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

Marc David Baer offers a new theoretical understanding of religious conversion grounded in a significant historical example - the reign of the sultan Mehmed IV (1648-87). As an expression of his turn to piety, Mehmed IV actively sought to establish his reputation as a convert-maker, convincing or coercing Christian and Jewish subjects of the Empire to be "honored by the glory of Islam". In addition, Mehmed IV and his inner circle expressed their own ''conversion'' to piety and their dedication to converting others, Islamizing not only individual souls but also geographical space. Mehmed IV is remembered as an ineffectual ruler whose incompetence ultimately led to the catastrophic siege of Vienna, and Baer sheds new light on this disastrous reign by bringing to the fore the sultan''s zeal for conversion.

In Honored by the Glory of Islam Marc David Baer proposes a novel approach to the historical record of Islamic conversions during the Ottoman age and gathers fresh insights concerning the nature of religious conversion itself. Rejecting any attempt to explain Ottoman Islamization in terms of the converts'' motives, Baer instead concentrates on the proselytizers - in this case, none other than the sultan himself. Mehmed IV (1648-87) is remembered as an aloof ruler whose ineffectual governing led to the disastrous siege of Vienna. Through an integrated reading of previously unexamined Ottoman archival and literary texts, Baer reexamines Mehmed IV''s failings as a ruler by underscoring the sultan''s zeal for bringing converts to Islam.As an expression of his rededication to Islam, Mehmed IV actively sought to establish his reputation as a convert-maker, convincing or coercing Christian and Jewish subjects to be "honored by the glory of Islam," and Muslim subjects to turn to Islamic piety. Revising the conventional portrayal of a ruler so distracted by his passion for hunting that he neglected affairs of state, Baer shows that Mehmed IV saw his religious involvement as central to his role as sultan. He traces an ever-widening range of reform, conversion, and conquest expanding outward from the heart of Mehmed IV''s empire.This account is the first to correlate the conversion of people and space in the mature Ottoman Empire, to investigate conversion from the perspective of changing Ottoman ideology, and to depict the sultan as an interventionist convert maker. The resulting insights promise to rework our understandings of the reign of a forgotten ruler, a largely neglected period in Ottoman history, the changing nature of Islam and its history in Europe, relations between Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Europe, the practice of Jihad, and religious architecture in urban history.