ANTH 3330 Lecture Notes - Mughal Empire, Aurangzeb, Purdah
11 Apr 2014
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After battles between muslims and christians, churches were converted into mosques and mosques into churches according to who was the winner. Although mehmet converted many churches into mosques, he did not suppress the christian faith itself. There were practical reasons for this: christians were the largest group of the population and coexistence was likely to be more efficient than conflict, the institutions of the church provided a machine for implementing mehmet"s rule. But mehmet was also influenced by the islamic rule that muslims should show respect to all religions. Mehmet not only tolerated the christians, he made special efforts to attract jews to istanbul. This was attractive to the jews, who had previously been persecuted by the orthodox christian. The non-muslim communities (millets) were controlled by the sultan acting through their religious leaders. These communities were given their own parts of towns in which to live and worship.
