week 9 janissaries and social...

Week 9 Janissaries and Social Unrest

Int. J. Middle East Stud. 36 (2004), 159–181. Printed in the United States of AmericaDOI: 10.1017.S002074380436201X

Marc David Baer

T H E G R E AT F I R E O F 1 6 6 0 A N D T H E

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F C H R I S T I A N

A N D J E W I S H S PA C E I N I S TA N B U L

On 24 July 1660, a great conflagration broke out in Istanbul. An Ottoman writer con-veys the horror of the event: “[t]housands of homes and households burned with fire.And in accordance with God’s eternal will, God changed the distinguishing marks ofnight and day by making the very dark night luminous with flames bearing sparks, anddarkening the light-filled day with black smoke and soot.”1 The fire began in a store thatsold straw products outside the appropriately named Firewood Gate (Odun kapısı) westof Eminonu, and it devastated densely crowded neighborhoods consisting of woodenhomes. The strong winds of Istanbul caused the fire to spread violently in all directions,despite the efforts of the deputy grand vizier (kaimmakam) and others who attemptedthe impossible task of holding it back with hooks, axes, and water carriers. SultanMehmed IV’s boon companion and chronicler, ↪Abdi Pasa, notes that the fire marchedacross the city like an invading army: the flames “split into divisions, and every singledivision, by the decree of God, spread to a different district.”2 The fire spread north,west, and to Unkapanı. According to Mehmed Halife, in Suleymaniye the spires of thefour minarets of the great mosque burned like candles.3 The blaze reached Bayezid andthen moved south and west to Davud Pasa, Kumkapı, and even as far west as Samatya.The flames did not spare the Hippodrome (At Meydanı) in the east or Mahmud Pasaand the markets at the center of the peninsula, either. ↪Abdi Pasa estimated that the firereduced 280,000 households to ashes as the city burned for exactly forty-nine hours.4

Two-thirds of Istanbul was destroyed in the conflagration, and as many as 40,000 peoplelost their lives. Although fire was a frequent occurrence in 17th-century Istanbul, thiswas the worst the city had ever experienced.5 Thousands died in the plague that followedthe fire as rats feasted on unburied corpses and spread disease. Because three monthsprior to this fire a conflagration had broken out in the heart of the district of Galata,across the Golden Horn from Eminonu, much of the city lay in ruins in the summer of1660.

This article analyzes Ottoman reconstruction policies following the fire. While re-building the city, the Ottomans enacted unprecedented policies concerning Christianand Jewish houses of worship. First, contrary to previous periods in which Ottomanrulers generally allowed churches and synagogues to be built or rebuilt, in this period

Marc David Baer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA70118, USA; e-mail; [email protected].

© 2004 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/04 $12.00

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they strictly applied Islamic laws prohibiting reconstruction. Second, when they didpermit the building of non-Muslim prayer houses, Ottoman authorities did not treat allreligious communities equally. Surprisingly, Christians were initially allowed to pur-chase the properties on which churches had stood and were even permitted to rebuildthe structures, ostensibly as homes. Jews, however, had to abandon properties, could notrestore their homes or synagogues, and were even expelled from the district where mosthad resided prior to the fire. In the end, the visual presence of prominent mosques inEminonu and Galata symbolized the Islamization of the two districts.

Scholars have discussed some of the effects of the fire. Louis Mitler, relying mainlyon European sources, notes the difficulties Christians faced in attempting to rebuildruined Catholic churches in Galata. Uriel Heyd analyzes the dislocation of Jews afterthe fire, finding that the devastation of the neighborhoods of Karaite and RomaniotJews resulted in their being absorbed by surviving Iberian congregations. Interested inthe relationship between dynastic politics and the endowment of public buildings byOttoman women, Leslie Peirce and Lucienne Thys-Senocak explain how Valide Sultan(mother of the reigning sultan) Hatice Turhan ordered the construction of the ValideSultan Mosque in Eminonu to Islamize the commercial district, consolidate her ownpolitical power, and promote the dynasty’s legitimacy and piety.6 No study thus far,however, has compared the different Ottoman policies vis-a-vis Christians and theirproperties in Istanbul, particularly Catholics in Galata and Jews and their properties inEminonu. Research until now has provided only part of the story, because historianshave neglected citywide Ottoman plans for reconstruction and the motivations for thoseplans.

Based on Ottoman archival and narrative sources, this article will explain how, fol-lowing a period of acute political and economic crisis and religious upheaval, the fireserved as an opportunity for Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan, Sadrazam (Grand Vizier) FazılAhmed Pasa, and Preacher to the Sultan (hunkar seyhi) Vani Mehmed Efendi to promoteIslamization to satisfy their different political and religious interests. Islamization offereda visible sign of the successes of the dynasty, state, and religion. For the valide sultan,not only did constructing her own imperial mosque complex in Eminonu demonstratethe piety and legitimacy of the dynasty she represented, but linking the fire to the Jewsfurther legitimized the mosque’s construction and underscored the community’s decline.The mosque construction also set in motion a larger process of Islamization in the cityas the sadrazam aimed to assert the state’s authority at home and abroad. At the time,Ottoman military policy, especially regarding the siege of Crete, showed little sign ofsuccess, and the Ottomans, who considered themselves to be the protectors of Islam,were demoralized. The fire in the Christian neighborhood provided an opportunity tosubordinate non-Muslims through the built environment of the imperial capital. Policiesof Islamization demonstrated that all Ottoman subjects—including Christians in Galatawho had broken pledges not to rebuild churches—adhered to the law. The sadrazam alsosought to assist Muslim endowment (sing., vakıf; pl., evkaf ) owners who desired compen-sation for the loss of their properties in Eminonu that would allow them to acquire formerchurch properties in Galata. The preacher’s aim of commanding right and forbiddingwrong necessitated reforming Muslim behavior and decreasing the visibility of non-Muslims in Istanbul. He advised the valide sultan and the sadrazam to defeat the foreigninfidel in the Mediterranean, to promote what he envisioned as the true path of Islam

The 1660 Fire and the Islamization of Space in Istanbul 161

in the empire, and to call for the submission of non-Muslims, particularly Christians,in the imperial capital. While economic, commercial, and urban imperatives influencedtheir decisions, and matters of opportunism and expediency cannot be doubted, HaticeTurhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani Mehmed Efendi had varying political and religiousaims that were manifested in the different ways they approached the Islamization ofChristian and Jewish space in Eminonu and Galata.

In addition to using a historical example to analyze the normative and actual statusof churches and synagogues in pre-modern Islamic societies, this article addresses atheoretical need by exploring the understudied topic of the Islamization of space. Thehistory of Istanbul’s reconstruction following the fire of 1660 sheds light on a less-well-known stage in the process through which the Ottoman capital was Islamized in thepre-modern era.

T H E H I S T O R I C A L C O N T E X T: A P E R I O D O F C R I S I S

Events from 1648 to 1661 define the historical context in which Islamization in Istanbultook place. Severe political and economic obstacles confronted the Ottoman Empire inthe mid- to late 17th century. Among Muslims, the period witnessed a struggle overacceptable religious practices. For non-Muslims, Orthodox Christians replaced Jewsserving in key palace functions. Hatice Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani MehmedEfendi responded to these problems in different ways.

Political and financial problems beset the empire at mid-century. After the dethrone-ment and execution of Sultan Deli (Mad) Ibrahim, Sultan Mehmed IV ascended thethrone at age seven in 1648. His mother, Hatice Turhan Sultan (d. 1683), a Russian takencaptive as a girl by the Crimean Han and presented to the Ottoman palace, competedwith her mother-in-law, Kosem Sultan, to be recognized as Mehmed’s regent. After threeyears of fierce palace struggle, Hatice Turhan managed to have Kosem Sultan murdered,but the valide sultan soon found that these were difficult years to rule the empire. Between1648 and 1656, a string of twelve incapable and feeble sadrazams served terms of one totwelve months in office. Five sadrazams served in 1656 alone. The Ottoman provincesfaced an upheaval caused by peasant mercenaries (sekbans) who had been armed by thegovernment, as well as rebellions of rogue military men and administrators such as AbazaMehmed Pasa. The sadrazams tried to assert order while “Muslim servants of the sultanrebelled as Satan whispered in their ears.”7 In addition, Ottoman authorities did not havethe financial wherewithal to handle the situation since they had lost control of their owncurrency and thus were unable to regulate their own economy.8 The ability to mint coinswas a primary concern of states and empires; giving up this right meant forfeiting anopportunity to instill public confidence in the dynasty. Merchants and janissaries clashedin Istanbul over the value of debased coinage in 1650 and 1656.9

The empire’s financial and political problems were related to military failure in theMediterranean. Expenditures for the war with Venice, which included a drawn-out,costly, and apparently futile attempt to conquer the entire island of Crete, contributedto the economic crisis.10 The siege of Crete in fact drained the Ottoman treasury fora quarter-century. Venetian warships defeated the Ottoman navy in twelve of thirteenbattles between 1646 and 1656, and this failure in the Mediterranean affected the populaceof Istanbul economically. In 1656, Venetians occupied the crucial islands of Bozcaada

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(Tenedos), Limni (Limnos), and Semadirek (Samothraki), which form an arc around themouth of the Dardanelles. Able to cut Istanbul’s sea link to the Mediterranean, Veniceblockaded the imperial capital.11 The loss of the islands led to severe hardship as goodsand provisions became scarce and prices skyrocketed. Thousands of Istanbul residents,including the royal family, fled to the Anatolian side of the city.12 The Ottomans receivedsome respite from these troubles after Koprulu Mehmed Pasa (d. 1661) was appointedsadrazam in 1656, but Hatice Turhan lacked the powerful symbols that would signifythe renewed strength of the dynasty and empire.13

In the midst of political and economic disorder, Hatice Turhan and her supporters inthe palace turned to the Kadızadeli Islamic reform movement, which had first emergedin the early 17th century during the reign of Sultan Murad IV (1623–40). The movementre-emerged at mid-century and became most influential after 1661. The leaders of thismovement sought to replace the Islam practiced in Istanbul with a religion purifiedof innovations (bid’at) that had not been sanctioned by Muhammad.14 These includedmany of the popular Sufi practices, such as playing music and dancing (sema) andrepeatedly reciting God’s names and attributes (zikir) as a form of prayer. The Kadızadelisblamed the empire’s military defeat abroad and economic difficulties at home on theOttoman religious and administrative establishments’ affiliation with and patronage ofsome Sufi orders. Rising in influence in part because of a reaction to failures of theOttoman polity, the Kadızadelis offered steps to restore the Ottomans to greatness.15 Notall Muslims were pleased with their approach to Islam, however, and violent clashesresulted.

As Muslims were struggling in the capital over the correct interpretation of Islam,Jews and Orthodox Christians were jockeying for coveted positions in the palace.Kadızadelis and Orthodox Christians gained the upper hand in the period because ofpalace support. Elite Jews had formerly held important positions ranging from headof the private physicians of the sultan to chief translators and representatives of theOttoman Empire in diplomatic missions abroad. But at the beginning of the 1660s,Ottoman authorities began to prefer Orthodox Christians—the largest non-Muslimgroup in the city, with a patriarch and increasing financial strength—to serve in thesepositions.16 Scholars have discussed the rise and decline of the Jewish elite in the OttomanEmpire and their subsequent displacement by Orthodox Christians in the 17th century.17

Yet they have not emphasized the importance of Ottoman attitudes toward Jews or whythe 1660s was such a crucial decade. Granted, few Jews during this time were wealthy,were educated in Europe, or had favorable international connections. Even if there hadbeen more elite Jews, they may not have been selected for important duties becauseof antipathy toward them. After 1665, Jews were denied key palace positions becausethey were considered to be a volatile and untrustworthy group because of a widespreadbelief that they endorsed the messianic movement of Shabbatai Tzevi, a movementthat threatened to undermine the social order. The movement directly challenged thedynasty’s uncontested rule when it was facing serious military and financial problems,including the empire’s costly attempt to conquer Crete. Catholics in Istanbul had thepolitical, military, and economic weight of France, an Ottoman ally, and its ambassadorat Istanbul behind them. Even if France’s influence at court in the 1660s was lessened byFrench support for Venetian forces defending Crete and personal differences betweenthe ambassador and sadrazam, the French remained an important defender of Ottoman


Catholic interests.18 In light of these factors and attitudes, therefore, Jews could havebeen considered less valuable and more vulnerable than either Orthodox Christians orCatholics, and they had fewer people in high places able to resist the Islamization ofJewish-inhabited areas.

I S L A M I Z AT I O N : S Y M B O L O F AU T H O R I T Y

Political symbolism acquired greater significance during the chaotic period from 1648 to1661. The valide sultan, sadrazam, and preacher to the sultan supported Islamization asa common standard of authority that supported their different yet intersecting interests.Within the dynasty, the valide sultan was most qualified to engage symbolically potentacts. As Rifa↩at↩Ali Abou-El-Haj notes, Ottoman writers recognized that sultans “actedmainly as symbolic leaders, providing a facade for continuity for the old practices as theyhelped to legitimate new ones.”19 According to Leslie Peirce, “[W]ith political powerand military leadership delegated to the grand vizier, the most useful function that thesovereign might perform was to furnish visible symbols of majesty and piety to maintainthe subjects’ loyalty and sense of community.”20 Sultan Mehmed IV could not play thisrole because he first ruled while a minor, and when he matured he had little interest inaffairs of state and thus had minimal impact on events in Istanbul.21 As the historianMehmed Halife notes, “[O]ur fortunate sovereign was so pleased by the hunt in Edirnethat people in Istanbul gave up hope that he would come again to the city.”22 Becauseof the sultan’s absence, the valide sultan was obliged to promote “symbols of powerand legitimation” in the imperial capital.23 Since there was concern that the sultan wasexcessively devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, and therefore did not act for the goodof the empire, the valide sultan filled in with frequent royal trips from Istanbul, whereshe resided, to Edirne, where her son spent most of his reign. The valide sultan traveledin lavish and lengthy processions that displayed Ottoman magnificence, munificence,justice, and piety. She also ordered the construction and repair of public buildings in andnear the imperial capital, including fortresses guarding the Bosphorus (Rumeli Hisarı andAnadolu Hisarı), the Black Sea, and especially the Dardanelles (Kilidbahir/Seddulbahirand Kale-i Sultaniye). She was praised for this effort since “infidel captains did not eventhink about entering the channel” as Muslim vessels “flowed again like water down thestraits.”24

The most meaningful of her monumental public works was the construction of animperial mosque in Eminonu. The location of the Valide Sultan Mosque illustrates theaims and interests of its builder. Mosques and their inscriptions conveyed great meaningin pre-modern Islamic societies. Irene Bierman argues that imperial mosques markedspaces and delimited boundaries, expressed power, supported political and hegemonicinterests, and conveyed meaning both to those who entered them and those who passedby outside.25 The Valide Sultan Mosque was highly visible on the seafront in the mainharbor of Istanbul and could be seen by a maximum number of Christian, Jewish, andMuslim passers-by. The Mosque of Suleyman towered over the city because of its hilltoplocation, but the Valide Sultan Mosque held an even more commanding position, for itserved as the imperial edifice that greeted one upon arrival at the main port. The buildingitself and its inscriptions conveyed several meanings to the intended audience of Muslimsand non-Muslims. Only some Muslims knew the meaning of the inscriptions, but

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Christians, Jews, and Muslims all recognized that they were Qur↩anic texts written inArabic. They did not need to understand Arabic to realize the radical transformation ofthe neighborhood.

Fazıl Ahmed Pasa (d. 1676), a former medrese professor (muderris) who succeededhis father, Koprulu Mehmed Pasa, in office in October 1661, also had an interest inIslamization. His fifteen-year period in office was one of the longest terms held by asadrazam in Ottoman history and was marked by a concern for improving the political,economic, and military strength of the empire.26 As administrator of the affairs of atroubled state, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa understood the importance of symbolic successes andgrasped the significance of internal Islamization when actual military conquest of infidelland was out of reach. Unlike his father, who did not support the Kadızadeli movement,Fazıl Ahmed Pasa further increased the Islamic character of the palace by bringinga reformist religious preacher, Vani Mehmed Efendi (d. 1685), to Istanbul and to theattention of the sultan and valide sultan.27 He had befriended the religious scholar whilegovernor in Erzurum where Vani Mehmed Efendi preached.28 Vani Mehmed Efendi tookup the post of spiritual guide and preacher of Sultan Mehmed IV and in 1665 becamethe first to preach in the showcase mosque in Eminonu.29

Vani Mehmed Efendi wished to demonstrate the supremacy of his version of Islam.He quickly became the confidant of the sultan, valide sultan, and sadrazam, and becauseof his stirring preaching and as leader of the Kadızadeli movement, he became an ex-tremely influential figure. Archival and narrative sources record his close relations withkey figures of the dynasty and administration.30 He cheered his audience with glad tid-ings, frightenened them with warnings, and enlightened listeners through his sermons.31

Vani Mehmed Efendi owed much of his prestige to his Kadızadeli credentials; as otherKadızadeli leaders had before him, so, too, did he aim to eradicate what he consideredillicit Muslim behavior and to strengthen the rule of Islamic law (seriat) and the wayof Muhammad (sunnet) against innovation. His wrath primarily targeted “innovating”Sufis. In alliance with the sultan and sadrazam, whom the religious leader viewed asthe defenders, protectors, and guardians of the Muslims against the threat of heresies,Vani Mehmed Efendi aimed to suppress the political power and religious influence ofBektasis and Halvetis.32 In prayers that the preacher composed for the sultan between1664 and 1667 and in the letters he exchanged with the sadrazam, Vani Mehmed Efendiemphasized the threat of innovators, depicted the sultan and the sadrazam as saving thedomains of Islam by repelling threats to the state, and called for reinvigorating SunniIslam within the empire.33

Whereas earlier leaders of the Kadızadelis movement had intended to reform onlyMuslim behavior, Vani Mehmed Efendi sought to change the beliefs and practices ofMuslims and the public position of Christians and Jews, as well. Thus, beginning in1661, Vani Mehmed Efendi began to emphasize the sumptuary distinctions markingnon-Muslims from Muslims. Social disorder and lack of social distinctions appearedto him to be the result of laxity and error in Muslims’ religious beliefs and practices,and he believed that the high status of non-Muslims symbolized the corrupted natureof the body politic. Worse, non-Muslim taverns and the sale of alcohol caused moralcorruption, especially in Muslim neighborhoods. Accordingly, Vani Mehmed Efendiconvinced Fazıl Ahmed Pasa to issue orders to destroy taverns in the city and end thelegal trade in alcohol, affecting the economic position of many Christians and Jews.34


OT T O M A N I N N OVAT I O N A N D T H E S TAT U S O F C H U R C H E S

A N D S Y NAG O G U E S

Ottoman authorities had a rich tradition of Islamic and Ottoman law and custom to drawon when they decided whether to allow Christians and Jews to rebuild their houses ofworship following the fire. Since the beginning of Muslim sovereignty in the Middle East,the status of churches and synagogues had been called into question as Muslim rulersconquered regions inhabited by non-Muslims. In the earliest era of Islamic history, thekey point was the restriction on building “new” churches.35 In theory, only those buildingsin existence when Islamic rule began in a region were permitted to continue to stand.Early and medieval Islamic history is filled with examples of the use of this standardto determine the status of churches and synagogues. Islamic legal scholars prohibitedconstruction of new churches and synagogues but differed on whether to rebuild burnedor ruined ones. Most agreed there was a difference between damage and total destruction.If nothing of a house of worship remained, it could not be rebuilt.36

After the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, they had to decide whether toallow churches and synagogues to remain. Since Constantinople was taken by force, notwillingly surrendered, its non-Muslim religious buildings could be destroyed, accordingto standing policy.37 Yet Ottoman legal authorities claimed that Christians and Jewsassisted the Ottomans in conquering the city, thus allowing them to continue to prayin their already existing, or “old” (kadim), houses of worship.38 Sometimes, however,churches and synagogues were torn down because they were either close to mosquesor originally had been homes or other non-church buildings and so were considered“new.” In 1564–65, for example, churches were demolished in Balat and elsewhere inIstanbul for these reasons.39 The razings were in accord with the legal opinions (sing.,fetva; pl., fetava) of Sultan Suleyman I’s famous mufti Seyhulislam Ebussu↩ud Efendi(Seyhulislam 1545–74; d. 1574). According to a series of his opinions, new churcheswere to be razed, but old churches could be rebuilt after fire so long as the building hadnot been destroyed completely and the original church had not been expanded.40

Although new churches and synagogues were sometimes razed, the number of non-Muslim houses of worship in the city increased at least tenfold over two centuries.As many as forty Orthodox churches stood in Istanbul by the end of the 18th centuryalthough only three had existed at the time of the conquest. Similarly, there were onlythree synagogues in the city in 1453 yet more than ten times that number two centurieslater.41 Most of these churches and synagogues would have been considered “new” andshould have been slated for destruction according to Islamic law and custom, yet theywere not destroyed.

