"Marc Baer offers an innovative interpretation of religious conversion, especially conversion to Islam in the Ottoman age. Lacking enough evidence to speculate on the motives of the converts, he instead focuses on the agency of those who initiated the conversion process - in this case no less than the sultan himself. Baer focuses on the career of Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648-87), and on the people who came into direct contact with his court. In this way he sheds important new light on a critical period in the Ottoman Empire's long history. Baer also convincingly revises the character of Mehmed IV as an inept ruler whose incompetence led to the catastrophic siege of Vienna in 1683. This original study will be of great interest not only to Ottoman specialists, but to students of Islam and of religious conversion." --R.M.Eaton, Professor of History, University of Arizona

Winner of the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America for the best book in Middle East Studies (2008) and short-listed for the Best First Book in the History of Religions by the American Academy of Religion (2009).