Conclusion

Abstract

This book has explored conversion to Islam in the Ottoman Empire and considers avenues for future research. It has examined how “Islam” and the “Ottoman Empire” were defined and redefined in the period between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries in response to the process of conversion. Drawing on various narratives from the Ottoman Lands of Rum concerning conversion to Islam, it has discussed the evolution of the debate on who was a Muslim and how the boundaries of the Muslim community were to be defined and enforced in the Ottoman domains. These debates and the ongoing reconceptualization of conversion in the Ottoman context have been considered through the lens of the early modern Mediterranean “age of confessionalization.” Conversion according to the perspectives of Ottoman Muslims and Orthodox Christians in this age of confessionalization persisted after the seventeenth century.