What, then, justified appropriating the property of churches and synagogues afterthe fire of 1660? The fetava of Seyhulislam Yahya Efendi Minkarizade (Seyhulislam1662–73; d. 1677) are very similar to those of Ebussu↩ud Efendi. Minkarizade wrotethat a new church or synagogue should be demolished if it had been built within amunicipality whose inhabitants included Muslims who possessed a mosque. If a churchalready existed, it could be repaired so long as it was not enlarged, and new buildingsor structures were not to be added to pre-existing church buildings. Also according toMinkarizade, if an old church, monastery, or religious school fell into disrepair or even astate of near-ruin, its owners could still repair and rebuild it as long as they added nothing

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to it and built on its original foundation.42 According to these opinions, not only wouldChristians and Jews be allowed to rebuild their churches and synagogues if they adheredto these conditions, there would also be no reason to grant permission to one group tobuild new structures and not to another. An imperial decree claimed that, according tocanonical law, burned churches were not to be restored. One would infer that, since in1660 nothing at all remained of the burned churches and synagogues, for this reason thestate treasury was able to appropriate the property.

Another legal opinion, a copy of which appears in the Istanbul Islamic law courtrecords, reveals why synagogues were not rebuilt. In the extraordinary period followingthe great fire, a fetva was issued stating that the lands of old synagogues that had burnedin the conflagration were to be taken over by the state treasury. Another court recordrefers to a fetva that justifies the actions of the state treasury in appropriating the landsof burned churches in Galata.43 In both cases, the state treasury was able to acquire theland because, according to canonical law, “there is no owner of the land of the burned oldchurch (or synagogue)” or the “builder of the old church (or synagogue) is not known.”44

In addition, Ottoman authorities justified razing the buildings because they had decidedthat Christians had broken their pledge not to rebuild churches but only homes and, byextension, not to use those homes as churches. One is left wondering, however, whetherthe Ottoman authorities actually believed the Catholics of Galata would not rebuild theirchurches. The fetva and pledge echo both the first pledges of Christians at the dawn ofthe Islamic era not to build new churches and the latest Ottoman response to the problem.The Ottomans were one of the most innovative of Islamic dynasties, having institutedsuch practices as the devsirme child levy and cash vakıf, both of which seemed to havelittle justification in Islamic law. As they had demonstrated following the conquest of thecity, the Ottomans in the late 17th century were not constrained by precedent but wereflexible and acted according to their contemporary political and religious interests.

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F J E W I S H N E I G H B O R H O O D S

For centuries, Eminonu had been Istanbul’s main Jewish neighborhood, and in Byzantinetimes it was marked by the Jews’ Gate (Porta Hebraica).45 This Jewish presence con-tinued into the Ottoman era. Sultan Mehmed II’s endowment registry, written soon afterthe Ottoman conquest, notes that the Eminonu region was made up almost entirely ofJewish residents.46 An Ottoman writer offers another etymology of the gate’s name.Evliya Celebi claims that because so many Jews from Salonica who had been deportedto Istanbul after the conquest of the city were settled at Martyrs’ Gate (Suhud kapısı) thatthey had to change its name to Jews’ Gate (Cufud kapısı).47 Another register recordedfor the endowment of Sultan Mehmed II in 1595–97 demonstrates that 60 percent of theJews of Istanbul resided in Eminonu, Sirkeci, and Tahtakale.48

By the end of the 16th century, Istanbul Jews lived and worked primarily in theeconomic center of the city on the Golden Horn. Yet that was also the area where thevalide sultan decided to build an imperial mosque. When Safiye Sultan commandedthe head of the imperial architects, Davud Aga, to begin the foundation for a mosque inlate summer 1597, she took advantage of the anger voiced by both Muslim and Venetiantraders against Jewish merchants and tax farmers.49 They claimed that Jews monopolizedthe textile and other trades and set untenable conditions on Europeans and Muslims who


wished to enter the market. Muslims petitioned the sultan, claiming that Jewish collectorsof customs taxes behaved in an unbecoming manner toward Muslims. They requestedthat Jews be prohibited from collecting the tax, and their wish was granted. Safiye Sultanthen expropriated property from Jewish merchants and residents and began to constructthe mosque. Following the loss of their property, the Jews of Eminonu began migratingto other parts of the city.

This proposed mosque soon faced many problems. Although the architects had com-pleted its foundation and had even constructed the building as high as the arches abovethe first windows, a number of factors stood in the way of the structure’s completion.These included criticism of the project in some palace circles; the death of Davud Again 1598; the difficulty of placing a large building at that location; and the death in 1603of both Sultan Mehmed III and his mother, Safiye Sultan.50 A late-17th-century palacepreacher, Kurd Mustafa, claimed that:

Its immense foundations and bases were laid to the extent that even some arches became partlyraised. But because fortune is not everlasting, the abovementioned valide sultan quaffed the cupof doom, and went to God’s mercy. The aforementioned mosque, therefore, was left incomplete.Like an orphan son its arches did not reach the prime of manhood, instead remaining deficient andincomplete. According to its foregoing condition it became abandoned.51

The unfinished mosque was nicknamed “Oppression” (Zulmiyye), since many com-plained about the great expense of an imperial building which the Ottomans were unableto complete.52 Shortly thereafter, Jews began to resettle in Eminonu. The mosque, how-ever, remained in a ruined state until the massive fire of 1660. The fire excavated thefoundations of the mosque by clearing all the surrounding buildings that had obscuredthem.

Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan took the opportunity afforded by the fire to clear theneighborhood of Jews and complete the mosque—the second time a valide sultan hadexpelled the Jews of Eminonu.53 Although Jews offered a bribe to nullify the decisionof the valide sultan, an offer that may have been as great as one-third the total cost ofconstruction of the entire mosque complex, it was refused; in addition, according to thehistorian Silahdar, Jews were threatened with death if they did not sell their property.54

Although the Jews probably attempted to have the order rescinded in other ways, whetherby influencing a key figure at court to intervene on their behalf or by petitioning theimperial council, no other evidence of Jewish attempts to hinder the imperial order hasbeen uncovered. Jews complied with the order, and just under one year after the firewas extinguished, Hatice Turhan, using a portion of her own wealth, began constructionof the mosque and complex, which had not been a royal concern for more than half acentury.55 As the preacher Kurd Mustafa relates panegyrically in his treatise dedicatedto Hatice Turhan:

There is no end to the pious works of her excellency, the valide sultan. Just as her laudable moralqualities are many, so, too, are her works. Among them is the noble mosque whose match hasnot been seen and whose peer has not been heard, which she constructed in the place known asEminonu in the well-protected city of Istanbul.56

Jews residing in a major section of the city lost their homes, property, and synagoguesto the fire and, through subsequent appropriation by the valide sultan, to the mosque

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FIGURE 1. Istanbul and Galata in 1640.

complex. Of an estimated forty synagogues in the city, at least seven burned in the greatfire, representing diverse groups of Jews who had originated in central and southeast-ern Europe, the Crimea, Anatolia, and Iberia.57 These synagogues included that of theGerman (Alman) congregation of Ashkenazi Jews who had voluntarily migrated to thecity in the 15th century; the synagogues of the Antalya and Borlu, Dimetoka, Borlu, andZeitouni/Izdin congregations of Anatolian and Rumelian Romaniot Jews deported to thecity by Sultan Mehmed II; the synagogue of the Little Istanbul congregation of Karaitesdeported from Kaffa in the Crimea; and the synagogue of the Aragon congregation ofJews who voluntarily migrated to the city following their expulsion from Iberia.58 Theplots of land on which the synagogues were located and the properties the congregationspossessed accrued to the state treasury and became state-owned land, and Muslim evkafpurchased them at auction.

The Jews not only had lost their synagogues; they also had to leave the area. UrielHeyd notes that the Jewish communities of ten neighborhoods in Istanbul, includingZeyrek, Balkapanı, and Hoca Pasa, which had appeared in a population register in theearly 17th century (Figure 1), were not recorded in a register from 1691–92 (Figure 2).He concludes that the Jews must have abandoned these areas since fires had destroyedtheir neighborhoods.59 Fire alone, however, did not chase them away. Soon after theblaze, an imperial decree was issued “that after the fire Jews not reside in Istanbul fromHoca Pasa (bordering the walls of Topkapı Palace in the east) to Zeyrek (or Sarachane inthe west).” Another commanded that “the households in which Jews resided located inIstanbul in the neighborhoods of Hoca Pasa and its vicinity that burned in the great fire



of the sixteenth of Zilkade 1070 [24 July 1660] that are private property are to be sold toMuslims, and those that are owned by endowments are to be entrusted to Muslims.”60 Thehistorian Silahdar confirms that the area from Tahtakale (near the Rustem Pasa Mosque)to Hoca Pasa was filled with apartment buildings rented out to Jews (yahudhane), which,after burning in the fire, were prohibited by imperial decree from being rebuilt.61 Nearlytwo-thirds of the Jews in Istanbul had resided in the district centered at Eminonu. Theimperial complex, which included a mosque, tomb, fountain, school, and Egyptian orspice market, was built at the center of the neighborhood. The beginning of this massivepublic-works project radically affected the Jewish population by redistributing themthroughout the city.62

Authorities also expelled Jews from rented rooms in these districts. For example, themembers of a Spanish congregation—Gedalya, son of Menahem; Musa, son of Avraham;and Menahem, son of Avraham—who rented out rooms near Balkapanı had to turn overthe property to a Muslim trustee. Likewise, the Portuguese Jew Yasef, son of Yako, hadto relinquish the rented land on which stood a yahudhane, and another Portuguese Jew,Ishak, son of Avraham, who also resided in a yahudhane, had to abandon any claim tothe rooms in which he lived.63 Since Jewish apartments were often owned by Muslims,the government would later, in exchange, offer owners of the properties lost in Eminonuother formerly non-Muslim properties in Galata and elsewhere in Istanbul.

Most Jews found themselves across the Golden Horn in Haskoy after they first lost theirhomes and synagogues to fire and then had to evacuate their property so the valide sultan’smosque could be built. Haskoy’s Jewish population nearly doubled, from eleven to more

170 Marc David Baer

than twenty neighborhoods. There were so many Jews in Haskoy—an estimated 11,000following the banishment of the Jews of Eminonu—that it was described as follows:“Haskoy is as brimful (malamal) of Jews as are the cities of Salonica and Safed.”64 Ac-cording to Heyd, these displacements completely transformed Istanbul Jewry. Romaniotand Karaite Jews from displaced independent Anatolian and Rumelian congregationssettled along the Golden Horn and Bosphorus and were absorbed by congregations ofJews who had migrated from Iberia.65 There is no evidence that there was popular supportfor the decision to relocate the Jews of Eminonu to Haskoy; however, considering theinter-religious tension after the fire, it was logical to send them to a predominantly Jewishvillage. Because some Christians and Muslims resisted Jews’ settling in neighborhoodsin which they had not previously resided, Ottoman authorities issued legal opinions andimperial decrees to banish Jews from their new homes in Fener and Galata.66

Muslims held their first Friday prayers in the Valide Sultan Mosque following anelaborate ceremony on 30 October 1665.67 The valide sultan presented to her son astunning jewel-covered dagger with a solid emerald handle. She also gave him a diamond-studded sash and aigrette. The mosque that had once been nicknamed “Oppression”became known as “Justice” (Adliye), because when she decided to build the mosque, thevalide sultan had said, “[L]et the task be undertaken with justice.”68 A royal pavilion wasbuilt adjoining the mosque to serve as an occasional residence for the valide sultan andother members of the dynasty.69

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F C H R I S T I A N N E I G H B O R H O O D S

Fire also greatly affected the Christians of the city. Of an estimated fifty to sixty churchesin Galata and Istanbul that existed before the fire in 1660 (thirty to forty Orthodox, tenArmenian, and ten Catholic), at least twenty-five had burned to the ground.70 The propertycontaining Christian houses of worship that had burned accrued to the state treasury inaccordance with the decree of 1662: “[a]fter some churches of the infidels, polytheists,and those who go astray burned in the abode of the exalted caliph, the protected cityof Constantinople, during the great conflagration of Saturday, 16 Zilkade 1070 [24 July1660] the state treasury seized them since according to canonical law they were not tobe restored [to their prior condition].”71 An imperial decree supported by a fetva orderedthe state treasury to acquire the property of Orthodox Christian churches that had burnedin the fire of 1633 and were located near the Fener and Balat Gates.72

Ottoman policy toward Christians was at first markedly different from that concerningJews. Beginning a year after the fire, while Hatice Turhan was the most important personat court, Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians in Galata and Istanbul, and Frenchand Italian foreign residents in Galata, purchased the land where their burned churchesstood. They constructed homes there, since the authorities insisted that if they builtchurches they would lose their property. The state also warned them not to use theirnew homes as houses of prayer. In late summer and fall of 1661 and winter of 1662,Christians reclaimed eighteen church properties in this manner.

The Catholics’ situation was urgent because they were allowed to maintain churchesonly in Galata, and six of seven churches in use in Galata had burned in 1660. Galata hadbeen a Genoese commercial colony in Byzantine Constantinople.73 Following surrenderto Ottoman forces in 1453, most Galata Catholics became poll-tax–paying non-Muslim


subjects of the sultan (zimmi), while some merchants became non-Muslim residentforeigners (muste↩min). Some of their churches were converted to mosques immedi-ately following the district’s surrender to Sultan Mehmed II, including Saints Paul andDominic, which became the Mosque of the Arabs (Arap Cami); the bell tower becamea minaret. Other churches, such as San Michele, were converted during the followingcentury.

The properties of five ruined Catholic churches were initially purchased at auction.74

A year after the fire, the Orthodox Christian dragoman Georgi, son of Lazari, purchasedthe land of Saints Peter and Paul, located in the Bereketzade quarter. Georgi, who owneda garden bordering the church property, proclaimed his intent to build a home in whichto reside. He promised that “if by some means I build a church, let the state treasuryagain seize the property and take it out of my possession.”75 On that day, Constantine,son of Andrea, also purchased church properties in the same quarter while makingan identical pledge. The muste↩min Riboni, son of Martin, followed suit and at thesame auction purchased the property of the burned Saint George church, located inthe same quarter.76 Giving the same promise as the others, a group of seven men withItalian names purchased the land of the 13th-century Italian Franciscan church of SaintFrancis—called the “ornamented church” by Muslims—and the main church of theCatholics of Galata, along with the property of neighboring Saint Anne Church and a belltower.77

In May and June 1662, however, authorities seized twelve of these eighteen properties.Sadrazam Fazıl Ahmed Pasa decided that Christians had rebuilt their churches in theguise of residences and practiced Christian rites within them, engaging in “infidelity,polytheism, and error,” according to an imperial decree.78 New buildings were razed,and the property was turned over to Muslim endowments as compensation for lossesincurred when the valide sultan seized the property (such as stores and yahudhane) thatthey had owned in Eminonu.79 Ali Celebi had possessed a yahudhane in Eminonu thatburned in the fire, but because the land was located near the site of the valide sultan’sproposed Mosque of Justice (Adliye Cami), he lost possession of it. In exchange for thatproperty, he became the owner of property that had formerly been connected to a churchand a yahudhane in Galata.80 Mehmed Cemal Efendi, who was the trustee of a vakıf inIstanbul and who had owned stores near the new mosque, relinquished those propertiesand instead took over properties formerly belonging to Saint Mary (Santa Maria Draperis)in Galata, a Franciscan Catholic church located near Saint Francis church. The parishrelocated to Pera.81

Two years after the fire, Christians held on to six properties on which had stoodchurches that had been destroyed in the conflagration. Two Catholic churches, SaintsPeter and Paul and Saint George, are used today.82 While managing to hold on to ap-proximately one-fifth of their properties containing burned churches, Christians stilllost nineteen.83 Saint Francis was among the razed churches; it was transformed intothe Valide Sultan Mosque by Gulnus Emetullah Sultan, favorite concubine of SultanMehmed IV and mother of Sultan Mustafa II and Sultan Ahmed III, in 1696–97. AnOttoman historian gave credit to Gulnus Emetullah Sultan for her pious deed of being“firmly resolved” to turn a burned church into a mosque and permitting only Muslims toreside in the formerly Christian neighborhood.84 From the mosque in Galata one couldsee its namesake in Eminonu.85

172 Marc David Baer

D I S T I N G U I S H I N G B E T W E E N C H R I S T I A N S A N D J E W S

Islamization in Istanbul may have been a common symbol of authority for the leaders ofthe state and dynasty, but it was not uniformly applied. The valide sultan manipulatedthe process of Islamization to target Jewish space while Fazıl Ahmed Pasa IslamizedChristian space. Both actions further illustrate the decline of Jews and rise of OrthodoxChristians.

