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Sheikh Hamdullah knew most of the tired, bearded men listening intently to his heartfelt words. He had met them in the early days of the outbreak, standing in mosque courtyards, gathering around biers, and searching for available burial plots. He had spent those first few days rushing from house to house and funeral to funeral. That fair-haired man over there who now sought reassurance in the sheikh’s words could easily have lost his mind following the deaths of his wife and two daughters, but instead he had behaved with great dignity. Over here was the farrier Rıza, who seemed to die himself every time any one of his neighbors did. Then there was this young migrant from Crete who had become accustomed to other people’s deaths but hadn’t even been able to think of his own, and although he had turned up to listen to the Friday sermon that day, he had really been running away from everything else. But perhaps these cases were anomalies. Most of the three hundred people assembled in the mosque that day had come there to be like everybody else, to feel closer to God, to avoid being alone, and to be surrounded by other people who were just as scared as they were. Soon the mood of the sermon began to turn of its own accord into one that favored sects, holy men, and sheikhs over the quarantine effort.

At the start of the outbreak, and before he had retreated to his cell in contemplation, Sheikh Hamdullah had been called to many different households, where he had provided comfort—some might even say a reason to carry on living—to people who had been so stunned by the unstoppable force of the plague that they had begun to doubt their faith. He had also attended to the bathing and burial of numerous corpses, dispensing advice and consolation to bereaved relatives driven half mad with grief. During those days spent visiting homes, gardens, graveyards, coffin makers, and mosque courtyards, the sheikh had become completely immersed in the lives of these dependably open, honest people. When they learned that their sheikh had fallen sick, those same people were overcome with despair—and when they heard that he had apparently recovered, and that he was somehow immune to the poisoned darts of the plague, they believed those stories too. The sheikh saw that they were now expecting him to reveal the secret of his powers, or at least lead them in prayer so that they could avail themselves of his immunity too. He wanted with all his heart to bring some consolation to these people whose grief and dread he had so closely been involved in.

The greatest consolation was of course to be a Muslim and die a Muslim. The sheikh recited in Arabic from the Surah An-Nisa to remind everyone that embracing Allah at the last moment was not enough to rescue lifelong infidels from the pits of hell; and just as Allah could kill the living, he could also bring the dead and even the earth itself back to life. Those who feared death should vanquish their fear by thinking of life after death. If they had sinned, they were probably right to be afraid … But if they hadn’t, then being so afraid of death would only make them lose their minds. “That very death you fear so greatly, and are so desperate to escape, will always find you and catch up with you one day,” said the sheikh. “You can hide inside the strongest castle, and still it will find you.”

As the French consul would later point out, these remarks “clearly undermined quarantine.” The old governor Sami Pasha, who was waiting at the State Hall to start the meeting that would take place there after the conclusion of the sermon, had hoped that the sheikh might at least say a few words to criticize the prayer sheets, amulets, and made-up incantations that had sprung up against the plague, but that didn’t happen either. Instead, the sheikh spoke of the interpretation of dreams, of the shadow that fell from the owl’s wings, and what it meant to see two falling stars in the same night sky. But he felt that the congregation understood him best when he described what it felt like to stand and mourn next to someone’s coffin.

There were some neighborhoods of the city whose inhabitants had spent their last few days running from one funeral to the next. Were the citizens of Arkaz and all those who had remained on the island regretting their decision not to flee? Had they made an error of judgment in not following those who had gone to hide in faraway mountains, villages, and caves? Who was more deserving of divine consolation—those who had fled on rowboats even at the risk of drowning, or those who had come to the mosques to find refuge in Allah?

The congregation felt that the sheikh was delivering an exceedingly profound and meaningful sermon, and that he was very knowledgeable and wise. They were ready to listen to whatever he had to say about the fear of God and fear of the plague, and to find solace in his words. Sensing their enthusiasm, the sheikh recited in Arabic from the Surah Yusuf and led the congregation to repeat after him: “O Lord, Creator of the heavens and of the earth,” he said, “let me die a Muslim, and place me among the righteous!”

