Vani Efendi. The Sultan was a secret observer of the proceedings, and of Sabbatai Zvis conversion when offered the choice between that or death. 99 Emerging as the new Muslim Aziz Mehmed Efendi, a salaried court functionary, Sabbatai Zvi began to proselytize on behalf of his adopted religion, sowing more than a little confusion in the minds of his former adherents an unlooked-for ally in Vani Efendis crusade to minimize the prominence of non-Muslims in the public life of the empire. Unlike in Sultan Sleyman Is time, when non-conformist religious opinions could lead to execution, the Ottoman establishment was able to absorb a repentant religious troublemaker as easily as it had earlier accommodated the contrite military rebels of Anatolia. Sabbatai Zvis fervour for his new faith did not last, however, and he was eventually banished to Albania where he died in 1676. The movement he initiated had repercussions throughout Europe and the Middle East, bringing about the conversion to Islam

*100 European observers were at a loss to explain the wave of conversions which took place during the reign of Sultan Mehmed IV, 101 both before but especially after Sabbatai Zvis time, when many Christians and Jews appeared in person before the Sultan, at his court in Edirne and also in the course of his

So numerous were they that included in a new compilation of laws drawn up by the Sultans secretary Abdurrahman Abdi Pasha in 16767 was The Law of the New Muslim, which regularized the conversion process to comprise instruction in the articles of Islam, the awarding of coins and the appropriate clothing to the convert and, if Christian, his circumcision. Conversion permitted Jews and Christians to share in the benefits enjoyed by the majority Muslim population of the empire, and relieved them of the political and financial disabilities of their toleratedstatus. New Muslim males, like old, had the opportunity to rise to the highest offices of state; they could, among other benefits, marry whom they chose, while non-Muslim males were restricted to marrying non-Muslim women. Women and children also converted: among the advantages for women was that they could then divorce non-Muslim husbands or, if they were the household slaves of non-Muslims, eventually gain

102 That the court could spend so much time in Edirne, where Mehmed IV was able to indulge his passion for hunting, and his laissez-faire attitude to affairs of state, suggests that Anatolia was at last quiet, a successful outcome of the late Grand Vezir Kprl Mehmed Pashas violent repression of the disturbances there. Kprl Mehmed had also laid the foundations for the stable government of his son Fazl Ahmed Pasha by stamping out the factional struggles and palace intrigues that had characterized politics earlier in the century. Under Fazl Ahmed, who was grand vezir for fifteen years, the holders of the highest offices of state remained remarkably unchanged. Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha had held high office under Kprl Mehmed and continued to counsel the Sultan after Fazl Ahmed came to power, as did the vezir Musahib Mustafa Pasha. The chief treasurer Cebeci (Armourer) Ahmed Pasha, appointed in 1662, remained in his post for fourteen years. Sheikhulislam Minkarizade Yahya