Ottoman narratives concerning the construction of the valide sultan’s imperial mosquecomplex illustrate her concern with Jews. Ottoman historians, writers, and palace preach-ers cursed Jews for residing around the foundations of the mosque and viewed thedestruction of Jewish homes as divine punishment. Referring to the foundations of theoriginal, though incomplete, Valide Sultan Mosque, a contemporary Ottoman historianexplained: “it was not appropriate for the religion and kingdom of the emperor for themosque to lie destroyed in the rubbish in the midst of numerous Jewish neighborhoods.”86

The palace preacher Kurd Mustafa explains how:

That abandoned and ruined mosque remained amidst the Jews. Just as the darkness of infidelitycloaks their religion, so, too, did they hide the aforementioned mosque’s base and foundationswith sticks and straws to such a degree that no one knew that it was a foundation of a mosque. Bychance one day in the year seventy-one [1071 A.H.], by divine wisdom an immense fire and burningflame appeared around the aforementioned mosque’s foundations and burned most places in thewell-protected city of Istanbul. Some Friday mosques and small mosques also became burned anddemolished.87

Some writers perceived the fire as divine punishment of Jews: “by the command of God,all Jewish homes were incinerated and all Jews were banished from that area,” and “whenthere was a great incineration in Islambol the filthy homes of Jews residing within Jews’Gate were destroyed and burned in the flames.”88

The endowment deed for the mosque, signed by Sadrazam Fazıl Ahmed Pasa andthe two leading military magistrates (kadıasker) of the empire, Abdulkadir Efendi andAbdurrahman Efendi, uses surprisingly harsh language to narrate events. More significantis the appearance of the document itself: Sultan Mehmed IV’s gilded imperial monogram(tugra) adorns the first page. The history of the mosque, written for the approval of thesultan and valide sultan, describes the fire in the following fashion:

By the decree of God the exalted, the fire of divine wrath turned all the neighborhoods of the Jewsupside down. The effect of the flames of the wrath of God made the homes and abodes belongingto that straying community resemble ashes. Every one of the Jewish households was turned into afire temple full of sparks. Since the residences and dwellings of Jews, who are the enemy of Islam,resembled the deepest part of Hell, the secret of the verse which is incontrovertible, “those that doevil shall be cast into the fire” (Q 32:20), became clear, and in order to promise and threaten thosewho deny Islam with frightening things, the verse, “woe to the unbelievers because of a violentpunishment” (Q 14:2), also became manifest.89

The narrative of the Islamization of Eminonu sought to explain the unprecedented poli-cies toward Jews by linking them to fire and utilizing current notions of the conquest ofinfidel space, perhaps compensating for a lack of success elsewhere. The palace preacherKurd Mustafa declared, “[T]he aforementioned mosque showed itself and became man-ifest just as the Muhammadan religion appeared out of the darkness of infidelity.”90


It is striking that the leading men and women of the empire viewed the banishmentof the Jews and construction of the Valide Sultan Mosque as a conquest of formerlyinfidel-occupied land. Those who constructed the mosque displayed considerable his-torical consciousness; they compared the transfer of Jews from Eminonu to Haskoy toMuhammad’s exile of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir from Medina since they chose theQur↩anic chapter “Exile” (al-Hashr, 59) to adorn the gallery level near the royal lodge.91

The chapter narrates how God drove unbelieving Jews into exile and admonishes themto heed their example. In what could be understood in late-17th-century Istanbul as areference to recent events, the chapter warns that in the world to come Jews will also bepunished in hellfire.92

It is difficult to determine the source of Hatice Turhan’s concern with Jews in Istanbuland the sultan’s inner circle, but its effects are clear. She decided to convince the mostimportant Jewish physician serving the sultan to become Muslim or lose his position.93

Hatice Turhan’s unprecedented policies toward Jews reflect a change in the formerlyfavorable Ottoman attitude that had allowed Jews to hold prominent positions for morethan two centuries. Whereas at the beginning of the 1660s Jews had a privileged positionwith the royal family and resided mainly in the heart of the city, by the end of the decadethe geographic position of the Jews reflected their fall from importance. Most Jews inIstanbul resided on the Golden Horn and Bosphorus, and those who remained in themost important palace positions converted to Islam. The political position of Jews hadbecome so weak that no one could intervene to change the decision to banish them fromEminonu following the fire. Those who remained in the palace were involved in theirown struggle to retain their posts.

Hatice Turhan did not view Christians and Jews in the same manner. If that had beenthe case, she would have supported the same policies toward both groups. Vani MehmedEfendi and Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, however, were more concerned with Christians thanJews in Istanbul. According to the Englishman Sir Paul Rycaut, Vani Mehmed Efendiconvinced Fazıl Ahmed Pasa that the fires in Istanbul and Galata and the empire’s lack ofmilitary success were “Divine Judgements thrown on the Musselman . . . in vengeance oftheir too much License given to the Christian Religion.”94 Thus, when they rose to powerin 1661, they changed the policy that allowed Christians to rebuild their churches in theguise of homes. The part of Galata facing Eminonu was Islamized because Fazıl AhmedPasa and Vani Mehmed Efendi were alarmed by Christians flouting law and custom inthe capital city and because they supported the interests of Muslim vakıf owners whohad lost property in Eminonu. Their political concerns were reflected in the decision in1662 to raze a number of these buildings and turn them over to Muslim endowments,just as Jewish properties had been treated immediately after the fire.95

The Ottomans faced similar questions of urban renewal in Crete, to which they turnedafter opening the Valide Sultan Mosque in 1665. Once Candia was conquered four yearslater, the status of churches in the city was not difficult to determine. Fourteen churcheswithin the citadel were converted into mosques for Sultan Mehmed IV, Hatice Turhan,Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and other officials.96 Seventy-four other churches were converted intomosques, as well. What is striking is how echoes of the different approaches to Jewsand Christians taken by the valide sultan and sadrazam in Istanbul were also reflectedon the newly captured island. The entire former Jewish neighborhood in Candia and itsexpanded sections, similar to Eminonu in Istanbul, were “declared a revenue-bearing

174 Marc David Baer

Vakıf endowment, with the Valide Sultan Mosque [in Candia] acting as its principalbeneficiary.”97 Synagogues paid daily rent to the vakıf ; nevertheless, Fazıl Ahmed Pasaencouraged Jews to settle in the city and purchase property.98 Jews were allowed tobuy homes abandoned by Christians at auction, move outside their former ghetto, andrepair “old” synagogues damaged during the siege.99 And, fitting for a decade in whichOrthodox Christians replaced Jews in important palace positions, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa hadgood relations with Orthodox Christians in Crete and worked to re-establish their churchat the expense of Catholics.

C O N C L U S I O N

Approximately a year after the 1660 great fire in Istanbul, Hatice Turhan began con-struction of the Valide Sultan Mosque in Eminonu. Jews were ordered to leave a widearea stretching from the walls of Topkapı Palace in the east to Zeyrek in the west.They were expelled from rented rooms, made to sell their property, and compelled toturn over endowments to Muslims. In accordance with a fetva issued for the unusualsituation, “old” churches and synagogues and their properties that had been destroyedin the fire were appropriated by the state treasury and put up for auction. This policycontradicted earlier Islamic and Ottoman practice, because before this time only “new”non-Muslim houses of worship had been razed or appropriated. In some circumstancesJews had been given preferential treatment regarding the construction of new houses ofworship in Istanbul.100 Yet in this era, the opposite was true. Louis Mitler has arguedthat after the fire authorities “repeatedly denied” permission for Christians to rebuildburned churches and razed churches that had been reconstructed.101 In fact, unlike Jews,Christians were allowed to purchase properties in Galata and Istanbul. All of these eventsoccurred within fourteen months of the Istanbul fire, a period when the valide sultan wasthe most influential person in the palace. The situation for Christians began to change inthe fall of 1661, when Fazıl Ahmed Pasa became sadrazam and Vani Mehmed Efendibecame preacher to the sultan, valide sultan, and sadrazam. In the spring and summerof 1662, properties purchased by Christians at auction were seized by the governmentand awarded to Muslim foundations; the basis was thus laid for the construction of animperial mosque in Galata on the ruins of an important Catholic church.

Prohibitions on the construction of new churches and synagogues date to the beginningof Islamic history. However, despite being “on the books,” these regulations were oftenignored. New non-Muslim houses of worship were built and old ones restored andexpanded in every region of the Islamic world. Pre-modern Islamic rulers made decisionsthat suited their politics, even if they were contrary to previous practice. Restrictionswere applied, or not, according to contemporary interests. Rulers could carry out theserestrictions when they desired to be viewed as pious, to gain political strength, or todistract the population from internal social pressures or foreign invaders.102 At the sametime, there could be tension between the interests and policies of the ruler to protectchurches and synagogues and the occasional desire of a part of the populace to knockthem down.103

Islamization policies reflected the intersection of religion and politics. When under-stood within its historic context, Islamization appears less the outcome of religious pietythan the result of the personal interests and decision-making of key political actors. The


difference in application of Islamization policies in late-17th-century Istanbul reflectsthe fragmentation of Ottoman decision-making in that era. Islamization was a commonsymbol used for different reasons and thus was not applied evenly. Varying attitudesheld by the chief policymakers concerning Christians and Jews played a more importantrole in planning the reconstruction of Istanbul following the cataclysmic 1660 fire thanIslamic law and religious opinion, which made no distinction among different groups ofnon-Muslims. There was no legal precedent for allowing Christians to claim propertieswhile denying Jews the same option.

Eminonu, the first area to be Islamized, contained the foundations of an abandonedimperial mosque. Jews who lived there were not able to offer resistance because theireconomic and political clout was waning, and the valide sultan did not want Jews residingin proximity to her and other members of the dynasty or serving it in an intimate capacity.With Hatice Turhan making or influencing decisions at court in 1660, attitudes towardJews contributed to a major geographic and cultural transformation of Istanbul Jewry.Galata was not initially Islamized since the valide sultan was not as concerned withChristians as she was with Jews. Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians had localand international supporters, and Christians—particularly Orthodox, who were able tore-purchase Christian properties in Galata—were gaining stature in the opinion of keymembers of the Ottoman dynasty and administration. Despite that status, which placedthem in a better position relative to Jews, they were unable to resist the appropriation ofall reclaimed properties. The rise of the sadrazam and preacher at court led to a changein policy concerning churches a year after Christians had purchased properties becausethe sadrazam and preacher supported the interests of Muslims who had lost property inthe valide sultan’s rebuilding efforts.

Without considering the intentions of the leading political actors and the historicalcircumstances in which they found themselves, one could not predict the behavior ofOttoman authorities or the outcome of reconstruction plans following the 1660 fire.Islamization in Eminonu and Galata was neither preordained nor based on interpreta-tions of Islam alone. There were other alternatives. The valide sultan could have built orrepaired a mosque elsewhere, as Fazıl Ahmed Pasa’s predecessor suggested, and Jewscould have again thrived in Eminonu and Catholics in the heart of Galata. Importantpeople in the administration, including Seyhulislam Minkarizade, did not support theKadızadeli movement and had a different attitude toward non-Muslims—for example,Minkarizade upheld the practice of communal prayers for the success of military cam-paigns, which Vani Mehmed Efendi opposed.104 Other intellectual currents were popularamong learned Muslims.105 Yet in a period of acute anxiety caused by political instabil-ity, economic crisis, the worsening fortunes of the military, and religious redefinition,Islamization of areas inhabited by non-Muslims in Istanbul served as a visible sign ofthe authority of Hatice Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani Mehmed Efendi and of thedynasty, state, and religion they represented.

N OT E S

Author’s note: Earlier versions of this article were presented to audiences at the Department of Near andMiddle East Civilizations at the University of Toronto and the Turkish Studies Colloquium at the University ofMichigan. I am grateful for the helpful comments received on those occasions. I also thank Cornell Fleischer,

176 Marc David Baer

Robert Dankoff, Joel Kraemer, Ron Suny, Jane Hathaway, Victor Ostapchuk, Gottfried Hagen, Kevin Reinhart,Esra Ozyurek, Juan Cole, and the three anonymous reviewers of IJMES for their comments on earlier drafts. AFulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a Social Sciences Research Council DissertationFellowship supported the research. A visa granted by the Turkish government allowed me to work in Istanbul.I thank the directors and staffs of the Bafsbakanlık Osmanlı Arsivi (BBA, Ottoman Archive of the PrimeMinistry), the Istanbul Muftulugu Ser’iye Sicilleri Arsivi (Sharia Court Record Archive at the Office of theIstanbul Mufti), the Suleymaniye Library, the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, and the Koprulu Library fortheir assistance.

1Nasuh Pasazade Omer Bey, Turhan Valide Sultan Vakıfnamesi, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, ms. TurhanValide Sultan 150, February 1663, fol. 17b.

2Abdurrahman ↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, ms. 216, fols. 128b–29b.3Mehmed Halife, Tarih-i Gilmani (Istanbul: Turk Tarihi Encumeni Mecmuası, 1924), 67.4These figures may be exaggerated. According to Ottoman poll-tax (cizye) records, there were 62,000

Christian and Jewish households in Istanbul in 1690–91, of which 80 percent were Christian. If non-Muslimsmade up 42 percent of the city’s population, as they had in the previous century, then one can estimate that therewere 86,000 Muslim households in the city. One can then approximate a population of between 600,000 and750,000, including 200,000 to 250,000 Christians and 50,000 to 60,000 Jews. See Robert Mantran, Istanbuldans la seconde moitie du XVIIe siecle: Essai d’histoire institutionnelle, economique, et sociale (Paris: LibrairieAdrien Maisonneuve, 1962), 44–47.

5Mustafa Cezar, “Osmanlı Devrinde Istanbul Yapılarında Tahribat Yapan Yangınlar ve Tabii Afetler,” TurkSanat Tarihi Arastırma ve Incelemeleri (Istanbul, 1963), 1:327–414; Mantran, Istanbul, 36; and Halil Inalcık,s.v. “Istanbul,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (EI2).

6On rebuilding Catholic churches in Galata, see Louis Mitler, “The Genoese in Galata: 1453–1682,”International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979): 86–91. But see also Halil Inalcık, “Ottoman Galata,1453–1553,” in idem, Essays in Ottoman History (Istanbul: Eren, 1998), 275–376. On the dislocation of Jews,see Uriel Heyd, “The Jewish Community of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century,” Oriens 6 (1953): 311–13.See also Avram Galante, Histoire des juifs d’Istanbul (Istanbul: Imprimerie Husnutabat, 1941), 15, 53; andStephane Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive d’Istanbul a la fin du XVIe siecle,” Turcica 27 (1995): 108. TheRomaniots were Greek-speaking Jews present in the Byzantine Empire. The Karaites were a sect of Jews whoaccept only the Torah (written law) and not the Talmud (oral law) of Rabbanite Jews. On Valide Sultan HaticeTurhan, see Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York:Oxford University Press, 1993), 206–209; and Lucienne Thys-Senocak, “The Yeni Valide Mosque Complexat Eminonu,” Muqarnas 15 (1998): 58–70. See also Ali Saim Ulgen, “Yenicami,” Vakıflar Dergisi 2 (1942):387–97; and Oktay Aslanapa, Osmanlı Devri Mimarısi (Istanbul: Inkılap Kitabevi, 1986), 347–55.

7Ismail Hakkı Uzuncarsılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, 3rd ed., vol. 3, pt. 1 (Ankara: Turk Tarihi Kurumu Basımevi,1983), 388.

8Sevket Pamuk, “In the Absence of Domestic Currency: Debased European Coinage in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Economic History 57 (1997): 345–66. Ottoman silver coins (akce)became merely units of account because Dutch thaler (esed-ı gurus) and Spanish reales de la ocho (pieces ofeight, riyal gurus) were used for actual payments.

9For the events of 1650, see ↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 27a–28a; for the events of 1656, see Hrand d.Andreasyan, “Cınar Vak↩ası,” Istanbul Enstitusu Dergisi 3 (1957): 57–83.

10M. Cavid Baysun, s.v. “Mehmed IV,” Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 1960). M. Tayyib Gokbilgin andR. C. Repp s.v. “Koprulu,” EI2; Halil Inalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire,1600–1700,” Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283–337; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change, 1590–1699,”in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 2: 1600–1914, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi et al.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 423–24; and Kenneth M. Setton, Venice, Austria, and theTurks in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1991), 137–205.

11Uzuncarsılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, 328.12Kurd Hatib Mustafa, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, Topkapı Sarayı Muzesi, Istanbul, ms. Eski Hazine 1400,

fols. 7b–8a, describes the despair in the city.13The Ottoman defeat of the Venetian navy and conquest of the islands of Bozcaada and Limni in 1657

opened the straits and Istanbul to Ottoman ships. Rebellious sipahis were executed; the uprising of AbazaHasan Pasa, the ringleader of revolt in Anatolia, was crushed; and state finances were stabilized so that by1660–61 the state budget was practically balanced. See Mantran, Istanbul, 254.


14Ahmet Yasar Ocak, “XVII Yuzyılda Osmanlı Imparatorlugunda Dinde Tasfiye (Puritanizm)Tesebbuslerine Bir Bakıs: Kadızadeliler Hareketi,” Turk Kulturu Arastırmaları 17–21, nos. 1–2 (1979–83):208–25; Lewis V. Thomas, A Study of Naima, ed. Norman Itzkowitz (New York: New York University Press,1972), 106–10; Madeline Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,”Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (1986): 251–69; and idem, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema inthe Post-Classical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), 146–59. See also SemiramisCavusoglu, “The Kadızadeli Movement: An Attempt of Ser↩iat-Minded Reform in the Ottoman Empire” (Ph.D.diss., Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., 1990).

15On the link between Halvetis and sultans, see F. de Jong, s.v. “Khalwatiyya,” EI2. On the Kadızadelis’ risein influence, see Mustafa Naima, Tarih-i Naima, vols. 5–6 (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, n.d), 5:54–59, 6:227–41;and Thomas, Naima, 106–10.

