Ottoman rule in Hungary and the knowledge of Islam during the second half of the sixteenth century and the first three decades of the seventeenth century

The often-overemphasised religious tolerance of the Ottoman authorities did not hide a dialogue of two equal parties. Islam simply treated the relationship between religion and authority in a different way to Western culture. The spatially and temporally diverse Islamic system of law is consistent in one thing. It denies the possibility of an independent secular and religious power as a fundamental premise. Contrary to this, in Western Europe, the two swords of secular and religious power cannot be wielded by the same hand since Gratian’s Decretum. Islam consistently denies the existence of two swords. Spiritual and political influence remained undivided as they had been in the community of Medina founded by the Prophet. The main goal of Islamic authority is to enforce the commandments of the religion on Earth. This meant (according to its internal logic) that accepting the rule of Islam was the attainment of an ideological goal. Submission was thus not simply a legal act, but precisely what created the framework for the imbalanced relationship, from which Islam offered only one escape: conversion. It follows from the above that the Turkish authorities in Hungary had no need for widespread missions of conversion, as took place among the Muslim population left in the country following its reconquest. Nevertheless, this does not mean that these authorities did not consider spreading what they believed to be the most authentic divine revelation, a religious duty or a form of salvation.