Sabbatai Zevi

Sabbatai Zevi was born in Smyrna on August 1, 1626, to a Romaniote Jewish family from Patras. As a mystic and rabbi active throughout the Ottoman Empire, he claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah and built the Sabbatean movement around a dangerous premise: that in the Messianic Age, sins would become virtues, so he and his followers deliberately violated Jewish commandments. In February 1666 he arrived in Constantinople and was imprisoned by order of the grand vizier; by September, moved to Adrianople and brought before the court, he faced a stark choice from Sultan Mehmed IV's representatives - death or Islam. He converted, accepted a turban and a pension, and about 300 families followed him into Islam as the Dönme. The Ottomans banished him twice: once within Constantinople after he was heard singing Psalms with Jews, then to Ulcinj in present-day Montenegro, where he died in isolation around September 17, 1676.