16The position of chief rabbi (hahambası) was not instituted until 1835.17Benjamin Arbel, Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 17, 193–94; Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 452–60; William McNeill, “Hypothesesconcerning Possible Ethnic Role Changes in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century,” in Social andEconomic History of Turkey (1071–1920), papers presented to the First International Congress on the Social andEconomic History of Turkey, ed. Osman Okyar and Halil Inalcık (Ankara: Meteksan Limited Sirketi, 1980),127–29; Traian Stoianovich, “The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant,” Journal of Economic History 20(1960): 234–313; Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, “Introduction,” in Christians and Jews in the OttomanEmpire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, 2 vols. (New York:Holmes and Meier, 1982), 1:1–34; and Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry: A History ofthe Judeo-Spanish Community, Fourteenth to Twentieth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press,2000), 36–49.

18Charles A. Frazee, Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire, 1453–1923 (London:Cambridge University Press, 1983), 100–102.

19Rifa↪at ↪Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to EighteenthCenturies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 38, 44.

20Peirce, Imperial Harem, 257.21Mehmed IV did have an impact on non-Muslims in Edirne and Rumelia, where hundreds of Christians

and Jews converted to Islam before him at his court in the last part of his reign (1661–87).22Mehmed Halife, Tarih-i Gilmani, 96.23Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 609–22.24Peirce, Imperial Harem, 194–96, 211; Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 17a–b.25Irene Bierman, “Preliminary Considerations,” in Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1998), chap. 1.26Gokbilgin and Repp, “Koprulu.”27Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 14a–b.28↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 108b–109b; Rasid Mehmed Efendi, Tarih-i Rasid, vols. 1–2 (Istanbul:

n.p., 1866–67), 1:483; and Defterdar Sarı Mehmed, Zubde-i Vekayiat, (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi,1995), 210. Vani Mehmed Efendi spoke Kurdish and was referred to as being “among the ulema of the landof the Kurds.”

29Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:106–107.30In 1666, Sultan Mehmed IV honored the preacher with a visit to his household; see ↪Abdi Pasa,

Vekayiname, fols. 228a–b, and Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:134–35. The preacher stayed by the sultan’s sideduring military campaigns, as well—for example, the commissary-general was ordered to provide VaniMehmed Efendi with foodstuffs during the Ottoman campaign to Poland in 1673–74. See BasbakanlıkOsmanlı Arsivi (BBA), Istanbul, Ali Emiri Tasnifi, Mehmed IV: 1169–72, 1986. The preacher also accom-panied the valide sultan in 1672 when she journeyed from Istanbul to Edirne. See Peirce, Imperial Harem,194.

31↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 197a–b, 29 January 1666. Invited to pray at Dimetoka for the Ottomanarmy besieging Candia, the preacher ascended the pulpit at the imperial tent and “scattered such preciousjewels from the treasure of Qur↩anic truth that tearful eyes and hearts filled with amazement.” See ibid., fols.234a–b, 13 June 1667.

32F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, ed. Margaret Hasluck, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1929;repr. New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 1:419–23.

178 Marc David Baer

33Vani Mehmed Efendi, Munseat Vani Efendi, Suleymaniye Library, ms. Aya Sofya 4308, fols. 1b–15a.Vani Mehmed Efendi composed a prayer in 1665 in which he praises the sultan for being “always victoriousand guided to success over the enemies of religion and state, infidels and innovators.” A prayer from 1666praises the sultan for being “the one who proclaims the true religion to unbelievers and humbles and humiliatesthe word of the infidels and sinners.”

34↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 302a, 1 August 1670. See also Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:250; and SilahdarFındıklılı Mehmed Aga, Silahdar Tarihi, vols. 1–2 (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1928), 1:559.

35According to the Pact of ↪Umar, the model agreement that was meant to guide relations between Muslimsand non-Muslims in lands under Muslim sovereignty, Christians in the earliest era of Islamic history pledgednot to build “new monasteries, churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night,such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.” The historicity of this agreementmay be debatable, but its tenets formed the basis for determining the status of churches and synagogues. SeeBernard Lewis, ed., Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. (New York:Oxford University Press, 1987), 2:118; and Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the MiddleAges (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 58–60.

36Claude Cahen, s.v. “Dhimma,” EI2. For examples from Abbasid Baghdad and Fatimid and MamlukCairo, see Lewis, Islam, 2:224, 231, 234; and Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia: JewishPublication Society of America, 1979), 189–91. For additional examples, see Antoine Fattal, Le statut legaldes non-musulmans en pays d’Islam (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1958), 174–78, 180–203.

37Halil Inalcık, “The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the ByzantineBuildings of the City,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23–24 (1969–70): 248–49; and idem, “Istanbul.”

38M. Ertugrul Duzdag, Seyhulislam Ebussu’ud Efendi’nin Fetvalarına Gore Kanunı Devrinde OsmanlıHayatı: Fetava-yı Ebussu↩ud Efendi (Istanbul: Sule Yayınları, 1998), 165, n. 456.

39Ahmed Refik, Onuncu Asr-ı Hicrı’de Istanbul Hayatı (1495–1591) (Istanbul, 1917; repr. Istanbul:Enderun Kitabevi, 1988), 44–45.

40Duzdag, Seyhulislam Ebussu↩ud Efendi, 166–68. Concerning the razing of new churches, see nn. 460,461, 463; on the subject of the rebuilding of old churches, see n. 465; on the issue of the illegality of expansion,see nn. 466 and 467.

41Inalcık, “Istanbul”; Galante, Histoire, 162.42Several fetava make this point. Minkarizade Yahya ibn Omer, Fetava-i Minkarizade Efendi, Suleymaniye

Library, Istanbul, ms. Hamidiye 610, fols. 37a–b.43Istanbul Muftulugu, Ser’iye Sicilleri Arsivi, Istanbul Ser’iye Sicilleri (hereafter ISS) 9, 52a, 8 July 1661;

86a, 13 August 1661.44Despite the distinction in Arabic between synagogue (kanis) and church (kanisa), the single term kanisa

(kenise in Turkish) is used in the Islamic law court records to refer to both church and synagogue.45Galante, Histoire, 59.46Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 119–20, 124.47The Seyahatname of Evliya Celebi, Book One: Istanbul (hereafter, Evliya), facsimile of Topkapı Sarayı

Bagdat, 304, pt. 1, fols. 1a–106a, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures 11, ed. Sinasi Tekin, TurkishSources 9 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), fol. 31b, 13–14.

48Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 101–102.49Thys-Senocak, “Yeni Valide Mosque Complex,” 62–63.50Ibid. See also Ulgen, “Yenicami,” 389.51Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 18a–b.52Evliya, 1:87b, 1–20.53Safiye Sultan and Hatice Turhan were both Christian converts to Islam raised in the palace. Perhaps their

education contributed to their attitudes toward Jews.54Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218; and Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 22a–b. The latter claims the

total cost of the mosque complex was 3,080 purses of gold (kese). Evliya Celebi wrote that the cost was 5,000kese: Evliya, 1:87b.

55The fire began on the afternoon of 24 July and lasted until the afternoon of 26 July; construction beganon 22 July of the following year. See ↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 128b, and Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218.On Hatice Turhan’s use of her own funds, see Evliya, 1:87b, 10–15.

56Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fol. 18a. According to Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218, after the fireSadrazam Koprulu Mehmed Pasa first urged the valide sultan to repair the Cerrah Mehmed Pasa Mosque in


Avret Pazarı. Then, based on the advice of the head architect, Mustafa Efendi, the sadrazam appealed to herreligious sense and advised her to exert herself in completing the Valide Sultan Mosque instead so that Godwould pardon her sins. She agreed and decided to rebuild the mosque in Eminonu. Kurd Hatib makes nomention of the advice of the sadrazam.

57The estimate of forty is found in Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 303. See Galante, Histoire, 162–73.58On Zeitouni/Izdin, see ISS 9, fol. 52a, 8 July 1661, and ibid. 10, fol. 82a, 5 June 1662; on Alman/German,

see ibid. 9, fol. 85a, 31 July 1661, and ibid. 9, 216a, 18 December 1661; on Little Istanbul, see ibid. 9, fol.86a, 13 August 1661; on Dimetoka, see ibid. 9, fol. 177b, 27 October 1661; on Aragon, see ibid. 9, fol. 216a,18 December 1661; on Antalya and Borlu, see ibid. 10, fols. 113b–14a, 16 September 1661; and on Borlu, seeibid. 9, fol. 143b, 29 September 1661.

59Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 300–305.60ISS 9, fol. 143b, 29 September 1661; ibid. 10, fol. 82a, 5 June 1662.61Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218–19.62Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 119–20, 124, 130.63On Spanish congregation members, see ISS 9, fol. 110a, 31 August 1661; on Yasef, son of Yako,

see ibid. 9, fol. 174a, 30 October 1661; on Ishak, son of Avraham, see ibid. 9, fol. 194b, 26 October1661.

64Evliya, 1:124a, 20–25.65Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 310–14. Another outcome of the fire, plague, and expulsion was that many

Istanbul Jews joined the messianic movement of Izmir Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi when he arrived in the city inwinter 1666.

66ISS, 9, fol. 244a, 13 January 1662, and BBA, Sikayet Defteri (complaint register), 6, 105, no. 456,December–January 1668. Christians also attempted to settle in neighborhoods where they previously had notresided, but Muslims resisted their encroachment and secured their expulsion. See ISS 10, fol. 110b, 7 July1662. About 100 Jewish households eventually resettled in Eminonu. But since Jews were accused of engagingin many “abominable acts,” they were expelled in 1727 so that only Muslims could reside near the mosque. SeeAhmed Refik, Onikinci Asr-ı Hicrı↩de Istanbul Hayatı (1689–1785) (Istanbul, 1930; repr. Istanbul: EnderunKitabevi, 1988), 88–89.

67↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 193a; and Rasid, Tarihi-i Rasid, 1:106–107.68Evliya, 1:87b, 10–15. “Justice” refers to the just expenditure of the dynasty’s wealth. In the 16th century,

Mustafa ↪Ali explained that charitable establishments such as imperial complexes were to be financed by thespoils of war because using funds from the public treasury squandered wealth. See Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar,“The Suleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 3 (1985): 113.

69Lucienne Thys-Senocak, “The Yeni Valide Mosque Complex of Eminonu, Istanbul (1597–1665): Genderand Vision in Ottoman Architecture,” in Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies, ed.D. Fairchild Ruggles (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 74–75.

70ISS 9, fols. 83b–96b, 142a–57a, 247a–253a; ibid. 10, fols. 82a–95a, 156b. For estimating the numberof churches, see Inalcık, “Istanbul”; Eremya Celebi Komurciyan, Istanbul Tarihi: XVII Asırda Istanbul, trans.Hrand D. Andreasyan, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Eren, 1988); and Mantran, Istanbul, 51, 54–55.

71ISS 10, fol. 106b, 9 May 1662.72Ibid. 9, fol. 83b, 11 August 1661; ibid., fol. 86a, 3 August 1662; and ibid., fol. 177b, 27 October 1661.73Inalcık, “Ottoman Galata,” 275–99, 349–50.74See also Mantran, Istanbul, 561–62; Eremya, Istanbul Tarihi, 223–26. The five churches are French

Capuchin Saint George, which had formerly been Byzantine and then Genoese (ISS 9, fol. 96b, 17 August1661); Italian Saint Francis (San Francesco), Saint Anne (Santa Anna), and a bell tower (ibid., fol. 247a,3 January 1662); San Sebastian (ibid., fol. 96b, 17 August 1661); and originally Genoese Dominican SaintsPeter and Paul (Santi Apostoli Pietro e Paolo) (ibid., fol. 96a, 17 August 1661), which became a French churchat the beginning of the 18th century.

75ISS 9, fol. 96a, 17 August 1661.76Ibid. 9, fols. 96a–b, 17 August 1661.77Ibid. 10, fol. 247a, 3 January 1662. Among the men are Giovanni, son of Carlo; Nicola, son of Franco;

Francesco, son of Giovanni; and Domenico, son of Giovanni.78Ibid., fol. 156b, 9 May 1662.79Ibid., fol. 156b. For the purchase of the land, see ibid. 9, fol. 96b, 17 August 1661. For the loss of

the lands, see ibid., 10, fol. 86a, 3 June 1662; ibid. 10, fols. 82b, 84b–85a, 2 June 1662. For examples of

180 Marc David Baer

property being awarded in lieu of seized property, see the entries for the week of 2–9 June 1662, in ibid. 10,fols. 82a–86b, 88a–89b.

80Ibid. 9, 95a, 22 June 1662.81Ibid. 82b, 2 June 1662. The parish church is today located on Istiklal Caddesi between the Dutch and

Russian consulates. Inside one can view a 500-year-old icon of the Virgin Mary that survived the fire of 1660.82Saint George has been affiliated with many different Catholic orders. Today it is Austrian Lazarist and

located within the complex of the Austrian High School.83The Armenian churches Surp (Saint) Sarkis and Surp Nigogos in Kumkapı burned in the fire and were

subsequently repaired. On orders of the sadrazam, the latter was razed in 1661 and the former in 1674. SeeEremya, Istanbul Tarihi, 3, nn. 84–85.

84Defterdar, Zubde-i Vekayiat, 606–607. See also The Garden of the Mosques: Hafız Huseyin Al-Ayvansarayı’s Guide to the Muslim Monuments of Ottoman Istanbul, trans. Howard Crane (Leiden: E. J.Brill, 2000), 357–58: “[o]riginally, there was a church on the site of this mosque. Later, when it burned, legalpermission for its reconstruction was not given and a vacant plot of land remained. Subsequently, this mosquewas built. [This is] a chronogram for its completion: ‘May the place of worship of the valide sultan be an abodeof pious acts!’ 1109 [1697–98].”

85The Valide Sultan Mosque in Galata was demolished in 1936 to make room for the Galata HardwareMarket. See Semavi Eyice, Galata ve Kulesi (Galata and Its Tower) (Istanbul: Turkiye Turing ve OtomobilKurumu, 1969), 16.

86Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218.87Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 19b–20a. The fire actually occurred in 1660 C.E. (1070 A.H.).88Evliya, 1:87b, 13–14; ibid., 124a, 20–22.89Nasuh Pasazade Omer Bey, Turhan Valide Sultan Vakıfnamesi, fols. 17b–18a. Qur↩an 32:20 states, “Those

that have faith and do good works shall be received in the gardens of Paradise, as a reward for that which theyhave done. But those that do evil shall be cast into the Fire. Whenever they try to get out of Hell they shall bedriven back, and a voice will say to them: ‘Taste the torment of Hell-fire, which you have persistently denied.”’

90Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fol. 20a.91Thys-Senocak, “Yeni Valide Mosque Complex at Emınonu,” 67.92Qur↩an 59:3. Muslims chopped down some of the Banu Nadir’s date palms and burned others to their

roots. This is another reference to fire and a potential reason for selecting the verse. Scribes in the Islamiclaw courts of the city also gave meaning to the Islamization of Christian and Jewish neighborhoods. Somesprinkled gold dust on the phrase “the appropriation of the land of churches (or synagogues)” in the law courtrecords. One scribe wrote a saying attributed to Muhammad (hadıs) in Arabic: “God will build a home inparadise for the one who builds a mosque for God.”

93Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, 18b–19b. The Spanish Jewish physician Moses, son of RaphaelAbravanel, became Hayatizade Mustafa Fevzi Efendi.

94As quoted in Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 151.95Contemporary Europeans such as Paul Rycaut and Antoine Galland contended that Fazıl Ahmed Pasa

and Vani Mehmed Efendi aimed to make all of Istanbul free of non-Muslims. See ibid., 149–53. Their fearsreflect a misunderstanding of Ottoman society and an exaggeration of the extent and nature of the devsirme.Christians and Jews had an organic place within plural Ottoman society; the pre-modern state did not compelthe conversion of most non-Muslims.

96Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:525–26; for fetava concerning the same topic, see Minkarizade Elendi,Fetava-i 32a–33a.

97Zvi Ankori, “From Zudecha to Yahudi Mahallesi: The Jewish Quarter of Candia in the SeventeenthCentury (A Chapter in the History of Cretan Jewry under Muslim Rule),” in Salo Wittmayer BaronJubilee Volume, 2 vols., ed. Saul Lieberman (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974),1:96.

98Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 78–87.

99Ankori, “Zudecha to Yahudi Mahallesi,” 1:89–91, 93, 96, 127. The Valide Sultan Mosque and the Jewishquarter in Candia were razed in the 20th century.

100Mark Epstein, The Ottoman Jewish Communities and Their Role in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,Islamkundliche Untersuchungen vol. 56 (Freiburg: K. Schwarz, 1980), 28–30.

101Mitler, “The Genoese in Galata,” 91.


102Examples include the Almohad (1130–1269) dynasty in North Africa and Spain, the Crusader and Mongolinvasions, and 13th- and 14th-century Cairo.

103The situation was sometimes reversed. Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) ordered the razing ofchurches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which may have stimulated the First Crusade. Yethe was an exception. His successors allowed churches to be rebuilt, and other Fatimid rulers funded theirconstruction, even attending groundbreaking ceremonies. See Marius Canard, s.v. “al-Hakim,” EI2.

104Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis,” 264–65.105In accordance with a fetva, the respected imam Lari Mehmed Efendi was executed in 1665 for denying

the raising of the dead for the Last Judgment and the religious obligations of prayer and fasting and deemingthe consumption of wine lawful. See ↪Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 158a–b; Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:378;Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:94; and Ahmet Yasar Ocak, Osmanlı Toplumunda Zındıklar ve Mulhidler (15.–17.Yuzyıllar) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1998), 245–47.

Int. J. Middle East Stud. 36 (2004), 159–181. Printed in the United States of America

DOI: 10.1017.S002074380436201X

Marc David Baer

T H E G R E AT F I R E O F 1 6 6 0 A N D T H E

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F C H R I S T I A N

A N D J E W I S H S PA C E I N I S TA N B U L

On 24 July 1660, a great conflagration broke out in Istanbul. An Ottoman writer con-

veys the horror of the event: “[t]housands of homes and households burned with fire.

