia, and wasn’t that the

reason the coffeehouses were closed and public gatherings were forbidden?”^18

Coffee sellers were known for dealing opium. According to Mehmed Halife,

there were so many illegal activities engaged in at the coffeehouses and taverns

and by their customers elsewhere that city life turned into utter chaos. Janis-

saries, fueled by coffee or wine, “were so disobedient that they abducted naked

women wearing only waistcloths from the bathhouses in broad daylight.” The