KM Anderson's List: Fall of Constantinople

•  :"Verily you shall conquer Constantinople. What a wonderful leader will he be, and what a wonderful army will that army be!"^[7]
• There is some historical evidence that, 10 years after the conquest of Constantinople, Mehmed II visited the site of Troy and boasted that he had avenged the Trojans by having conquered the Greeks (Byzantines).^[8][9][10]
• Mehmed issued orders across his empire that Muslims, Christians, and Jews should resettle the city; he demanded that five thousand households needed to be transferred to Constantinople by Septembe
• About 60% Muslim, 20% Christian and 10 Jewish

•  

  Mehmed II allowed his subjects a considerable degree of religious freedom, provided they were obedient to his rule.
• Within Constantinople, Mehmed established a millet or an autonomous religious community, and appointed the former Patriarch Gennadius Scholarius as religious leader for the Orthodox Christians^[67] of the city. His authority extended to all Ottoman Orthodox Christians, and this excluded the Genoese and Venetian settlements in the suburbs, and excluded Muslim and Jewish settlers entirely. This method allowed for an indirect rule of the Christian Byzantines and allowed the occupants to feel relatively autonomous even as Mehmed II began the Turkish remodeling of the city, turning it into the Turkish capital, which it remained until the 1920s.

4 more annotations...

• A more positive interpretation appears in the 13th century Estoire del Saint Grail, the first book in the vast Arthurian cycle, the Lancelot-Grail. In describing the travels of Joseph of Arimathea, keeper of the Holy Grail, the author says that most residents of the Middle East were pagans until the coming of Muhammad, who is shown as a true prophet sent by God to bring Christianity to the region. This mission however failed when Muhammad's pride caused him to alter God's wishes, thereby deceiving his followers. Nevertheless, Muhammad's religion is portrayed as being greatly superior to paganism.^[16]
• It is said that Muslims are easily converted to Christianity because their beliefs are already so similar in many ways, and that they believe that only the Christian revelation will last until the end of the world. The moral behaviour of Muslims at the time is shown as superior to that of Christians, and as a standing reproach to Christian society.^[17]
• Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making.

1 more annotation...