And in accordance with God’s eternal will, God changed the distinguishing marks of

night and day by making the very dark night luminous with flames bearing sparks, and

darkening the light-filled day with black smoke and soot.”1 The fire began in a store that

sold straw products outside the appropriately named Firewood Gate (Odun kapısı) west

of Eminonu, and it devastated densely crowded neighborhoods consisting of wooden

homes. The strong winds of Istanbul caused the fire to spread violently in all directions,

despite the efforts of the deputy grand vizier (kaimmakam) and others who attempted

the impossible task of holding it back with hooks, axes, and water carriers. Sultan

Mehmed IV’s boon companion and chronicler, Abdi Pasa, notes that the fire marched

across the city like an invading army: the flames “split into divisions, and every single

division, by the decree of God, spread to a different district.”2 The fire spread north,

west, and to Unkapanı. According to Mehmed Halife, in Suleymaniye the spires of the

four minarets of the great mosque burned like candles.3 The blaze reached Bayezid and

then moved south and west to Davud Pasa, Kumkapı, and even as far west as Samatya.

The flames did not spare the Hippodrome (At Meydanı) in the east or Mahmud Pasa

and the markets at the center of the peninsula, either. Abdi Pasa estimated that the fire

reduced 280,000 households to ashes as the city burned for exactly forty-nine hours.4

Two-thirds of Istanbul was destroyed in the conflagration, and as many as 40,000 people

lost their lives. Although fire was a frequent occurrence in 17th-century Istanbul, this

was the worst the city had ever experienced.5 Thousands died in the plague that followed

the fire as rats feasted on unburied corpses and spread disease. Because three months

prior to this fire a conflagration had broken out in the heart of the district of Galata,

across the Golden Horn from Eminonu, much of the city lay in ruins in the summer of

1660.

This article analyzes Ottoman reconstruction policies following the fire. While re-

building the city, the Ottomans enacted unprecedented policies concerning Christian

and Jewish houses of worship. First, contrary to previous periods in which Ottoman

rulers generally allowed churches and synagogues to be built or rebuilt, in this period

Marc David Baer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA

70118, USA; e-mail; [email protected].

© 2004 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/04 $12.00

160 Marc David Baer

they strictly applied Islamic laws prohibiting reconstruction. Second, when they did

permit the building of non-Muslim prayer houses, Ottoman authorities did not treat all

religious communities equally. Surprisingly, Christians were initially allowed to pur-

chase the properties on which churches had stood and were even permitted to rebuild

the structures, ostensibly as homes. Jews, however, had to abandon properties, could not

restore their homes or synagogues, and were even expelled from the district where most

had resided prior to the fire. In the end, the visual presence of prominent mosques in

Eminonu and Galata symbolized the Islamization of the two districts.

Scholars have discussed some of the effects of the fire. Louis Mitler, relying mainly

on European sources, notes the difficulties Christians faced in attempting to rebuild

ruined Catholic churches in Galata. Uriel Heyd analyzes the dislocation of Jews after

the fire, finding that the devastation of the neighborhoods of Karaite and Romaniot

Jews resulted in their being absorbed by surviving Iberian congregations. Interested in

the relationship between dynastic politics and the endowment of public buildings by

Ottoman women, Leslie Peirce and Lucienne Thys-Senocak explain how Valide Sultan

(mother of the reigning sultan) Hatice Turhan ordered the construction of the Valide

Sultan Mosque in Eminonu to Islamize the commercial district, consolidate her own

political power, and promote the dynasty’s legitimacy and piety.6 No study thus far,

however, has compared the different Ottoman policies vis-a-vis Christians and their

properties in Istanbul, particularly Catholics in Galata and Jews and their properties in

Eminonu. Research until now has provided only part of the story, because historians

have neglected citywide Ottoman plans for reconstruction and the motivations for those

plans.

Based on Ottoman archival and narrative sources, this article will explain how, fol-

lowing a period of acute political and economic crisis and religious upheaval, the fire

served as an opportunity for Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan, Sadrazam (Grand Vizier) Fazıl

Ahmed Pasa, and Preacher to the Sultan (hunkar seyhi) Vani Mehmed Efendi to promote

Islamization to satisfy their different political and religious interests. Islamization offered

a visible sign of the successes of the dynasty, state, and religion. For the valide sultan,

not only did constructing her own imperial mosque complex in Eminonu demonstrate

the piety and legitimacy of the dynasty she represented, but linking the fire to the Jews

further legitimized the mosque’s construction and underscored the community’s decline.

The mosque construction also set in motion a larger process of Islamization in the city

as the sadrazam aimed to assert the state’s authority at home and abroad. At the time,

Ottoman military policy, especially regarding the siege of Crete, showed little sign of

success, and the Ottomans, who considered themselves to be the protectors of Islam,

were demoralized. The fire in the Christian neighborhood provided an opportunity to

subordinate non-Muslims through the built environment of the imperial capital. Policies

of Islamization demonstrated that all Ottoman subjects—including Christians in Galata

who had broken pledges not to rebuild churches—adhered to the law. The sadrazam also

sought to assist Muslim endowment (sing., vakıf; pl., evkaf ) owners who desired compen-

sation for the loss of their properties in Eminonu that would allow them to acquire former

church properties in Galata. The preacher’s aim of commanding right and forbidding

wrong necessitated reforming Muslim behavior and decreasing the visibility of non-

Muslims in Istanbul. He advised the valide sultan and the sadrazam to defeat the foreign

infidel in the Mediterranean, to promote what he envisioned as the true path of Islam


in the empire, and to call for the submission of non-Muslims, particularly Christians,

in the imperial capital. While economic, commercial, and urban imperatives influenced

their decisions, and matters of opportunism and expediency cannot be doubted, Hatice

Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani Mehmed Efendi had varying political and religious

aims that were manifested in the different ways they approached the Islamization of

Christian and Jewish space in Eminonu and Galata.

In addition to using a historical example to analyze the normative and actual status

of churches and synagogues in pre-modern Islamic societies, this article addresses a

theoretical need by exploring the understudied topic of the Islamization of space. The

history of Istanbul’s reconstruction following the fire of 1660 sheds light on a less-well-

known stage in the process through which the Ottoman capital was Islamized in the

pre-modern era.

T H E H I S T O R I C A L C O N T E X T: A P E R I O D O F C R I S I S

Events from 1648 to 1661 define the historical context in which Islamization in Istanbul

took place. Severe political and economic obstacles confronted the Ottoman Empire in

the mid- to late 17th century. Among Muslims, the period witnessed a struggle over

acceptable religious practices. For non-Muslims, Orthodox Christians replaced Jews

serving in key palace functions. Hatice Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani Mehmed

Efendi responded to these problems in different ways.

Political and financial problems beset the empire at mid-century. After the dethrone-

ment and execution of Sultan Deli (Mad) Ibrahim, Sultan Mehmed IV ascended the

throne at age seven in 1648. His mother, Hatice Turhan Sultan (d. 1683), a Russian taken

captive as a girl by the Crimean Han and presented to the Ottoman palace, competed

with her mother-in-law, Kosem Sultan, to be recognized as Mehmed’s regent. After three

years of fierce palace struggle, Hatice Turhan managed to have Kosem Sultan murdered,

but the valide sultan soon found that these were difficult years to rule the empire. Between

1648 and 1656, a string of twelve incapable and feeble sadrazams served terms of one to

twelve months in office. Five sadrazams served in 1656 alone. The Ottoman provinces

faced an upheaval caused by peasant mercenaries (sekbans) who had been armed by the

government, as well as rebellions of rogue military men and administrators such as Abaza

Mehmed Pasa. The sadrazams tried to assert order while “Muslim servants of the sultan

rebelled as Satan whispered in their ears.”7 In addition, Ottoman authorities did not have

the financial wherewithal to handle the situation since they had lost control of their own

currency and thus were unable to regulate their own economy.8 The ability to mint coins

was a primary concern of states and empires; giving up this right meant forfeiting an

opportunity to instill public confidence in the dynasty. Merchants and janissaries clashed

in Istanbul over the value of debased coinage in 1650 and 1656.9

The empire’s financial and political problems were related to military failure in the

Mediterranean. Expenditures for the war with Venice, which included a drawn-out,

costly, and apparently futile attempt to conquer the entire island of Crete, contributed

to the economic crisis.10 The siege of Crete in fact drained the Ottoman treasury for

a quarter-century. Venetian warships defeated the Ottoman navy in twelve of thirteen

battles between 1646 and 1656, and this failure in the Mediterranean affected the populace

of Istanbul economically. In 1656, Venetians occupied the crucial islands of Bozcaada

162 Marc David Baer

(Tenedos), Limni (Limnos), and Semadirek (Samothraki), which form an arc around the

mouth of the Dardanelles. Able to cut Istanbul’s sea link to the Mediterranean, Venice

blockaded the imperial capital.11 The loss of the islands led to severe hardship as goods

and provisions became scarce and prices skyrocketed. Thousands of Istanbul residents,

including the royal family, fled to the Anatolian side of the city.12 The Ottomans received

some respite from these troubles after Koprulu Mehmed Pasa (d. 1661) was appointed

sadrazam in 1656, but Hatice Turhan lacked the powerful symbols that would signify

the renewed strength of the dynasty and empire.13

In the midst of political and economic disorder, Hatice Turhan and her supporters in

the palace turned to the Kadızadeli Islamic reform movement, which had first emerged

in the early 17th century during the reign of Sultan Murad IV (1623–40). The movement

re-emerged at mid-century and became most influential after 1661. The leaders of this

movement sought to replace the Islam practiced in Istanbul with a religion purified

of innovations (bid’at) that had not been sanctioned by Muhammad.14 These included

many of the popular Sufi practices, such as playing music and dancing (sema) and

repeatedly reciting God’s names and attributes (zikir) as a form of prayer. The Kadızadelis

blamed the empire’s military defeat abroad and economic difficulties at home on the

Ottoman religious and administrative establishments’ affiliation with and patronage of

some Sufi orders. Rising in influence in part because of a reaction to failures of the

Ottoman polity, the Kadızadelis offered steps to restore the Ottomans to greatness.15 Not

all Muslims were pleased with their approach to Islam, however, and violent clashes

resulted.

As Muslims were struggling in the capital over the correct interpretation of Islam,

Jews and Orthodox Christians were jockeying for coveted positions in the palace.

Kadızadelis and Orthodox Christians gained the upper hand in the period because of

palace support. Elite Jews had formerly held important positions ranging from head

of the private physicians of the sultan to chief translators and representatives of the

Ottoman Empire in diplomatic missions abroad. But at the beginning of the 1660s,

Ottoman authorities began to prefer Orthodox Christians—the largest non-Muslim

group in the city, with a patriarch and increasing financial strength—to serve in these

positions.16 Scholars have discussed the rise and decline of the Jewish elite in the Ottoman

Empire and their subsequent displacement by Orthodox Christians in the 17th century.17

Yet they have not emphasized the importance of Ottoman attitudes toward Jews or why

the 1660s was such a crucial decade. Granted, few Jews during this time were wealthy,

were educated in Europe, or had favorable international connections. Even if there had

been more elite Jews, they may not have been selected for important duties because

of antipathy toward them. After 1665, Jews were denied key palace positions because

they were considered to be a volatile and untrustworthy group because of a widespread

belief that they endorsed the messianic movement of Shabbatai Tzevi, a movement

that threatened to undermine the social order. The movement directly challenged the

dynasty’s uncontested rule when it was facing serious military and financial problems,

including the empire’s costly attempt to conquer Crete. Catholics in Istanbul had the

political, military, and economic weight of France, an Ottoman ally, and its ambassador

at Istanbul behind them. Even if France’s influence at court in the 1660s was lessened by

French support for Venetian forces defending Crete and personal differences between

the ambassador and sadrazam, the French remained an important defender of Ottoman


Catholic interests.18 In light of these factors and attitudes, therefore, Jews could have

been considered less valuable and more vulnerable than either Orthodox Christians or

Catholics, and they had fewer people in high places able to resist the Islamization of

Jewish-inhabited areas.

I S L A M I Z AT I O N : S Y M B O L O F AU T H O R I T Y

Political symbolism acquired greater significance during the chaotic period from 1648 to

1661. The valide sultan, sadrazam, and preacher to the sultan supported Islamization as

a common standard of authority that supported their different yet intersecting interests.

Within the dynasty, the valide sultan was most qualified to engage symbolically potent

acts. As RifaatAli Abou-El-Haj notes, Ottoman writers recognized that sultans “acted

mainly as symbolic leaders, providing a facade for continuity for the old practices as they

helped to legitimate new ones.”19 According to Leslie Peirce, “[W]ith political power

and military leadership delegated to the grand vizier, the most useful function that the

sovereign might perform was to furnish visible symbols of majesty and piety to maintain

the subjects’ loyalty and sense of community.”20 Sultan Mehmed IV could not play this

role because he first ruled while a minor, and when he matured he had little interest in

affairs of state and thus had minimal impact on events in Istanbul.21 As the historian

Mehmed Halife notes, “[O]ur fortunate sovereign was so pleased by the hunt in Edirne

that people in Istanbul gave up hope that he would come again to the city.”22 Because

of the sultan’s absence, the valide sultan was obliged to promote “symbols of power

and legitimation” in the imperial capital.23 Since there was concern that the sultan was

excessively devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, and therefore did not act for the good

of the empire, the valide sultan filled in with frequent royal trips from Istanbul, where

she resided, to Edirne, where her son spent most of his reign. The valide sultan traveled

in lavish and lengthy processions that displayed Ottoman magnificence, munificence,

justice, and piety. She also ordered the construction and repair of public buildings in and

near the imperial capital, including fortresses guarding the Bosphorus (Rumeli Hisarı and

Anadolu Hisarı), the Black Sea, and especially the Dardanelles (Kilidbahir/Seddulbahir

and Kale-i Sultaniye). She was praised for this effort since “infidel captains did not even

think about entering the channel” as Muslim vessels “flowed again like water down the

straits.”24

The most meaningful of her monumental public works was the construction of an

imperial mosque in Eminonu. The location of the Valide Sultan Mosque illustrates the

aims and interests of its builder. Mosques and their inscriptions conveyed great meaning

in pre-modern Islamic societies. Irene Bierman argues that imperial mosques marked

spaces and delimited boundaries, expressed power, supported political and hegemonic

interests, and conveyed meaning both to those who entered them and those who passed

by outside.25 The Valide Sultan Mosque was highly visible on the seafront in the main

harbor of Istanbul and could be seen by a maximum number of Christian, Jewish, and

Muslim passers-by. The Mosque of Suleyman towered over the city because of its hilltop

location, but the Valide Sultan Mosque held an even more commanding position, for it

served as the imperial edifice that greeted one upon arrival at the main port. The building

itself and its inscriptions conveyed several meanings to the intended audience of Muslims

and non-Muslims. Only some Muslims knew the meaning of the inscriptions, but

164 Marc David Baer

Christians, Jews, and Muslims all recognized that they were Quranic texts written in

Arabic. They did not need to understand Arabic to realize the radical transformation of

the neighborhood.

Fazıl Ahmed Pasa (d. 1676), a former medrese professor (muderris) who succeeded

his father, Koprulu Mehmed Pasa, in office in October 1661, also had an interest in

Islamization. His fifteen-year period in office was one of the longest terms held by a

sadrazam in Ottoman history and was marked by a concern for improving the political,

economic, and military strength of the empire.26 As administrator of the affairs of a

troubled state, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa understood the importance of symbolic successes and

grasped the significance of internal Islamization when actual military conquest of infidel

land was out of reach. Unlike his father, who did not support the Kadızadeli movement,

Fazıl Ahmed Pasa further increased the Islamic character of the palace by bringing

a reformist religious preacher, Vani Mehmed Efendi (d. 1685), to Istanbul and to the

attention of the sultan and valide sultan.27 He had befriended the religious scholar while

governor in Erzurum where Vani Mehmed Efendi preached.28 Vani Mehmed Efendi took

up the post of spiritual guide and preacher of Sultan Mehmed IV and in 1665 became

the first to preach in the showcase mosque in Eminonu.29

Vani Mehmed Efendi wished to demonstrate the supremacy of his version of Islam.

He quickly became the confidant of the sultan, valide sultan, and sadrazam, and because

of his stirring preaching and as leader of the Kadızadeli movement, he became an ex-

tremely influential figure. Archival and narrative sources record his close relations with

key figures of the dynasty and administration.30 He cheered his audience with glad tid-

ings, frightenened them with warnings, and enlightened listeners through his sermons.31

Vani Mehmed Efendi owed much of his prestige to his Kadızadeli credentials; as other

Kadızadeli leaders had before him, so, too, did he aim to eradicate what he considered

illicit Muslim behavior and to strengthen the rule of Islamic law (seriat) and the way

of Muhammad (sunnet) against innovation. His wrath primarily targeted “innovating”

Sufis. In alliance with the sultan and sadrazam, whom the religious leader viewed as

the defenders, protectors, and guardians of the Muslims against the threat of heresies,

Vani Mehmed Efendi aimed to suppress the political power and religious influence of

Bektasis and Halvetis.32 In prayers that the preacher composed for the sultan between

1664 and 1667 and in the letters he exchanged with the sadrazam, Vani Mehmed Efendi

emphasized the threat of innovators, depicted the sultan and the sadrazam as saving the

domains of Islam by repelling threats to the state, and called for reinvigorating Sunni

Islam within the empire.33

Whereas earlier leaders of the Kadızadelis movement had intended to reform only

Muslim behavior, Vani Mehmed Efendi sought to change the beliefs and practices of

Muslims and the public position of Christians and Jews, as well. Thus, beginning in

1661, Vani Mehmed Efendi began to emphasize the sumptuary distinctions marking

non-Muslims from Muslims. Social disorder and lack of social distinctions appeared

to him to be the result of laxity and error in Muslims’ religious beliefs and practices,

and he believed that the high status of non-Muslims symbolized the corrupted nature

of the body politic. Worse, non-Muslim taverns and the sale of alcohol caused moral

corruption, especially in Muslim neighborhoods. Accordingly, Vani Mehmed Efendi

convinced Fazıl Ahmed Pasa to issue orders to destroy taverns in the city and end the

legal trade in alcohol, affecting the economic position of many Christians and Jews.34


OT T O M A N I N N OVAT I O N A N D T H E S TAT U S O F C H U R C H E S

A N D S Y NAG O G U E S

Ottoman authorities had a rich tradition of Islamic and Ottoman law and custom to draw

on when they decided whether to allow Christians and Jews to rebuild their houses of

worship following the fire. Since the beginning of Muslim sovereignty in the Middle East,

the status of churches and synagogues had been called into question as Muslim rulers

conquered regions inhabited by non-Muslims. In the earliest era of Islamic history, the

key point was the restriction on building “new” churches.35 In theory, only those buildings

in existence when Islamic rule began in a region were permitted to continue to stand.

Early and medieval Islamic history is filled with examples of the use of this standard

to determine the status of churches and synagogues. Islamic legal scholars prohibited

construction of new churches and synagogues but differed on whether to rebuild burned

or ruined ones. Most agreed there was a difference between damage and total destruction.

