Introduction tioned about their religious belief, faith, or sincerity as Muslims. Sir James
Porter writes: “It is difficult to conceive how they remain unnoticed by
the Turks; or rather, it shows with how easy a composition the Turks are
content in these matters. An outward profession of their own religion
compensates for private exercise of the other.”^93
In great contrast, in the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman state
engaged in Islamization campaigns by sending pious religious teachers as
missionaries throughout the empire to correct the beliefs of both main-
stream and marginal Muslims, converting Muslim heretics (Alevi, bed-
ouin, and Shi‘a), especially in the eastern half of the empire, to what was
considered an acceptable version of Islam, disseminating official, stan-
dardized versions of the Qur’an and publishing other texts approved by
the state, patronizing and employing religious scholars in its new schools
and other administrative institutions, and building mosques and support-
ing religious endowments and infrastructure including building a rail-
road to facilitate pilgrimage.^94 Thus by the final years of the Ottoman
Empire, largely for the first time, one’s beliefs and ethnic identity could
be examined by others. Those found wanting in both categories could be
especially targeted for reprobation or, worse, exclusion from the body of
the nation. It was only then that the Dönme began to be considered Jews:
not by themselves, not by Jews, but by Muslims.