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

About the Author
Marc David Baer, a historian of Religion and Islamic history, is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Irvine.

Reviews
Baer's book has many strengths. ... Baer demonstrates in theoretically and empirically rich chapters a growing awareness and assertion of reliogious identities in the context of social crisis. * Charles L. Wilkins, Journal of the American Oriental Society *
Baer has produced a well-writtien, nuanced account of the reign of Mehmed IV. * Metin Kunt Journal of Islamic Studies *
This is a fascinating work of historical retrieval * Philip Lewis, Muslim World Book Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780195331752
Author Marc David Baer
Format Hardback
Page Count 344
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 646g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 31mm