If nothing of a house of worship remained, it could not be rebuilt.36

After the Ottomans captured Constantinople in 1453, they had to decide whether to

allow churches and synagogues to remain. Since Constantinople was taken by force, not

willingly surrendered, its non-Muslim religious buildings could be destroyed, according

to standing policy.37 Yet Ottoman legal authorities claimed that Christians and Jews

assisted the Ottomans in conquering the city, thus allowing them to continue to pray

in their already existing, or “old” (kadim), houses of worship.38 Sometimes, however,

churches and synagogues were torn down because they were either close to mosques

or originally had been homes or other non-church buildings and so were considered

“new.” In 1564–65, for example, churches were demolished in Balat and elsewhere in

Istanbul for these reasons.39 The razings were in accord with the legal opinions (sing.,

fetva; pl., fetava) of Sultan Suleyman I’s famous mufti Seyhulislam Ebussuud Efendi

(Seyhulislam 1545–74; d. 1574). According to a series of his opinions, new churches

were to be razed, but old churches could be rebuilt after fire so long as the building had

not been destroyed completely and the original church had not been expanded.40

Although new churches and synagogues were sometimes razed, the number of non-

Muslim houses of worship in the city increased at least tenfold over two centuries.

As many as forty Orthodox churches stood in Istanbul by the end of the 18th century

although only three had existed at the time of the conquest. Similarly, there were only

three synagogues in the city in 1453 yet more than ten times that number two centuries

later.41 Most of these churches and synagogues would have been considered “new” and

should have been slated for destruction according to Islamic law and custom, yet they

were not destroyed.

What, then, justified appropriating the property of churches and synagogues after

the fire of 1660? The fetava of Seyhulislam Yahya Efendi Minkarizade (Seyhulislam

1662–73; d. 1677) are very similar to those of Ebussuud Efendi. Minkarizade wrote

that a new church or synagogue should be demolished if it had been built within a

municipality whose inhabitants included Muslims who possessed a mosque. If a church

already existed, it could be repaired so long as it was not enlarged, and new buildings

or structures were not to be added to pre-existing church buildings. Also according to

Minkarizade, if an old church, monastery, or religious school fell into disrepair or even a

state of near-ruin, its owners could still repair and rebuild it as long as they added nothing

166 Marc David Baer

to it and built on its original foundation.42 According to these opinions, not only would

Christians and Jews be allowed to rebuild their churches and synagogues if they adhered

to these conditions, there would also be no reason to grant permission to one group to

build new structures and not to another. An imperial decree claimed that, according to

canonical law, burned churches were not to be restored. One would infer that, since in

1660 nothing at all remained of the burned churches and synagogues, for this reason the

state treasury was able to appropriate the property.

Another legal opinion, a copy of which appears in the Istanbul Islamic law court

records, reveals why synagogues were not rebuilt. In the extraordinary period following

the great fire, a fetva was issued stating that the lands of old synagogues that had burned

in the conflagration were to be taken over by the state treasury. Another court record

refers to a fetva that justifies the actions of the state treasury in appropriating the lands

of burned churches in Galata.43 In both cases, the state treasury was able to acquire the

land because, according to canonical law, “there is no owner of the land of the burned old

church (or synagogue)” or the “builder of the old church (or synagogue) is not known.”44

In addition, Ottoman authorities justified razing the buildings because they had decided

that Christians had broken their pledge not to rebuild churches but only homes and, by

extension, not to use those homes as churches. One is left wondering, however, whether

the Ottoman authorities actually believed the Catholics of Galata would not rebuild their

churches. The fetva and pledge echo both the first pledges of Christians at the dawn of

the Islamic era not to build new churches and the latest Ottoman response to the problem.

The Ottomans were one of the most innovative of Islamic dynasties, having instituted

such practices as the devsirme child levy and cash vakıf, both of which seemed to have

little justification in Islamic law. As they had demonstrated following the conquest of the

city, the Ottomans in the late 17th century were not constrained by precedent but were

flexible and acted according to their contemporary political and religious interests.

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F J E W I S H N E I G H B O R H O O D S

For centuries, Eminonu had been Istanbul’s main Jewish neighborhood, and in Byzantine

times it was marked by the Jews’ Gate (Porta Hebraica).45 This Jewish presence con-

tinued into the Ottoman era. Sultan Mehmed II’s endowment registry, written soon after

the Ottoman conquest, notes that the Eminonu region was made up almost entirely of

Jewish residents.46 An Ottoman writer offers another etymology of the gate’s name.

Evliya Celebi claims that because so many Jews from Salonica who had been deported

to Istanbul after the conquest of the city were settled at Martyrs’ Gate (Suhud kapısı) that

they had to change its name to Jews’ Gate (Cufud kapısı).47 Another register recorded

for the endowment of Sultan Mehmed II in 1595–97 demonstrates that 60 percent of the

Jews of Istanbul resided in Eminonu, Sirkeci, and Tahtakale.48

By the end of the 16th century, Istanbul Jews lived and worked primarily in the

economic center of the city on the Golden Horn. Yet that was also the area where the

valide sultan decided to build an imperial mosque. When Safiye Sultan commanded

the head of the imperial architects, Davud Aga, to begin the foundation for a mosque in

late summer 1597, she took advantage of the anger voiced by both Muslim and Venetian

traders against Jewish merchants and tax farmers.49 They claimed that Jews monopolized

the textile and other trades and set untenable conditions on Europeans and Muslims who


wished to enter the market. Muslims petitioned the sultan, claiming that Jewish collectors

of customs taxes behaved in an unbecoming manner toward Muslims. They requested

that Jews be prohibited from collecting the tax, and their wish was granted. Safiye Sultan

then expropriated property from Jewish merchants and residents and began to construct

the mosque. Following the loss of their property, the Jews of Eminonu began migrating

to other parts of the city.

This proposed mosque soon faced many problems. Although the architects had com-

pleted its foundation and had even constructed the building as high as the arches above

the first windows, a number of factors stood in the way of the structure’s completion.

These included criticism of the project in some palace circles; the death of Davud Aga

in 1598; the difficulty of placing a large building at that location; and the death in 1603

of both Sultan Mehmed III and his mother, Safiye Sultan.50 A late-17th-century palace

preacher, Kurd Mustafa, claimed that:

Its immense foundations and bases were laid to the extent that even some arches became partly

raised. But because fortune is not everlasting, the abovementioned valide sultan quaffed the cup

of doom, and went to God’s mercy. The aforementioned mosque, therefore, was left incomplete.

Like an orphan son its arches did not reach the prime of manhood, instead remaining deficient and

incomplete. According to its foregoing condition it became abandoned.51

The unfinished mosque was nicknamed “Oppression” (Zulmiyye), since many com-

plained about the great expense of an imperial building which the Ottomans were unable

to complete.52 Shortly thereafter, Jews began to resettle in Eminonu. The mosque, how-

ever, remained in a ruined state until the massive fire of 1660. The fire excavated the

foundations of the mosque by clearing all the surrounding buildings that had obscured

them.

Valide Sultan Hatice Turhan took the opportunity afforded by the fire to clear the

neighborhood of Jews and complete the mosque—the second time a valide sultan had

expelled the Jews of Eminonu.53 Although Jews offered a bribe to nullify the decision

of the valide sultan, an offer that may have been as great as one-third the total cost of

construction of the entire mosque complex, it was refused; in addition, according to the

historian Silahdar, Jews were threatened with death if they did not sell their property.54

Although the Jews probably attempted to have the order rescinded in other ways, whether

by influencing a key figure at court to intervene on their behalf or by petitioning the

imperial council, no other evidence of Jewish attempts to hinder the imperial order has

been uncovered. Jews complied with the order, and just under one year after the fire

was extinguished, Hatice Turhan, using a portion of her own wealth, began construction

of the mosque and complex, which had not been a royal concern for more than half a

century.55 As the preacher Kurd Mustafa relates panegyrically in his treatise dedicated

to Hatice Turhan:

There is no end to the pious works of her excellency, the valide sultan. Just as her laudable moral

qualities are many, so, too, are her works. Among them is the noble mosque whose match has

not been seen and whose peer has not been heard, which she constructed in the place known as

Eminonu in the well-protected city of Istanbul.56

Jews residing in a major section of the city lost their homes, property, and synagogues

to the fire and, through subsequent appropriation by the valide sultan, to the mosque

168 Marc David Baer


complex. Of an estimated forty synagogues in the city, at least seven burned in the great

fire, representing diverse groups of Jews who had originated in central and southeast-

ern Europe, the Crimea, Anatolia, and Iberia.57 These synagogues included that of the

German (Alman) congregation of Ashkenazi Jews who had voluntarily migrated to the

city in the 15th century; the synagogues of the Antalya and Borlu, Dimetoka, Borlu, and

Zeitouni/Izdin congregations of Anatolian and Rumelian Romaniot Jews deported to the

city by Sultan Mehmed II; the synagogue of the Little Istanbul congregation of Karaites

deported from Kaffa in the Crimea; and the synagogue of the Aragon congregation of

Jews who voluntarily migrated to the city following their expulsion from Iberia.58 The

plots of land on which the synagogues were located and the properties the congregations

possessed accrued to the state treasury and became state-owned land, and Muslim evkaf

purchased them at auction.

The Jews not only had lost their synagogues; they also had to leave the area. Uriel

Heyd notes that the Jewish communities of ten neighborhoods in Istanbul, including

Zeyrek, Balkapanı, and Hoca Pasa, which had appeared in a population register in the

early 17th century (Figure 1), were not recorded in a register from 1691–92 (Figure 2).

He concludes that the Jews must have abandoned these areas since fires had destroyed

their neighborhoods.59 Fire alone, however, did not chase them away. Soon after the

blaze, an imperial decree was issued “that after the fire Jews not reside in Istanbul from

Hoca Pasa (bordering the walls of Topkapı Palace in the east) to Zeyrek (or Sarachane in

the west).” Another commanded that “the households in which Jews resided located in

Istanbul in the neighborhoods of Hoca Pasa and its vicinity that burned in the great fire



of the sixteenth of Zilkade 1070 [24 July 1660] that are private property are to be sold to

Muslims, and those that are owned by endowments are to be entrusted to Muslims.”60 The

historian Silahdar confirms that the area from Tahtakale (near the Rustem Pasa Mosque)

to Hoca Pasa was filled with apartment buildings rented out to Jews (yahudhane), which,

after burning in the fire, were prohibited by imperial decree from being rebuilt.61 Nearly

two-thirds of the Jews in Istanbul had resided in the district centered at Eminonu. The

imperial complex, which included a mosque, tomb, fountain, school, and Egyptian or

spice market, was built at the center of the neighborhood. The beginning of this massive

public-works project radically affected the Jewish population by redistributing them

throughout the city.62

Authorities also expelled Jews from rented rooms in these districts. For example, the

members of a Spanish congregation—Gedalya, son of Menahem; Musa, son of Avraham;

and Menahem, son of Avraham—who rented out rooms near Balkapanı had to turn over

the property to a Muslim trustee. Likewise, the Portuguese Jew Yasef, son of Yako, had

to relinquish the rented land on which stood a yahudhane, and another Portuguese Jew,

Ishak, son of Avraham, who also resided in a yahudhane, had to abandon any claim to

the rooms in which he lived.63 Since Jewish apartments were often owned by Muslims,

the government would later, in exchange, offer owners of the properties lost in Eminonu

other formerly non-Muslim properties in Galata and elsewhere in Istanbul.

Most Jews found themselves across the Golden Horn in Haskoy after they first lost their

homes and synagogues to fire and then had to evacuate their property so the valide sultan’s

mosque could be built. Haskoy’s Jewish population nearly doubled, from eleven to more

170 Marc David Baer

than twenty neighborhoods. There were so many Jews in Haskoy—an estimated 11,000

following the banishment of the Jews of Eminonu—that it was described as follows:

“Haskoy is as brimful (malamal) of Jews as are the cities of Salonica and Safed.”64 Ac-

cording to Heyd, these displacements completely transformed Istanbul Jewry. Romaniot

and Karaite Jews from displaced independent Anatolian and Rumelian congregations

settled along the Golden Horn and Bosphorus and were absorbed by congregations of

Jews who had migrated from Iberia.65 There is no evidence that there was popular support

for the decision to relocate the Jews of Eminonu to Haskoy; however, considering the

inter-religious tension after the fire, it was logical to send them to a predominantly Jewish

village. Because some Christians and Muslims resisted Jews’ settling in neighborhoods

in which they had not previously resided, Ottoman authorities issued legal opinions and

imperial decrees to banish Jews from their new homes in Fener and Galata.66

Muslims held their first Friday prayers in the Valide Sultan Mosque following an

elaborate ceremony on 30 October 1665.67 The valide sultan presented to her son a

stunning jewel-covered dagger with a solid emerald handle. She also gave him a diamond-

studded sash and aigrette. The mosque that had once been nicknamed “Oppression”

became known as “Justice” (Adliye), because when she decided to build the mosque, the

valide sultan had said, “[L]et the task be undertaken with justice.”68 A royal pavilion was

built adjoining the mosque to serve as an occasional residence for the valide sultan and

other members of the dynasty.69

I S L A M I Z AT I O N O F C H R I S T I A N N E I G H B O R H O O D S

Fire also greatly affected the Christians of the city. Of an estimated fifty to sixty churches

in Galata and Istanbul that existed before the fire in 1660 (thirty to forty Orthodox, ten

Armenian, and ten Catholic), at least twenty-five had burned to the ground.70 The property

containing Christian houses of worship that had burned accrued to the state treasury in

accordance with the decree of 1662: “[a]fter some churches of the infidels, polytheists,

and those who go astray burned in the abode of the exalted caliph, the protected city

of Constantinople, during the great conflagration of Saturday, 16 Zilkade 1070 [24 July

1660] the state treasury seized them since according to canonical law they were not to

be restored [to their prior condition].”71 An imperial decree supported by a fetva ordered

the state treasury to acquire the property of Orthodox Christian churches that had burned

in the fire of 1633 and were located near the Fener and Balat Gates.72

Ottoman policy toward Christians was at first markedly different from that concerning

Jews. Beginning a year after the fire, while Hatice Turhan was the most important person

at court, Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians in Galata and Istanbul, and French

and Italian foreign residents in Galata, purchased the land where their burned churches

stood. They constructed homes there, since the authorities insisted that if they built

churches they would lose their property. The state also warned them not to use their

new homes as houses of prayer. In late summer and fall of 1661 and winter of 1662,

Christians reclaimed eighteen church properties in this manner.

The Catholics’ situation was urgent because they were allowed to maintain churches

only in Galata, and six of seven churches in use in Galata had burned in 1660. Galata had

been a Genoese commercial colony in Byzantine Constantinople.73 Following surrender

to Ottoman forces in 1453, most Galata Catholics became poll-tax–paying non-Muslim


subjects of the sultan (zimmi), while some merchants became non-Muslim resident

foreigners (mustemin). Some of their churches were converted to mosques immedi-

ately following the district’s surrender to Sultan Mehmed II, including Saints Paul and

Dominic, which became the Mosque of the Arabs (Arap Cami); the bell tower became

a minaret. Other churches, such as San Michele, were converted during the following

century.

The properties of five ruined Catholic churches were initially purchased at auction.74

A year after the fire, the Orthodox Christian dragoman Georgi, son of Lazari, purchased

the land of Saints Peter and Paul, located in the Bereketzade quarter. Georgi, who owned

a garden bordering the church property, proclaimed his intent to build a home in which

to reside. He promised that “if by some means I build a church, let the state treasury

again seize the property and take it out of my possession.”75 On that day, Constantine,

son of Andrea, also purchased church properties in the same quarter while making

an identical pledge. The mustemin Riboni, son of Martin, followed suit and at the

same auction purchased the property of the burned Saint George church, located in

the same quarter.76 Giving the same promise as the others, a group of seven men with

Italian names purchased the land of the 13th-century Italian Franciscan church of Saint

Francis—called the “ornamented church” by Muslims—and the main church of the

Catholics of Galata, along with the property of neighboring Saint Anne Church and a bell

tower.77

In May and June 1662, however, authorities seized twelve of these eighteen properties.

Sadrazam Fazıl Ahmed Pasa decided that Christians had rebuilt their churches in the

guise of residences and practiced Christian rites within them, engaging in “infidelity,

polytheism, and error,” according to an imperial decree.78 New buildings were razed,

and the property was turned over to Muslim endowments as compensation for losses

incurred when the valide sultan seized the property (such as stores and yahudhane) that

they had owned in Eminonu.79 Ali Celebi had possessed a yahudhane in Eminonu that

burned in the fire, but because the land was located near the site of the valide sultan’s

proposed Mosque of Justice (Adliye Cami), he lost possession of it. In exchange for that

property, he became the owner of property that had formerly been connected to a church

and a yahudhane in Galata.80 Mehmed Cemal Efendi, who was the trustee of a vakıf in

Istanbul and who had owned stores near the new mosque, relinquished those properties

and instead took over properties formerly belonging to Saint Mary (Santa Maria Draperis)

in Galata, a Franciscan Catholic church located near Saint Francis church. The parish

relocated to Pera.81

Two years after the fire, Christians held on to six properties on which had stood

churches that had been destroyed in the conflagration. Two Catholic churches, Saints

Peter and Paul and Saint George, are used today.82 While managing to hold on to ap-

proximately one-fifth of their properties containing burned churches, Christians still

lost nineteen.83 Saint Francis was among the razed churches; it was transformed into

the Valide Sultan Mosque by Gulnus Emetullah Sultan, favorite concubine of Sultan

Mehmed IV and mother of Sultan Mustafa II and Sultan Ahmed III, in 1696–97. An

Ottoman historian gave credit to Gulnus Emetullah Sultan for her pious deed of being

“firmly resolved” to turn a burned church into a mosque and permitting only Muslims to

reside in the formerly Christian neighborhood.84 From the mosque in Galata one could

see its namesake in Eminonu.85

172 Marc David Baer

D I S T I N G U I S H I N G B E T W E E N C H R I S T I A N S A N D J E W S

Islamization in Istanbul may have been a common symbol of authority for the leaders of

the state and dynasty, but it was not uniformly applied. The valide sultan manipulated

the process of Islamization to target Jewish space while Fazıl Ahmed Pasa Islamized

Christian space. Both actions further illustrate the decline of Jews and rise of Orthodox

Christians.

