| Περίληψη: | The chapter concerns apostasy from Islam, the ways in which the authorities dealt with it and its ideological load for the strengthening of the Christian faith. While apostasy is the other side of conversion, the particular nature of apostasy from Islam necessitates its examination separately from Islamization. The fact that apostasy was punishable by death turned it into a key to religious and social antagonism at multiple levels. Heterodox Muslims were persecuted and “dangerous” –or simply prominent– Christians eliminated on charges of apostasy from Islam. But, in the same way, new martyrs were created, who became a model for the Christian subjects. Finally, in the late Ottoman period and in a new environment of institutionalized freedom of religion and ideological retreat of Islam, the claim of the right to apostasy on the part of Crypto-Christian groups created unprecedented challenges for the Ottoman government.
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