Near the end of his lengthy sermon—frequently interrupted by cries of “Amen!”—the sheikh referred to the passage in the Surah Al-Anbiya which said that “every living creature shall have a taste of death” and spoke with such fervor that some people began to cry. For they knew they were all dying too, and they hadn’t even been able to come together in that collective spirit required to battle death. The sheikh could see in their expressions that this was why they were going to the mosques and lodges in the first place. He felt regret and a pang of guilt for having retreated to his chambers over the past few days, from where he had been unable to comfort these suffering multitudes.

As his speech went on, the sheikh occasionally paused to peer into his listeners’ eyes. Most of them were troubled, frowning, aghast. But there were also elderly worshippers who seemed as serene and oblivious as if this were an ordinary Friday sermon in normal times; people who were sitting there marveling at the scenes around them as if they couldn’t quite understand what was happening; and others who were optimistically nodding their approval at the sheikh’s every word. The sheikh himself kept nodding too, as if to say, “Yes, it is incredible, is it not?” Some people averted their eyes from the sheikh’s every time there was a moment of silence. The sheikh had also noticed Sami Pasha’s spies among the crowd. He had known from the very beginning that there would be a political aspect to his sermon, and from the very beginning he had wished he could forget about it.

Just then an old coachman who had been listening reverently to the sheikh from near the front of the congregation felt so dizzy with emotion—or was perhaps so ill—that he had to lie down, and shortly after that he began to shiver and moan. The man looked like he was having a plague seizure, and soon the sheikh had to interrupt his sermon so that he could join the congregation and help.

The crowd, who had already been on tenterhooks, now sprang into motion. Some regarded this as the end of the sermon. Those who got up and left straightaway, or didn’t notice the shivering, delirious coachman near the front, assumed that the usual agitators must have caused some kind of disruption. Sami Pasha and the consuls had also been expecting Ramiz to show up at his brother’s sermon to make trouble, and indeed Sami Pasha had made sure to put precautions in place in the area around the New Mosque and at the entrances to its courtyard.

But it quickly became apparent that this was not the work of hostile mischief-makers. Most people knew or at least recognized the sweet, elderly coachman who had fallen ill, and to see this beloved figure suffer so much and so visibly was immensely dispiriting to everyone present. In their analysis of these various fast-paced developments, some historians have suggested that if the old coachman had not fallen over and writhed in pain at the end of Sheikh Hamdullah’s sermon, the history of Mingheria might perhaps have taken a different course.

For the upshot of this all was that in the end, and for a variety of reasons, the multitudes who had attended the sheikh’s sermon did not head on to the meeting at the State Hall Square as Sami Pasha had imagined they would. Sheikh Hamdullah hadn’t been able to direct them there, and he had neglected to even mention the important event about to take place in the State Hall Square. Having just told his audience that there was nowhere left to turn to except for Islam, that there never had been anywhere else to turn to in the first place, Sheikh Hamdullah was reluctant to be seen standing with the bishops of the Christian congregations half an hour later. The announcement they had planned to make at this event, banning entry to mosques and churches, would directly contradict the contents of the sermon the sheikh had just delivered. Though he had given his word to Sami Pasha, the sheikh couldn’t bring himself to move toward the State Hall, and he was still lingering at the mosque and letting his many admirers kiss his hand in total disregard for quarantine regulations when a team of guards specially selected and instructed by Sami Pasha came by to “extract” him.

Sami Pasha had already thought of the possibility that Sheikh Hamdullah might stall after his sermon and try to avoid joining the assembly at the State Hall balcony. He had also predicted that there might be people on the route between the mosque and the State Hall who would try to block the sheikh’s way or cause a disturbance and had prepared accordingly by readying Coachman Zekeriya as well as six of his most loyal bodyguards. Sheikh Hamdullah was still having his hand kissed after the conclusion of his sermon when these men suddenly appeared, took him by the arms, and casually escorted him out of the mosque’s side entrance, through its courtyard, and onto the armored carriage waiting in the shade of a linden tree. Sami Pasha had told his men that if the sheikh tried to put up a fight, they must drag him away and force him onto the carriage if they had to, and under no circumstances must they let the crowd take him, but when the moment came, the sheikh (and everyone around him) mistook the disguised guards for his own men, did not resist at all, and quickly walked away without saying goodbye to anyone, stepping into the armored carriage that had been waiting to pick him up.