Ottoman narratives concerning the construction of the valide sultan’s imperial mosque

complex illustrate her concern with Jews. Ottoman historians, writers, and palace preach-

ers cursed Jews for residing around the foundations of the mosque and viewed the

destruction of Jewish homes as divine punishment. Referring to the foundations of the

original, though incomplete, Valide Sultan Mosque, a contemporary Ottoman historian

explained: “it was not appropriate for the religion and kingdom of the emperor for the

mosque to lie destroyed in the rubbish in the midst of numerous Jewish neighborhoods.”86

The palace preacher Kurd Mustafa explains how:

That abandoned and ruined mosque remained amidst the Jews. Just as the darkness of infidelity

cloaks their religion, so, too, did they hide the aforementioned mosque’s base and foundations

with sticks and straws to such a degree that no one knew that it was a foundation of a mosque. By

chance one day in the year seventy-one [1071 A.H.], by divine wisdom an immense fire and burning

flame appeared around the aforementioned mosque’s foundations and burned most places in the

well-protected city of Istanbul. Some Friday mosques and small mosques also became burned and

demolished.87

Some writers perceived the fire as divine punishment of Jews: “by the command of God,

all Jewish homes were incinerated and all Jews were banished from that area,” and “when

there was a great incineration in Islambol the filthy homes of Jews residing within Jews’

Gate were destroyed and burned in the flames.”88

The endowment deed for the mosque, signed by Sadrazam Fazıl Ahmed Pasa and

the two leading military magistrates (kadıasker) of the empire, Abdulkadir Efendi and

Abdurrahman Efendi, uses surprisingly harsh language to narrate events. More significant

is the appearance of the document itself: Sultan Mehmed IV’s gilded imperial monogram

(tugra) adorns the first page. The history of the mosque, written for the approval of the

sultan and valide sultan, describes the fire in the following fashion:

By the decree of God the exalted, the fire of divine wrath turned all the neighborhoods of the Jews

upside down. The effect of the flames of the wrath of God made the homes and abodes belonging

to that straying community resemble ashes. Every one of the Jewish households was turned into a

fire temple full of sparks. Since the residences and dwellings of Jews, who are the enemy of Islam,

resembled the deepest part of Hell, the secret of the verse which is incontrovertible, “those that do

evil shall be cast into the fire” (Q 32:20), became clear, and in order to promise and threaten those

who deny Islam with frightening things, the verse, “woe to the unbelievers because of a violent

punishment” (Q 14:2), also became manifest.89

The narrative of the Islamization of Eminonu sought to explain the unprecedented poli-

cies toward Jews by linking them to fire and utilizing current notions of the conquest of

infidel space, perhaps compensating for a lack of success elsewhere. The palace preacher

Kurd Mustafa declared, “[T]he aforementioned mosque showed itself and became man-

ifest just as the Muhammadan religion appeared out of the darkness of infidelity.”90


It is striking that the leading men and women of the empire viewed the banishment

of the Jews and construction of the Valide Sultan Mosque as a conquest of formerly

infidel-occupied land. Those who constructed the mosque displayed considerable his-

torical consciousness; they compared the transfer of Jews from Eminonu to Haskoy to

Muhammad’s exile of the Jewish tribe of Banu Nadir from Medina since they chose the

Quranic chapter “Exile” (al-Hashr, 59) to adorn the gallery level near the royal lodge.91

The chapter narrates how God drove unbelieving Jews into exile and admonishes them

to heed their example. In what could be understood in late-17th-century Istanbul as a

reference to recent events, the chapter warns that in the world to come Jews will also be

punished in hellfire.92

It is difficult to determine the source of Hatice Turhan’s concern with Jews in Istanbul

and the sultan’s inner circle, but its effects are clear. She decided to convince the most

important Jewish physician serving the sultan to become Muslim or lose his position.93

Hatice Turhan’s unprecedented policies toward Jews reflect a change in the formerly

favorable Ottoman attitude that had allowed Jews to hold prominent positions for more

than two centuries. Whereas at the beginning of the 1660s Jews had a privileged position

with the royal family and resided mainly in the heart of the city, by the end of the decade

the geographic position of the Jews reflected their fall from importance. Most Jews in

Istanbul resided on the Golden Horn and Bosphorus, and those who remained in the

most important palace positions converted to Islam. The political position of Jews had

become so weak that no one could intervene to change the decision to banish them from

Eminonu following the fire. Those who remained in the palace were involved in their

own struggle to retain their posts.

Hatice Turhan did not view Christians and Jews in the same manner. If that had been

the case, she would have supported the same policies toward both groups. Vani Mehmed

Efendi and Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, however, were more concerned with Christians than

Jews in Istanbul. According to the Englishman Sir Paul Rycaut, Vani Mehmed Efendi

convinced Fazıl Ahmed Pasa that the fires in Istanbul and Galata and the empire’s lack of

military success were “Divine Judgements thrown on the Musselman . . . in vengeance of

their too much License given to the Christian Religion.”94 Thus, when they rose to power

in 1661, they changed the policy that allowed Christians to rebuild their churches in the

guise of homes. The part of Galata facing Eminonu was Islamized because Fazıl Ahmed

Pasa and Vani Mehmed Efendi were alarmed by Christians flouting law and custom in

the capital city and because they supported the interests of Muslim vakıf owners who

had lost property in Eminonu. Their political concerns were reflected in the decision in

1662 to raze a number of these buildings and turn them over to Muslim endowments,

just as Jewish properties had been treated immediately after the fire.95

The Ottomans faced similar questions of urban renewal in Crete, to which they turned

after opening the Valide Sultan Mosque in 1665. Once Candia was conquered four years

later, the status of churches in the city was not difficult to determine. Fourteen churches

within the citadel were converted into mosques for Sultan Mehmed IV, Hatice Turhan,

Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and other officials.96 Seventy-four other churches were converted into

mosques, as well. What is striking is how echoes of the different approaches to Jews

and Christians taken by the valide sultan and sadrazam in Istanbul were also reflected

on the newly captured island. The entire former Jewish neighborhood in Candia and its

expanded sections, similar to Eminonu in Istanbul, were “declared a revenue-bearing

174 Marc David Baer

Vakıf endowment, with the Valide Sultan Mosque [in Candia] acting as its principal

beneficiary.”97 Synagogues paid daily rent to the vakıf ; nevertheless, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa

encouraged Jews to settle in the city and purchase property.98 Jews were allowed to

buy homes abandoned by Christians at auction, move outside their former ghetto, and

repair “old” synagogues damaged during the siege.99 And, fitting for a decade in which

Orthodox Christians replaced Jews in important palace positions, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa had

good relations with Orthodox Christians in Crete and worked to re-establish their church

at the expense of Catholics.

C O N C L U S I O N

Approximately a year after the 1660 great fire in Istanbul, Hatice Turhan began con-

struction of the Valide Sultan Mosque in Eminonu. Jews were ordered to leave a wide

area stretching from the walls of Topkapı Palace in the east to Zeyrek in the west.

They were expelled from rented rooms, made to sell their property, and compelled to

turn over endowments to Muslims. In accordance with a fetva issued for the unusual

situation, “old” churches and synagogues and their properties that had been destroyed

in the fire were appropriated by the state treasury and put up for auction. This policy

contradicted earlier Islamic and Ottoman practice, because before this time only “new”

non-Muslim houses of worship had been razed or appropriated. In some circumstances

Jews had been given preferential treatment regarding the construction of new houses of

worship in Istanbul.100 Yet in this era, the opposite was true. Louis Mitler has argued

that after the fire authorities “repeatedly denied” permission for Christians to rebuild

burned churches and razed churches that had been reconstructed.101 In fact, unlike Jews,

Christians were allowed to purchase properties in Galata and Istanbul. All of these events

occurred within fourteen months of the Istanbul fire, a period when the valide sultan was

the most influential person in the palace. The situation for Christians began to change in

the fall of 1661, when Fazıl Ahmed Pasa became sadrazam and Vani Mehmed Efendi

became preacher to the sultan, valide sultan, and sadrazam. In the spring and summer

of 1662, properties purchased by Christians at auction were seized by the government

and awarded to Muslim foundations; the basis was thus laid for the construction of an

imperial mosque in Galata on the ruins of an important Catholic church.

Prohibitions on the construction of new churches and synagogues date to the beginning

of Islamic history. However, despite being “on the books,” these regulations were often

ignored. New non-Muslim houses of worship were built and old ones restored and

expanded in every region of the Islamic world. Pre-modern Islamic rulers made decisions

that suited their politics, even if they were contrary to previous practice. Restrictions

were applied, or not, according to contemporary interests. Rulers could carry out these

restrictions when they desired to be viewed as pious, to gain political strength, or to

distract the population from internal social pressures or foreign invaders.102 At the same

time, there could be tension between the interests and policies of the ruler to protect

churches and synagogues and the occasional desire of a part of the populace to knock

them down.103

Islamization policies reflected the intersection of religion and politics. When under-

stood within its historic context, Islamization appears less the outcome of religious piety

than the result of the personal interests and decision-making of key political actors. The


difference in application of Islamization policies in late-17th-century Istanbul reflects

the fragmentation of Ottoman decision-making in that era. Islamization was a common

symbol used for different reasons and thus was not applied evenly. Varying attitudes

held by the chief policymakers concerning Christians and Jews played a more important

role in planning the reconstruction of Istanbul following the cataclysmic 1660 fire than

Islamic law and religious opinion, which made no distinction among different groups of

non-Muslims. There was no legal precedent for allowing Christians to claim properties

while denying Jews the same option.

Eminonu, the first area to be Islamized, contained the foundations of an abandoned

imperial mosque. Jews who lived there were not able to offer resistance because their

economic and political clout was waning, and the valide sultan did not want Jews residing

in proximity to her and other members of the dynasty or serving it in an intimate capacity.

With Hatice Turhan making or influencing decisions at court in 1660, attitudes toward

Jews contributed to a major geographic and cultural transformation of Istanbul Jewry.

Galata was not initially Islamized since the valide sultan was not as concerned with

Christians as she was with Jews. Armenian, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians had local

and international supporters, and Christians—particularly Orthodox, who were able to

re-purchase Christian properties in Galata—were gaining stature in the opinion of key

members of the Ottoman dynasty and administration. Despite that status, which placed

them in a better position relative to Jews, they were unable to resist the appropriation of

all reclaimed properties. The rise of the sadrazam and preacher at court led to a change

in policy concerning churches a year after Christians had purchased properties because

the sadrazam and preacher supported the interests of Muslims who had lost property in

the valide sultan’s rebuilding efforts.

Without considering the intentions of the leading political actors and the historical

circumstances in which they found themselves, one could not predict the behavior of

Ottoman authorities or the outcome of reconstruction plans following the 1660 fire.

Islamization in Eminonu and Galata was neither preordained nor based on interpreta-

tions of Islam alone. There were other alternatives. The valide sultan could have built or

repaired a mosque elsewhere, as Fazıl Ahmed Pasa’s predecessor suggested, and Jews

could have again thrived in Eminonu and Catholics in the heart of Galata. Important

people in the administration, including Seyhulislam Minkarizade, did not support the

Kadızadeli movement and had a different attitude toward non-Muslims—for example,

Minkarizade upheld the practice of communal prayers for the success of military cam-

paigns, which Vani Mehmed Efendi opposed.104 Other intellectual currents were popular

among learned Muslims.105 Yet in a period of acute anxiety caused by political instabil-

ity, economic crisis, the worsening fortunes of the military, and religious redefinition,

Islamization of areas inhabited by non-Muslims in Istanbul served as a visible sign of

the authority of Hatice Turhan, Fazıl Ahmed Pasa, and Vani Mehmed Efendi and of the

dynasty, state, and religion they represented.

N OT E S

Author’s note: Earlier versions of this article were presented to audiences at the Department of Near and

Middle East Civilizations at the University of Toronto and the Turkish Studies Colloquium at the University of

Michigan. I am grateful for the helpful comments received on those occasions. I also thank Cornell Fleischer,

176 Marc David Baer

Robert Dankoff, Joel Kraemer, Ron Suny, Jane Hathaway, Victor Ostapchuk, Gottfried Hagen, Kevin Reinhart,

Esra Ozyurek, Juan Cole, and the three anonymous reviewers of IJMES for their comments on earlier drafts. A

Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship and a Social Sciences Research Council Dissertation

Fellowship supported the research. A visa granted by the Turkish government allowed me to work in Istanbul.

I thank the directors and staffs of the Bafsbakanlık Osmanlı Arsivi (BBA, Ottoman Archive of the Prime

Ministry), the Istanbul Muftulugu Ser’iye Sicilleri Arsivi (Sharia Court Record Archive at the Office of the

Istanbul Mufti), the Suleymaniye Library, the Topkapı Palace Museum Library, and the Koprulu Library for

their assistance.1Nasuh Pasazade Omer Bey, Turhan Valide Sultan Vakıfnamesi, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, ms. Turhan

Valide Sultan 150, February 1663, fol. 17b.2Abdurrahman Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, Koprulu Library, Istanbul, ms. 216, fols. 128b–29b.3Mehmed Halife, Tarih-i Gilmani (Istanbul: Turk Tarihi Encumeni Mecmuası, 1924), 67.4These figures may be exaggerated. According to Ottoman poll-tax (cizye) records, there were 62,000

Christian and Jewish households in Istanbul in 1690–91, of which 80 percent were Christian. If non-Muslims

made up 42 percent of the city’s population, as they had in the previous century, then one can estimate that there

were 86,000 Muslim households in the city. One can then approximate a population of between 600,000 and

750,000, including 200,000 to 250,000 Christians and 50,000 to 60,000 Jews. See Robert Mantran, Istanbul

dans la seconde moitie du XVIIe siecle: Essai d’histoire institutionnelle, economique, et sociale (Paris: Librairie

Adrien Maisonneuve, 1962), 44–47.5Mustafa Cezar, “Osmanlı Devrinde Istanbul Yapılarında Tahribat Yapan Yangınlar ve Tabii Afetler,” Turk

Sanat Tarihi Arastırma ve Incelemeleri (Istanbul, 1963), 1:327–414; Mantran, Istanbul, 36; and Halil Inalcık,

s.v. “Istanbul,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (EI2).6On rebuilding Catholic churches in Galata, see Louis Mitler, “The Genoese in Galata: 1453–1682,”

International Journal of Middle East Studies 10 (1979): 86–91. But see also Halil Inalcık, “Ottoman Galata,

1453–1553,” in idem, Essays in Ottoman History (Istanbul: Eren, 1998), 275–376. On the dislocation of Jews,

see Uriel Heyd, “The Jewish Community of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century,” Oriens 6 (1953): 311–13.

See also Avram Galante, Histoire des juifs d’Istanbul (Istanbul: Imprimerie Husnutabat, 1941), 15, 53; and

Stephane Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive d’Istanbul a la fin du XVIe siecle,” Turcica 27 (1995): 108. The

Romaniots were Greek-speaking Jews present in the Byzantine Empire. The Karaites were a sect of Jews who

accept only the Torah (written law) and not the Talmud (oral law) of Rabbanite Jews. On Valide Sultan Hatice

Turhan, see Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1993), 206–209; and Lucienne Thys-Senocak, “The Yeni Valide Mosque Complex

at Eminonu,” Muqarnas 15 (1998): 58–70. See also Ali Saim Ulgen, “Yenicami,” Vakıflar Dergisi 2 (1942):

387–97; and Oktay Aslanapa, Osmanlı Devri Mimarısi (Istanbul: Inkılap Kitabevi, 1986), 347–55.7 Ismail Hakkı Uzuncarsılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, 3rd ed., vol. 3, pt. 1 (Ankara: Turk Tarihi Kurumu Basımevi,

1983), 388.8Sevket Pamuk, “In the Absence of Domestic Currency: Debased European Coinage in the Seventeenth-

Century Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Economic History 57 (1997): 345–66. Ottoman silver coins (akce)

became merely units of account because Dutch thaler (esed-ı gurus) and Spanish reales de la ocho (pieces of

eight, riyal gurus) were used for actual payments.9For the events of 1650, see Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 27a–28a; for the events of 1656, see Hrand d.

Andreasyan, “Cınar Vakası,” Istanbul Enstitusu Dergisi 3 (1957): 57–83.10M. Cavid Baysun, s.v. “Mehmed IV,” Islam Ansiklopedisi (Istanbul, 1960). M. Tayyib Gokbilgin and

R. C. Repp s.v. “Koprulu,” EI2; Halil Inalcık, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire,

1600–1700,” Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980): 283–337; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change, 1590–1699,”

in An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol. 2: 1600–1914, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi et al.

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 423–24; and Kenneth M. Setton, Venice, Austria, and the

Turks in the Seventeenth Century (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1991), 137–205.11Uzuncarsılı, Osmanlı Tarihi, 328.12Kurd Hatib Mustafa, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, Topkapı Sarayı Muzesi, Istanbul, ms. Eski Hazine 1400,

fols. 7b–8a, describes the despair in the city.13The Ottoman defeat of the Venetian navy and conquest of the islands of Bozcaada and Limni in 1657

opened the straits and Istanbul to Ottoman ships. Rebellious sipahis were executed; the uprising of Abaza

Hasan Pasa, the ringleader of revolt in Anatolia, was crushed; and state finances were stabilized so that by

1660–61 the state budget was practically balanced. See Mantran, Istanbul, 254.


