The Grand Vizier and the False Messiah: The Sabbatai Sevi Controversy and the Ottoman Reform in Egypt

Abstract

When Sabbatai Sevi proclaimed himself messiah in 1665, many Jews throughout the Ottoman Empire and beyond abandoned their normal occupations in anticipation of a messianic age. The Ottoman authorities imprisoned Sabbatai Sevi, who ultimately converted to Islam. The Sabbatian movement has typically been analyzed as a form of Kabbalistic mysticism. Madeline Zilfi has pointed out, however, that the movement coincided with the heyday of the Kadizadelis, a rigorously anti-mystical group of Muslim preachers. The present study proposes that the collapse of Sabbatai Sevi's movement was also connected to the reforms of the Koprulu grand viziers, who patronized the Kadizadelis. In Egypt, fiscal reform was accompanied by the murder of the fervently Sabbatian Jewish community leader and the abolition of his office. Thus, a rereading of the Sabbatai Sevi affair in light of the Koprulu reforms and Kadizadeli rigor reveals it as a product of intense religious and political ferment within the Ottoman Empire, and within Egypt in particular