Sabbateans

The Sabbateans (or Sabbatians) were a variety of Jewish followers, disciples, and believers in Sabbatai Zevi (1626–1676),^[1][2][3] a Sephardic Jewish rabbi and Kabbalist who was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah in 1666 by Nathan of Gaza.^[1][2]

Vast numbers of Jews in the Jewish diaspora accepted his claims, even after he outwardly became an apostate due to his forced conversion to Islam in the same year.^[1][2][3]

Sabbatai Zevi's followers, both during his proclaimed messiahship and after his forced conversion to Islam, are known as Sabbateans.^[1][3]

Part of the Sabbateans lived on until well into 21st-century Turkey as descendants of the Dönmeh.^[1]

Sabbatai Zevi

Sabbatai Zevi was a Sephardic ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey).^[4][5] A kabbalist of Romaniote origin,^[6] Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently were to be known as Dönmeh "converts" or crypto-Jews.^[7]

Conversion to Islam

Main article: History of the Jews in the Ottoman Empire

Former followers of Sabbatai do penance for their support of him.

In February 1666, upon arriving in Constantinople, Sabbatai was imprisoned on the order of the grand vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha; in September of that same year, after being moved from different prisons around the capital to Adrianople (the imperial court's seat) for judgment on accusations of fomenting sedition, Sabbatai was given by the Grand Vizier, in the name of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV, the choice of either facing death by some type of ordeal, or of converting to Islam. Sabbatai seems to have chosen the latter by donning from then on a turban. He was then also rewarded by the heads of the Ottoman state with a generous pension for his compliance with their political and religious plans.^[8]

Sabbatai's conversion to Islam was extremely disheartening for the world's Jewish communities. In addition to the misery and disappointment from within, Muslims and Christians jeered at and scorned the credulous and duped Jews.^[9]

In spite of Sabbatai's apostasy, many of his adherents still tenaciously clung to him, claiming that his conversion was a part of the Messianic scheme.^[9] This belief was further upheld and strengthened by the likes of Nathan of Gaza and Samuel Primo, who were interested in maintaining the movement.^[10]

Many within Zevi's inner circle followed him into Islam, including his wife Sarah and most of his closest relatives and friends.[citation ^needed] Nathan of Gaza, the scholar closest to Zevi, who had caused Zevi to reveal his Messiahship and in turn became his prophet, never followed his master into Islam but remained a Jew, albeit excommunicated by his Jewish brethren.[citation ^needed]

After Sabbatai Zevi's apostasy, many Jews, although horrified, clung to the belief that Zevi could still be regarded as the true Jewish Messiah.^[1][2][3][11] They constituted the largest number of Sabbateans during the 17th and 18th centuries. By the 19th century, Jewish Sabbateans had been reduced to small groups of hidden followers who feared being discovered for their beliefs, that were deemed to be entirely heretical and antithetical to Rabbinic Judaism. These very Jews fell under the category of "sectarian" Sabbateans, which originated when many Sabbateans refused to accept that Zevi's feigned apostasy might have been indicative of the fact that their faith was genuinely an illusion.^[11]

Another large group of Sabbateans after Zevi's apostasy began to view Islam in an extremely negative light.^[12] Polemics against Islam erupted directly after Zevi's forced conversion. Some of these attacks were considered part of a largely anti-Sabbatean agenda.^[12] Accusations coming from anti-Sabbatean Jews revolved around the idea that Sabbatai Zevi's feigned conversion to Islam was rightfully an indicator of a false claim of Messianship.^[12]

Inside the Ottoman Empire, those followers of Zevi who had converted to Islam but who secretly continued Jewish observances and brit milah became known as the Dönmeh (Turkish: dönme "convert"). There were some internal sub-divisions within the sect, according to the geographical locations of the group, and according to who the leaders of these groups were after the death of Sabbatai Zevi.^[13]