Meanwhile Ramiz and his men, who had smuggled the new governor, his deputy, and his secretary out of the Maiden’s Tower that morning, had crept through the city’s backstreets and taken shelter in a derelict house in the Vavla neighborhood. They stayed there until midday prayers. Their hiding place was the ruin of an old Ottoman mansion in the shadow of the Blind Mehmet Pasha Mosque and across from the courtyard of the Army Middle School. The pupils of the army school believed this house was cursed and haunted, and would use it as a secret meeting spot, as well as a place where they could drink wine and organize wrestling matches. During the outbreak of plague, a vast number of dead rats had been discovered there. Two corpses had also been found in the garden on two separate occasions over the past fortnight, their presence revealed in each case by their stench. One was a Muslim man who had lost his mind after his wife and his mother had both died and run away and disappeared before their funerals had even taken place. His now-vacant house was close by, so clearly he had not been able to get very far before he too had passed away.

The other corpse was a more suspicious case, for it belonged to a youth from Flizvos. Since no Greek resident of the wealthy Flizvos neighborhood would ever come to Vavla to die, the two municipal clerks who had investigated the matter had suggested there might be foul play involved, though the resulting inquiry had since been abandoned. In any case, the Quarantine Regiment had banned access to the building and its garden just like they had done with many other locations throughout the city. As this seemed to be one of those rare prohibitions that people were actually respecting, Ramiz and his men knew they would be safe inside the crumbling mansion.

The Governor’s deputy, Hadi, who would later drolly describe all of these incidents in his memoirs, tells us that Ramiz was propelled purely by love and vengeance, and that it is senseless to seek more complex motivations behind his actions. Ramiz simply believed that the best way to exact revenge on the Major who had taken his betrothed from him, and on the old governor Sami Pasha who had supported the Major in this endeavor, was to help the new governor take up his duties without further delay. It was only proper that the new governor should be there when the island’s leading figures addressed the public from the balcony of the Governor’s Residence half an hour after midday prayers. Later, during his trial, Ramiz would repeat again and again that it had all been his idea—not the consuls’, nor his brother’s, nor anyone else’s.

There would have been no one better placed to attest to the confusion in Ramiz’s mind than the municipal caretaker Nusret, who often passed information on to Ramiz and had once been loyal to the Chief Scrutineer and Sami Pasha too—but Nusret would be killed later that day. Ramiz had relied on Nusret, who came from Çifteler village and worked as a janitor in the State Hall, to keep him updated on what was happening in the city. In fact Nusret had long been spying for both sides, revealing to Sami Pasha the whereabouts of Muslim guerrillas (not all of them, of course—only the ones he hated) who were attacking Greek villagers, and providing extremely valuable information on the Greek guerrillas too.

Shortly before Sheikh Hamdullah had begun his sermon, a carriage took half of Ramiz’s men to the State Hall. Nusret had disguised them as a team newly assigned to work in the building. This first group hid for a time inside the woodshed opposite the State Hall kitchens.

Half an hour later the same carriage picked up Ramiz, the new governor, and three others, and brought them to a side door near the main entrance. This second group, including Ramiz’s visibly armed men, were able to enter the State Hall without difficulty. Nusret met them at the side entrance, took them through several long, narrow hallways, and up the staircase at the back of the building.

Sheikh Hamdullah was just beginning his sermon when Nusret led the group with Ramiz and the new governor up the back staircase, across the room next to the large meeting hall that had been readied for the day’s guests, and from there quietly and furtively locked them up inside the Outbreak Room (the little office with the map on the wall that we have sometimes referred to as the Epidemiology Room). As Sami Pasha and all his spies were focused on securing the environs of the New Mosque, no one was paying much attention to what might be happening at the State Hall, though, later on, this degree of negligence would come to be seen as a form of collusion.