•   The man who conquered of the last remnants of the 1,000 year old Christian Byzantine Empire, 
  
•  The man who despoiled Constantinople, turning the Hagia Sophia into a Mosque,
•   The  man who brought a Muslim horde to the gates of Christian Vienna Austria in the Western half of the Roman Empire,
  
•   The man who landed a Muslim horde on the shores of the Italian Peninsula with the intent of destroying the Vatican's Saint Peter's basilica,

•  
  
•   ...was a Jew.
  

Highly devout Christian Queen Isabella of Spain goes down in the history books as the evil leader of her day, but these were the true agonizing days she lived.

Queen Isabella's reign was shadowed by the existence of a man she never met but who terrorized eastern and southern Europe for most of her life: the wealthy and powerful Sultan Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conquerer. -- Isabella - The Warrior Queen by Kirston Downey (pg 167)

        
Also know to this web site as

---

---

     

Mehmed, Murad's son, was intelligent and learned but even more ruthless than his father. Born in 1432, two years after the conquest of Salonika, Mehmed was the sultan's third son, the child of a slave girl who was one of Murad's concubines. It was not legal to enslave Muslims, so she is believed to have been of Christian or Jewish origin. Her name is unknown, as many of the women in the harem were not identified by name. Mehmed grew up with his mother in the harem at Edirne Satayi, southwest of Constantinople, where he developed a reputation, despite his academic interests for "insolence, savagery and violence". -- Isabella - The Warrior Queen by Kirston Downey  (pg 169)

Can we all be grownups here and read between the lines. Mehmed was born to a slave in a harem, but slaves could not be Muslim, only Christian or Jew.

So we have only to deduce if Mehmed was raised by a Christian lady or a Jewish lady.

Seems here that actions speak louder than words.

[Mehmed] was an enigmatic character -- beloved and revered by Muslims as a great and powerful warrior, admired by many Jews for the benign tolerance in which he permitted them to live in his realm, but feared as a relentless aggressor who was determined to expand the Ottoman Empire by swallowing Europe. -- Isabella - The Warrior Queen by Kirston Downey  (pg 167)

Author Kirston does not spell this out, but we will.

Jews and Muslims loved and revered Mehmed, while Christians trembled at his name.

Perhaps this places his mother as Jewish and not Christian.

With a Jewish mother, raised by a Jewish mother, makes the son a Jew.

To drive home the point, ...after the conquest of Constaninople...

Mehmed renamed the city Istanbul and departed on the night of June 24, 1453, with a long train of Greek girls and women trailing behind him as his plunder. Jewish families were transported to the city from the conquered city of Salonika to repopulate the empty homes in Istanbul. -- Isabella - The Warrior Queen by Kirston Downey  (pg 173)

Let me translate this for you.

"Greek girls and women as plunder" is really Christian girls and women as sexual slaves to be raped at will.

And "Jewish families repopulating empty homes" translates to unharmed and free Jewish fathers, mothers and children allowed the bloody booty of Chrisitan homes in Constantinople.

Mehmed awarding Jewish families the spoils of war by giving away stolen homes, with Mehmed's Christian sexual slaves taken away from their homes, squarely places Mehmed as Judeo-Muslim, and not at all Christian in heritage or morality.

Naturally Jews would say that Mehmed was not Jew and they were "ordered" to fill the empty homes as a people only "slightly" more despised than Christians.

But that argument only raises more questions, for if Mehmed was fully Muslim, why would he give Jews extra special treatment after decades of barbaricism toward Christians?

The answer to that question is that the Jews were collaborating to help the Muslims slaughter and enslave the Christians and so, the free homes in Constantinople were payment for a job well done.

I choose to believe both.

One more item, the fact that Mehmed was the third son, so how was it that he became the sultan?

In 1437 Mehmed's oldest brother died. in 1443 his second brother was murdered by an adviser, who also killed that prince's two sons. The advisor was quickly executed 'without revealing the motives for his crimes', which led to suspicions that the assassination had been designed to clear the way for the succession of Mehmed, now age eleven. Sultan Murad began preparing this son to rule in his place. -- Isabella - The Warrior Queen by Kirston Downey  (pg 173)

Appears to this website that both true Muslims were swept away to allow for this Jewish boy to take the reigns of the Muslim Ottoman Empire, with the support of the Jewish tribes to ensure his success.

Jews in both Christian and Muslim worlds looked at Mehmed as a fellow Jewish Messiah and gave their full support to defeating the Christians they so abhorred.
 
All through his rule of terror, Mehmed the Jewish Conquerer enriched and defended Jews while he rained hell down upon all Christians he encountered.