Sabbatai Zevi (, August 1, 1626 – ) or Shabtai Tzvi was a former Jewish mystic and rabbi from Smyrna who converted to Islam. His family were Romaniote Jews from Patras. This antinomian doctrine led Zevi and his followers to deliberately violate Jewish commandments, a controversial practice that later inspired movements like the Frankists.
Upon arriving in Constantinople in February 1666, Sabbatai was imprisoned on the order of the grand vizier Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha. In September of that same year, after being moved from different prisons around the capital to the imperial courts' seat in Adrianople (now Edirne), he was judged on accusations of fomenting sedition. Sabbatai was given the choice of death or conversion to Islam by the Grand Vizier representing Sultan Mehmed IV. He chose conversion, donning an Islamic turban from then on. The heads of the Ottoman state then rewarded him with a generous pension for complying with their political and religious plans. About 300 families who followed Zevi also converted to Islam and became known as the Dönme, Turkish for "converts."
Subsequently, the Ottomans banished him twice, first within Constantinople and when he was heard singing Psalms with Jews there, to a small town known today as Ulcinj in what is now Montenegro. He died in isolation.
Early life and education
thumb|House of Sabbatai Zevi, building in the [[Agora of Smyrna where Sabbatai Zevi supposedly lived]]
Sabbatai Zevi was born in the Ottoman city of Smyrna, allegedly on Tisha B'Av, one of Judaism's fast days, during The Three Weeks in 1626. In Hebrew, Sabbatai means Saturn; in Jewish tradition, "the reign of Sabbatai," the highest planet, was often linked to the advent of the Messiah.
Zevi's family were Romaniote Jews from Patras. His father, Mordecai, was a poultry dealer in the Morea. During the Ottoman–Venetian wars, Smyrna became the center of Levantine trade, and Mordecai became the Smyrnan agent of an English trading house, achieving some wealth in the process. Scholars are still assessing how much influence English and Dutch Calvinist millenarianism had on the messianic movement that developed around Zevi's activities.
Claims to being the expected Jewish Messiah
Along with general messianic beliefs, there was another computation based on a passage in the Zohar, a famous Jewish mystical text, that the Israelites would be redeemed by the long-awaited Jewish Messiah in 1648.
Shabbatai revealed his claim to being the Messiah early on to Isaac Silveyra and Moses Pinheiro, the latter the grandfather of the Italian rabbi Joseph Ergas. The Jewish community of Avignon, France, prepared to emigrate to the new kingdom in the spring of 1666. Samuel Primo, who became Sabbatai's secretary when he went to Smyrna, directed the following circular to all of the Jews in the name of the Messiah: