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Ahdname of Fojnica

Mehmed II · 1463

An imperial decree issued by Mehmed II in 1463 granting the Bosnian Franciscan monks religious freedom and protection.

This decree was personally issued by Mehmed, showing his policy of protecting a conquered religious community.

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Scan of an Ottoman imperial decree on a tall cream-colored parchment with an arched top. Red Arabic-script tughra-style calligraphy sits at the top, a black tughra monogram with flourishes is in the upper middle, and several lines of black cursive script fill the lower part.
Ahdname of Fojnica, issued by Mehmed II, 1463.

About this source

What it is

This is an Ottoman imperial decree, or ferman, issued in 1463 by Sultan Mehmed II. It is written in Ottoman Turkish with calligraphic tughra decoration, on a tall parchment sheet, and addresses the Catholic Franciscan monks of recently conquered Bosnia.

Why it matters

The document granted the Franciscans full religious freedom and protection, showing how Mehmed dealt with non-Muslim religious communities within his growing empire. Rather than forcing conversion, he offered formal guarantees to groups whose cooperation he needed, a pattern seen elsewhere in his conquests. It is a direct record of Ottoman policy toward conquered Christian populations.

Look closer

  • What does granting this protection suggest about Mehmed's priorities as a ruler of a newly conquered, religiously mixed territory?
  • Why might a conqueror choose protection and privilege over suppression for some groups?
  • What can't a document like this tell us about how these promises were actually carried out?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Mehmed II on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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