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Sabbatai Zevi (Hebrew: שַׁבְּתַי צְבִי‎; August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676), also spelled Shabbetai Ẓevi, Shabbeṯāy Ṣeḇī, Shabsai Tzvi, and Sabetay Sevi in Turkish, was a Sephardic ordained rabbi from Smyrna (now İzmir, Turkey). A kabbalist of Romaniote origin, Zevi, who was active throughout the Ottoman Empire, claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. He was the founder of the Sabbatean movement, whose followers subsequently were to be known as Dönmeh "converts" or crypto-Jews.In February 1666, upon arriving in Constantinople, 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 Adrianople (the imperial court's seat) for judgment on accusations of fomenting sedition, Sabbatai was given by the Grand Vizier, in the name of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed IV, the choice of either facing death by some type of ordeal, or of converting to Islam. Sabbatai seems to have chosen the latter by donning from then on a turban. He was then also rewarded by the heads of the Ottoman state with a generous pension for his compliance with their political and religious plans.Some of his followers also converted to Islam—about 300 families who were known as Dönmeh, "converts". Subsequently, he was banished twice by the Ottomans, first to Constantinople, and, when he was discovered singing Psalms with the Jews, to a small town known today as Ulcinj in present-day Montenegro. He later died in isolation.

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