14Ahmet Yasar Ocak, “XVII Yuzyılda Osmanlı Imparatorlugunda Dinde Tasfiye (Puritanizm)

Tesebbuslerine Bir Bakıs: Kadızadeliler Hareketi,” Turk Kulturu Arastırmaları 17–21, nos. 1–2 (1979–83):

208–25; Lewis V. Thomas, A Study of Naima, ed. Norman Itzkowitz (New York: New York University Press,

1972), 106–10; Madeline Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul,”

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45 (1986): 251–69; and idem, The Politics of Piety: The Ottoman Ulema in

the Post-Classical Age (1600–1800) (Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1988), 146–59. See also Semiramis

Cavusoglu, “The Kadızadeli Movement: An Attempt of Seriat-Minded Reform in the Ottoman Empire” (Ph.D.

diss., Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., 1990).15On the link between Halvetis and sultans, see F. de Jong, s.v. “Khalwatiyya,” EI2. On the Kadızadelis’ rise

in influence, see Mustafa Naima, Tarih-i Naima, vols. 5–6 (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, n.d), 5:54–59, 6:227–41;

and Thomas, Naima, 106–10.16The position of chief rabbi (hahambası) was not instituted until 1835.17Benjamin Arbel, Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean

(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 17, 193–94; Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 452–60; William McNeill, “Hypotheses

concerning Possible Ethnic Role Changes in the Ottoman Empire in the Seventeenth Century,” in Social and

Economic History of Turkey (1071–1920), papers presented to the First International Congress on the Social and

Economic History of Turkey, ed. Osman Okyar and Halil Inalcık (Ankara: Meteksan Limited Sirketi, 1980),

127–29; Traian Stoianovich, “The Conquering Balkan Orthodox Merchant,” Journal of Economic History 20

(1960): 234–313; Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, “Introduction,” in Christians and Jews in the Ottoman

Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, ed. Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis, 2 vols. (New York:

Holmes and Meier, 1982), 1:1–34; and Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry: A History of

the Judeo-Spanish Community, Fourteenth to Twentieth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press,

2000), 36–49.18Charles A. Frazee, Catholics and Sultans: The Church and the Ottoman Empire, 1453–1923 (London:

Cambridge University Press, 1983), 100–102.19Rifaat Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth

Centuries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 38, 44.20Peirce, Imperial Harem, 257.21Mehmed IV did have an impact on non-Muslims in Edirne and Rumelia, where hundreds of Christians

and Jews converted to Islam before him at his court in the last part of his reign (1661–87).22Mehmed Halife, Tarih-i Gilmani, 96.23Faroqhi, “Crisis and Change,” 609–22.24Peirce, Imperial Harem, 194–96, 211; Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 17a–b.25Irene Bierman, “Preliminary Considerations,” in Writing Signs: The Fatimid Public Text (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1998), chap. 1.26Gokbilgin and Repp, “Koprulu.”27Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 14a–b.28Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 108b–109b; Rasid Mehmed Efendi, Tarih-i Rasid, vols. 1–2 (Istanbul:

n.p., 1866–67), 1:483; and Defterdar Sarı Mehmed, Zubde-i Vekayiat, (Ankara: Turk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi,

1995), 210. Vani Mehmed Efendi spoke Kurdish and was referred to as being “among the ulema of the land

of the Kurds.”29Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:106–107.30In 1666, Sultan Mehmed IV honored the preacher with a visit to his household; see Abdi Pasa,

Vekayiname, fols. 228a–b, and Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:134–35. The preacher stayed by the sultan’s side

during military campaigns, as well—for example, the commissary-general was ordered to provide Vani

Mehmed Efendi with foodstuffs during the Ottoman campaign to Poland in 1673–74. See Basbakanlık

Osmanlı Arsivi (BBA), Istanbul, Ali Emiri Tasnifi, Mehmed IV: 1169–72, 1986. The preacher also accom-

panied the valide sultan in 1672 when she journeyed from Istanbul to Edirne. See Peirce, Imperial Harem,

194.31Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 197a–b, 29 January 1666. Invited to pray at Dimetoka for the Ottoman

army besieging Candia, the preacher ascended the pulpit at the imperial tent and “scattered such precious

jewels from the treasure of Quranic truth that tearful eyes and hearts filled with amazement.” See ibid., fols.

234a–b, 13 June 1667.32F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, ed. Margaret Hasluck, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1929;

repr. New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 1:419–23.

178 Marc David Baer

33Vani Mehmed Efendi, Munseat Vani Efendi, Suleymaniye Library, ms. Aya Sofya 4308, fols. 1b–15a.

Vani Mehmed Efendi composed a prayer in 1665 in which he praises the sultan for being “always victorious

and guided to success over the enemies of religion and state, infidels and innovators.” A prayer from 1666

praises the sultan for being “the one who proclaims the true religion to unbelievers and humbles and humiliates

the word of the infidels and sinners.”34Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 302a, 1 August 1670. See also Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:250; and Silahdar

Fındıklılı Mehmed Aga, Silahdar Tarihi, vols. 1–2 (Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası, 1928), 1:559.35According to the Pact of Umar, the model agreement that was meant to guide relations between Muslims

and non-Muslims in lands under Muslim sovereignty, Christians in the earliest era of Islamic history pledged

not to build “new monasteries, churches, convents, or monks’ cells, nor shall we repair, by day or by night,

such of them as fall in ruins or are situated in the quarters of the Muslims.” The historicity of this agreement

may be debatable, but its tenets formed the basis for determining the status of churches and synagogues. See

Bernard Lewis, ed., Islam from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople, 2 vols. (New York:

Oxford University Press, 1987), 2:118; and Mark R. Cohen, Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle

Ages (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 58–60.36Claude Cahen, s.v. “Dhimma,” EI2. For examples from Abbasid Baghdad and Fatimid and Mamluk

Cairo, see Lewis, Islam, 2:224, 231, 234; and Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands (Philadelphia: Jewish

Publication Society of America, 1979), 189–91. For additional examples, see Antoine Fattal, Le statut legal

des non-musulmans en pays d’Islam (Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1958), 174–78, 180–203.37Halil Inalcık, “The Policy of Mehmed II toward the Greek Population of Istanbul and the Byzantine

Buildings of the City,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23–24 (1969–70): 248–49; and idem, “Istanbul.”38M. Ertugrul Duzdag, Seyhulislam Ebussu’ud Efendi’nin Fetvalarına Gore Kanunı Devrinde Osmanlı

Hayatı: Fetava-yı Ebussuud Efendi (Istanbul: Sule Yayınları, 1998), 165, n. 456.39Ahmed Refik, Onuncu Asr-ı Hicrı’de Istanbul Hayatı (1495–1591) (Istanbul, 1917; repr. Istanbul:

Enderun Kitabevi, 1988), 44–45.40Duzdag, Seyhulislam Ebussuud Efendi, 166–68. Concerning the razing of new churches, see nn. 460,

461, 463; on the subject of the rebuilding of old churches, see n. 465; on the issue of the illegality of expansion,

see nn. 466 and 467.41 Inalcık, “Istanbul”; Galante, Histoire, 162.42Several fetava make this point. Minkarizade Yahya ibn Omer, Fetava-i Minkarizade Efendi, Suleymaniye

Library, Istanbul, ms. Hamidiye 610, fols. 37a–b.43Istanbul Muftulugu, Ser’iye Sicilleri Arsivi, Istanbul Ser’iye Sicilleri (hereafter ISS) 9, 52a, 8 July 1661;

86a, 13 August 1661.44Despite the distinction in Arabic between synagogue (kanis) and church (kanisa), the single term kanisa

(kenise in Turkish) is used in the Islamic law court records to refer to both church and synagogue.45Galante, Histoire, 59.46Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 119–20, 124.47The Seyahatname of Evliya Celebi, Book One: Istanbul (hereafter, Evliya), facsimile of Topkapı Sarayı

Bagdat, 304, pt. 1, fols. 1a–106a, Sources of Oriental Languages and Literatures 11, ed. Sinasi Tekin, Turkish

Sources 9 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), fol. 31b, 13–14.48Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 101–102.49Thys-Senocak, “Yeni Valide Mosque Complex,” 62–63.50Ibid. See also Ulgen, “Yenicami,” 389.51Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 18a–b.52Evliya, 1:87b, 1–20.53Safiye Sultan and Hatice Turhan were both Christian converts to Islam raised in the palace. Perhaps their

education contributed to their attitudes toward Jews.54Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218; and Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 22a–b. The latter claims the

total cost of the mosque complex was 3,080 purses of gold (kese). Evliya Celebi wrote that the cost was 5,000

kese: Evliya, 1:87b.55The fire began on the afternoon of 24 July and lasted until the afternoon of 26 July; construction began

on 22 July of the following year. See Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 128b, and Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218.

On Hatice Turhan’s use of her own funds, see Evliya, 1:87b, 10–15.56Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fol. 18a. According to Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218, after the fire

Sadrazam Koprulu Mehmed Pasa first urged the valide sultan to repair the Cerrah Mehmed Pasa Mosque in


Avret Pazarı. Then, based on the advice of the head architect, Mustafa Efendi, the sadrazam appealed to her

religious sense and advised her to exert herself in completing the Valide Sultan Mosque instead so that God

would pardon her sins. She agreed and decided to rebuild the mosque in Eminonu. Kurd Hatib makes no

mention of the advice of the sadrazam.57The estimate of forty is found in Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 303. See Galante, Histoire, 162–73.58On Zeitouni/Izdin, see ISS 9, fol. 52a, 8 July 1661, and ibid. 10, fol. 82a, 5 June 1662; on Alman/German,

see ibid. 9, fol. 85a, 31 July 1661, and ibid. 9, 216a, 18 December 1661; on Little Istanbul, see ibid. 9, fol.

86a, 13 August 1661; on Dimetoka, see ibid. 9, fol. 177b, 27 October 1661; on Aragon, see ibid. 9, fol. 216a,

18 December 1661; on Antalya and Borlu, see ibid. 10, fols. 113b–14a, 16 September 1661; and on Borlu, see

ibid. 9, fol. 143b, 29 September 1661.59Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 300–305.60ISS 9, fol. 143b, 29 September 1661; ibid. 10, fol. 82a, 5 June 1662.61Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218–19.62Yerasimos, “La Communaute juive,” 119–20, 124, 130.63On Spanish congregation members, see ISS 9, fol. 110a, 31 August 1661; on Yasef, son of Yako,

see ibid. 9, fol. 174a, 30 October 1661; on Ishak, son of Avraham, see ibid. 9, fol. 194b, 26 October

1661.64Evliya, 1:124a, 20–25.65Heyd, “Jewish Communities,” 310–14. Another outcome of the fire, plague, and expulsion was that many

Istanbul Jews joined the messianic movement of Izmir Rabbi Shabbatai Tzevi when he arrived in the city in

winter 1666.66ISS, 9, fol. 244a, 13 January 1662, and BBA, Sikayet Defteri (complaint register), 6, 105, no. 456,

December–January 1668. Christians also attempted to settle in neighborhoods where they previously had not

resided, but Muslims resisted their encroachment and secured their expulsion. See ISS 10, fol. 110b, 7 July

1662. About 100 Jewish households eventually resettled in Eminonu. But since Jews were accused of engaging

in many “abominable acts,” they were expelled in 1727 so that only Muslims could reside near the mosque. See

Ahmed Refik, Onikinci Asr-ı Hicrıde Istanbul Hayatı (1689–1785) (Istanbul, 1930; repr. Istanbul: Enderun

Kitabevi, 1988), 88–89.67Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fol. 193a; and Rasid, Tarihi-i Rasid, 1:106–107.68Evliya, 1:87b, 10–15. “Justice” refers to the just expenditure of the dynasty’s wealth. In the 16th century,

Mustafa Ali explained that charitable establishments such as imperial complexes were to be financed by the

spoils of war because using funds from the public treasury squandered wealth. See Gulru Necipoglu-Kafadar,

“The Suleymaniye Complex in Istanbul: An Interpretation,” Muqarnas 3 (1985): 113.69Lucienne Thys-Senocak, “The Yeni Valide Mosque Complex of Eminonu, Istanbul (1597–1665): Gender

and Vision in Ottoman Architecture,” in Women, Patronage, and Self-Representation in Islamic Societies, ed.

D. Fairchild Ruggles (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 74–75.70ISS 9, fols. 83b–96b, 142a–57a, 247a–253a; ibid. 10, fols. 82a–95a, 156b. For estimating the number

of churches, see Inalcık, “Istanbul”; Eremya Celebi Komurciyan, Istanbul Tarihi: XVII Asırda Istanbul, trans.

Hrand D. Andreasyan, 2nd ed. (Istanbul: Eren, 1988); and Mantran, Istanbul, 51, 54–55.71ISS 10, fol. 106b, 9 May 1662.72Ibid. 9, fol. 83b, 11 August 1661; ibid., fol. 86a, 3 August 1662; and ibid., fol. 177b, 27 October 1661.73 Inalcık, “Ottoman Galata,” 275–99, 349–50.74See also Mantran, Istanbul, 561–62; Eremya, Istanbul Tarihi, 223–26. The five churches are French

Capuchin Saint George, which had formerly been Byzantine and then Genoese (ISS 9, fol. 96b, 17 August

1661); Italian Saint Francis (San Francesco), Saint Anne (Santa Anna), and a bell tower (ibid., fol. 247a,

3 January 1662); San Sebastian (ibid., fol. 96b, 17 August 1661); and originally Genoese Dominican Saints

Peter and Paul (Santi Apostoli Pietro e Paolo) (ibid., fol. 96a, 17 August 1661), which became a French church

at the beginning of the 18th century.75ISS 9, fol. 96a, 17 August 1661.76Ibid. 9, fols. 96a–b, 17 August 1661.77Ibid. 10, fol. 247a, 3 January 1662. Among the men are Giovanni, son of Carlo; Nicola, son of Franco;

Francesco, son of Giovanni; and Domenico, son of Giovanni.78Ibid., fol. 156b, 9 May 1662.79Ibid., fol. 156b. For the purchase of the land, see ibid. 9, fol. 96b, 17 August 1661. For the loss of

the lands, see ibid., 10, fol. 86a, 3 June 1662; ibid. 10, fols. 82b, 84b–85a, 2 June 1662. For examples of

180 Marc David Baer

property being awarded in lieu of seized property, see the entries for the week of 2–9 June 1662, in ibid. 10,

fols. 82a–86b, 88a–89b.80Ibid. 9, 95a, 22 June 1662.81Ibid. 82b, 2 June 1662. The parish church is today located on Istiklal Caddesi between the Dutch and

Russian consulates. Inside one can view a 500-year-old icon of the Virgin Mary that survived the fire of 1660.82Saint George has been affiliated with many different Catholic orders. Today it is Austrian Lazarist and

located within the complex of the Austrian High School.83The Armenian churches Surp (Saint) Sarkis and Surp Nigogos in Kumkapı burned in the fire and were

subsequently repaired. On orders of the sadrazam, the latter was razed in 1661 and the former in 1674. See

Eremya, Istanbul Tarihi, 3, nn. 84–85.84Defterdar, Zubde-i Vekayiat, 606–607. See also The Garden of the Mosques: Hafız Huseyin Al-

Ayvansarayı’s Guide to the Muslim Monuments of Ottoman Istanbul, trans. Howard Crane (Leiden: E. J.

Brill, 2000), 357–58: “[o]riginally, there was a church on the site of this mosque. Later, when it burned, legal

permission for its reconstruction was not given and a vacant plot of land remained. Subsequently, this mosque

was built. [This is] a chronogram for its completion: ‘May the place of worship of the valide sultan be an abode

of pious acts!’ 1109 [1697–98].”85The Valide Sultan Mosque in Galata was demolished in 1936 to make room for the Galata Hardware

Market. See Semavi Eyice, Galata ve Kulesi (Galata and Its Tower) (Istanbul: Turkiye Turing ve Otomobil

Kurumu, 1969), 16.86Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:218.87Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fols. 19b–20a. The fire actually occurred in 1660 C.E. (1070 A.H.).88Evliya, 1:87b, 13–14; ibid., 124a, 20–22.89Nasuh Pasazade Omer Bey, Turhan Valide Sultan Vakıfnamesi, fols. 17b–18a. Quran 32:20 states, “Those

that have faith and do good works shall be received in the gardens of Paradise, as a reward for that which they

have done. But those that do evil shall be cast into the Fire. Whenever they try to get out of Hell they shall be

driven back, and a voice will say to them: ‘Taste the torment of Hell-fire, which you have persistently denied.”’90Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, fol. 20a.91Thys-Senocak, “Yeni Valide Mosque Complex at Emınonu,” 67.92Quran 59:3. Muslims chopped down some of the Banu Nadir’s date palms and burned others to their

roots. This is another reference to fire and a potential reason for selecting the verse. Scribes in the Islamic

law courts of the city also gave meaning to the Islamization of Christian and Jewish neighborhoods. Some

sprinkled gold dust on the phrase “the appropriation of the land of churches (or synagogues)” in the law court

records. One scribe wrote a saying attributed to Muhammad (hadıs) in Arabic: “God will build a home in

paradise for the one who builds a mosque for God.”93Kurd Hatib, Risale-i Kurd Hatib, 18b–19b. The Spanish Jewish physician Moses, son of Raphael

Abravanel, became Hayatizade Mustafa Fevzi Efendi.94As quoted in Zilfi, Politics of Piety, 151.95Contemporary Europeans such as Paul Rycaut and Antoine Galland contended that Fazıl Ahmed Pasa

and Vani Mehmed Efendi aimed to make all of Istanbul free of non-Muslims. See ibid., 149–53. Their fears

reflect a misunderstanding of Ottoman society and an exaggeration of the extent and nature of the devsirme.

Christians and Jews had an organic place within plural Ottoman society; the pre-modern state did not compel

the conversion of most non-Muslims.96Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:525–26; for fetava concerning the same topic, see Minkarizade Elendi,

Fetava-i 32a–33a.97Zvi Ankori, “From Zudecha to Yahudi Mahallesi: The Jewish Quarter of Candia in the Seventeenth

Century (A Chapter in the History of Cretan Jewry under Muslim Rule),” in Salo Wittmayer Baron

Jubilee Volume, 2 vols., ed. Saul Lieberman (Jerusalem: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1974),

1:96.98Molly Greene, A Shared World: Christians and Muslims in the Early Modern Mediterranean (Princeton,

N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 78–87.99Ankori, “Zudecha to Yahudi Mahallesi,” 1:89–91, 93, 96, 127. The Valide Sultan Mosque and the Jewish

quarter in Candia were razed in the 20th century.100Mark Epstein, The Ottoman Jewish Communities and Their Role in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,

Islamkundliche Untersuchungen vol. 56 (Freiburg: K. Schwarz, 1980), 28–30.101Mitler, “The Genoese in Galata,” 91.


102Examples include the Almohad (1130–1269) dynasty in North Africa and Spain, the Crusader and Mongol

invasions, and 13th- and 14th-century Cairo.103The situation was sometimes reversed. Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim (r. 996–1021) ordered the razing of

churches, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which may have stimulated the First Crusade. Yet

he was an exception. His successors allowed churches to be rebuilt, and other Fatimid rulers funded their

construction, even attending groundbreaking ceremonies. See Marius Canard, s.v. “al-Hakim,” EI2.104Zilfi, “The Kadızadelis,” 264–65.105In accordance with a fetva, the respected imam Lari Mehmed Efendi was executed in 1665 for denying

the raising of the dead for the Last Judgment and the religious obligations of prayer and fasting and deeming

the consumption of wine lawful. See Abdi Pasa, Vekayiname, fols. 158a–b; Silahdar, Silahdar Tarihi, 1:378;

Rasid, Tarih-i Rasid, 1:94; and Ahmet Yasar Ocak, Osmanlı Toplumunda Zındıklar ve Mulhidler (15.–17.

Yuzyıllar) (Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, 1998), 245–47.

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