Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Mehmed the Conqueror between Sulh-i Kull and Prisca Theologia

2022; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 56; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s0026749x21000184

1469-8099

Giancarlo Casale,

Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East

Abstract This article presents a new interpretation of the reign of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1444–46, 1451–81) as refracted through the twin historical lenses of Mughal South Asia and the Renaissance Mediterranean. On the one hand, it argues that Mehmed, despite his current reputation as a conquering hero of Islam, in fact aspired to a model of sovereignty analogous to Akbar's Sulh-i Kull , and with a common point of origin in the conceptual worlds of post-Mongol Iran and Timurid central Asia. On the other hand, it also draws from the historiography of the Italian Renaissance to interpret Mehmed's cultural politics as being simultaneously inspired by a particular thread of Renaissance philosophy, the Prisca Theologia , which in many ways served as the Ottoman equivalent of Akbar's Sulh-i Kull .