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The ancient mosque of the Janissaries in Chania (Hania) with at the bottom the Venetian lighthouse. The Janissaries formed a very powerful military order consisting of slaves of European origin and initially of Christian denomination before their conversion to Islam, constituting the elite infantry of the Ottoman army at the height of the Empire. The Janissary bodies, which had become too cumbersome for the government, were finally eliminated by the Sultan Mahmud II in 1826