Honored by the Glory of Islam

Marc David Baer proposes a novel approach to the historical record of Islamic conversions during the Ottoman age and gathers fresh insights concerning the nature of religious conversion itself. Rather than explaining Ottoman Islamization in terms of the converts' motives, Baer concentrates on the proselytizing sultan Mehmet IV (1648-87).

Associate Professor of History, UC--Irvine

Introduction: Conversion of Self, Others, Sacred Space, and Conquest
1 Inauspicious Enthronement
2 A Decade of Crisis
3 Enjoing Good and Forbidding Wrong
4 Islamizing Istanbul
5 Conversion to Piety: Mehmed IV and Preacher Vani Mehmed Efendi
6 Converting the Jewish Prophet and Jewish Physicians
7 Conversion and Conquest: Ghazi Mehmed IV and Candia
8 Conversion and Conquest: Ghaza in Central and Eastern Europe
9 Hunting for Converts
10 The Failed Final Jihad
11 Mehmed IV's Life and Legacy, From Ghazi to Hunter
Conclusion: Islamic Rulers and the Process of Conversion
Postscript: Silences and Traces of the Past
Notes
Bibliography