Islam in the Ottoman Empire
Islam was the official religion of the Ottoman Empire. The highest position in Islam, "caliphate", was claimed by the sultan, after the defeat of the Mamluks which was established as Ottoman Caliphate. The Sultan was to be a devout Muslim and was given the literal authority of the Caliph. Additionally, Sunni clerics had tremendous influence over government and their authority was central to the regulation of the economy. Despite all this, the Sultan also had a right to decree, enforcing a code called Kanun (law) in Turkish. Additionally, there was a supreme clerical position called the Sheykhulislam ("Sheykh of Islam" in Arabic). Minorities, particularly Christians and Jews but also some others, were mandated to pay the jizya, the poll tax as mandated by traditional Islam.
Apostasy in Islam
During the colonial era, death for apostasy was abolished in many Muslim-majority colonies. Similarly, under intense European pressure, death sentence for apostasy from Islam was abolished by the Edict of Toleration, and substituted with other forms of punishment by the Ottoman government in 1844; the implementation of this ban was resisted by religious officials and proved difficult. A series of edicts followed during Ottoman's Tanzimat period, such as the 1856 Reform Edict. Despite these edicts, there was constant pressure on non-Muslims to convert to Islam, and apostates from Islam continued to be persecuted, punished and threatened with execution, particularly in eastern and Levant parts of the then Ottoman Empire. The Edict of Toleration ultimately failed when Sultan Abdul Hamid II assumed power, re-asserted pan-Islamism with sharia as Ottoman state philosophy, and initiated Hamidian massacres in 1894 against Christians, particularly of Armenians, Assyrians and crypto-Christian apostates from Islam in Turkey (Stavriotes, Kromlides).