Tag Archives: murad iv

1632: Topal Recep Pasha, Grand Vizier

Posted on by

Ottoman Grand Vizier Topal Recep Pasha was put to death by Sultan Murad IV on this date in 1632.

Come to the throne as a mere boy of 11, Murad’s early reign was long constrained by the rivalries and factions of the court — not to mention a huge war with Persia.

A sovereign endures such a contingent existence at his own peril, as could be attested by no small number of deposed sultans including Murad’s own teenage predecessor, who was murdered by his Janissaries.

A 1631-1632 revolt by this same corps might have done for Murad, too; indeed, it so menaced him that he was forced to give over Grand Vizier Hafiz Ahmed Pasha to their fury early in 1632. Instead, it catalyzed Murad’s capture of absolutist power — as experienced to his distress by the subsequent Grand Vizier, who was also Murad’s brother-in-law.

For some two months the janissaries and the sipahis of the Porte gave free rein to their licence and indiscipline at Istanbul. Murad IV waited until the time was opportune and then struck hard, removing from the scene Rejeb Pasha, whom he considered to be one of the most active personalities behind the recent troubles. The execution of Rejeb Pasha was carried out on 18 May 1632 — a date which saw the sultan liberated once and for all from the tutelage of the great officials and which marked the real beginning of his reign. He had grown to manhood in a world of danger and duress. His character was tempered to the hardness of steel in the harsh and bitter experiences of his youth. A ferocious and inexorable resolve to be the master in his own house would henceforth dominate his actions. It is not surprising that in the eight years of life remaining to him he was to become perhaps the most feared and terrible of all the Ottoman sultans. (Source)

The reputations for brutality and efficacy earned by Murad for the balance of his reign until cirrhosis of the liver claimed his life in 1640 were inextricably linked to one another, a fact amply underscored by the fate of the libertine brother who succeeded him and was, yes, overthrown and murdered by the Janissaries.

On this day..

1648: Sultan Ibrahim the Mad

Posted on by

On this date in 1648, the once-debauched and now-deposed Ottoman sultan Ibrahim I “the Mad” was strangled to make way for his seven-year-old son.

He’s fondly remembered as a debauched madman at the helm of state but you’d go crazy too with his upbringing. He was locked up by his famously brutal brother Sultan Murad in the palace Kafes — literally, “cages”, where potentially dangerous rival claimants lived under constant surveillance — and could not but dwell on the Damoclean sword constantly dangling at his throat. Justifiably nervous about the ever-present danger of a coup — Murad owed his own throne to the Janissaries deposing and murdering a prior sultan in 1622 — Murad had three of his caged brothers put to death. Ibrahim woke each day from the ages of 8 to 25 in his gilded cage knowing that Murad was one foul mood away from ordering his own death, too.

So paranoid was he that when informed that he was to come to the throne as sultan, he suspected a trick meant to implicate himself in treason. Only the combined assurance of his and Murad’s mother and the Grand Vizier* plus a personal inspection of the late Murad’s corpse convinced him to accept rulership of the Ottoman Empire.

And once he did so, he was able to unite in his person the pathologies of imprisonment with those of absolutism.

Freed from the terror of his cell, he gave himself to sensuality that was noted for both volume and transgressiveness: forcing himself on the Grand Mufti’s daughter, scouring his empire for the fattest woman he could find and elevating her to the pinnacle of his harem, and pony playing a virile stallion in his gardens to virginal women who were made to disrobe and act his mares. But don’t forget the wild mood swings! Becoming convinced that his harem was indulging in sub-imperial frolics, he once had 278 of them drowned in the Bosporous.

We will leave to wiser observers of the Porte than we just where among these legends we enter into the calumnies of the enemies who eventually toppled him. That happened in 1648 and had more to do with his profligacy in matters financial, for he gobbled jewelry and expensive furs as voraciously as maidenheads, and then put the Ottoman economy under a fearful strain by launching a ruinous war of choice against Venice that would drag on for 24 years and result in the Venetian navy blockading his capital.

Pitiably, his last days were spent back in the Kafe after he was displaced by rebelling Janissaries driven to fury by the growing tax burden required to support a war that brought only immiseration. Maybe it was a mercy that he had not years thereafter to pace the gardens under the eyes of burly minders with unknown orders, but for 10 days** that quarter of the palace redounded with his wails until

on August 18, the executioners entered the “Cage”. With the Koran in his hand, Ibrahim cried out: “Behold! God’s book! By what writ shall you murder me?” and “Is there no one among those who have eaten my bread who will take pity on me and protect me? These cruel men have come to kill me. Mercy! Mercy!”

* In 1644, Ibrahim would have this same Grand Vizier executed.

** We would be remiss on this grim site not to mention the fate that befell his Grand Vizier on August 8, when Ibrahim fell: torn apart by an angry mob for attempting to impose a heavy tax, he gained the posthumous nickname “Hezarpare” (“thousand pieces”).

On this day..

1637: Tabaniyassi Mehmed Pasha, former Grand Vizier

Posted on by

Ottoman politician Tabaniyassi (“Flat-Footed”) Mehmed Pasha was executed by drowning on this date in 1637, having fallen foul of the tyrannous Sultan Murat IV.

It hadn’t been long since Mehmed Pasha (English Wikipedia entry | Turkish) was the one inflicting the sultan’s chastisements instead of receiving them; he was appointed Grand Vizier in 1632 to crush a Janissary revolt* in Egypt, and did so with brutal aplomb.

His career thereafter saw him carry Turkish arms to Persia and Armenia, and bully client princes in the Porte’s European sphere. Murat eventually grew suspicious that his aide might be conspiring against him and had him imprisoned at the capital’s imposing Yedikule Fortress.

* The sultan had reason to fear these mercurial praetorians; he had the throne thanks to that same clique’s 1622 murder of a predecessor.

On this day..