According to Muslim belief, Christians as well as Jews were “people of the Book”—i.e., their religion was seen as not entirely false but incomplete. Accordingly, provided that Christians submitted to the dominion of the caliphate and the Muslim political administration and paid appropriate taxes, they deserved consideration and freedom of worship. Any Christian mission or proselytism among the Muslims, however, was considered a capital crime. In fact, Christians were formally reduced to a ghetto existence: they were the Rūm millet, or “Roman nation” conquered by Islam but enjoying a certain internal autonomy. In January 1454 the sultan Mehmed II, who ...(100 of 21255 words)