Kadızade Mehmed Efendi

Kadızade Mehmed Efendi (1582–1635) was an Ottoman Islamic preacher born in Balıkesir and the founder of the Kadızadeli movement. As a young man he tried to join a Sufi brotherhood but rejected its teachings and turned to preaching. In 1631 he was appointed preacher at the Hagia Sophia mosque, where he blamed the empire's disorders on deviation from the Sharia and roused crowds against the Sufi orders.

He backed Murad IV's tobacco ban; when challenged that God had not forbidden tobacco, he argued the ruler's prohibition was sufficient. He died in 1635, leaving a movement that shaped Ottoman religious politics.