Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire
SELIM DERINGIL, Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012) Pp. 281. $105 cloth.In his most recent book, Selim Deringil cogently elucidates the tangled web of Ottoman state concerns, local tensions, diplomatic intrigue and interests, and the issues of modernization, nationalism, citizenship, and religious identity within the late Ottoman Empire's Tanzimat and Abdulhamid II periods. Specifically, conversion and apostasy among Ottoman subjects, both Muslim and Christian, act as his lens into this above mentioned tangled web particularly related to how the central Ottoman state's view of conversion and apostasy transformed in the nineteenth century. Building upon the arguments of his own Well protected Domains and Ussama Makdisi's Artillery of Heaven and The Culture of Sectarianism, Deringil argues that as nationalism spread within the Ottoman Empire, the importance of religion and religious identity within the context of conversion and apostasy did not fade over time, but became inextricably connected to national identity. This was most apparent in many of the Balkan nationalist wars for independence wherein national and religious identities were synonymous. In fact, conversion from Islam to Christianity and vice versa constituted a major catastrophe and embarrassment for the empire in terms of imperial interests and international diplomatic relations. So much so, Deringil claims that for the empire, its diverse communities, and international powers, conversion and apostasy came to represent a form of "de nationalization," which he defines as "the loss of a soul and a body from an increasingly 'nationally imagined' community. This loss was also seen as a symbolic rape of the community's honor.[3]" Deringil provides four fascinating case studies to illustrate this phenomenon.The first two cases deal with so called crypto Christians. Since, one's national identity, and consequently citizenship and potential loyalty, could not be disentangled from one's religion, with the proclamation of the Tanzimat and the promise of equal protection under the law regardless of religious affiliation, it now became imperative for the Ottoman state to define, test, and maintain its diverse population's religious identities so as not to upset the tenuous domestic and international obsessions with the empire's diverse populations and potential nationalist aspirations. Long lived crypto Christian communities, such as the Kromlides and Stavriotes, now came under intense state scrutiny. These two communities had lived openly for centuries as Christians, but claimed Muslim identity. With the declaration of the new religious freedoms, they wanted to be officially recognized as Christians once again. Yet, the central state desperately feared that to allow such "reversion" would cause an avalanche of "reconversions," thus undermining Ottoman Islamic identity and facilitating further Great Power interference with the empire's internal sovereignty.The other two cases deal with the opposite flow of conversion, i.