wild and wooly: oh effendi!

the Turks. The young turks,the old turks, they were all wild; from the quiet tranquility of the garden to the live action slicing and dicing of the human body, there was rarely a dull moment in the Ottoman Turkish empire. You had to live with your wits, but even that was stretched to the limit and hiding in the harem was only a temporary respite. But within all the hustle and bustle of the Grand Seraglio the Sultans were nonetheless groping about in their own unique way for an answer to a very old question, the same on that the ancient Egyptians pondered: Can absolute power bring absolute bliss?

---Read More:http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsMiddEast/ArabicSyria.htm

…The Law of Fratricide claimed the lives of both Mustafa and Osman before order had been restored. A tie game called off after murder fatigue. The next Sultan, Murad IV, who came to the throne at twelve, put things to rights by liquidating four thousand fractious janissaries who probably merited something at least approximating death and closing the coffehouses which had become nests of spies and plotters. Prohibition, already a state law, was put to public example by pouring boiling lead down the throats of drinkers. He also, for pleasure, used to cut an ass in two with one sword stroke.

This pathological maniac, criminally insane was totally under the control of his mother, a scheming rat named Kiusem. Kiusem persuaded Murad not to liquidate his younger brother Ibrahim but to keep him instead in a Cage; so that when Murad died in 1640 Ibrahim succeeded him and Kiusem continued as Queen Mother and the power behind the throne.

---Read More:http://greatestbattles.iblogger.org/Ottoman/byEuropeans/Brindesi.htm

Ibrahim made his brother look like Mother Teresa. He had been in the cage since babyhood and ever since it had dawned on him that he was a younger brother, he lived in daily expectation of mutes with bowstrings coming to dispatch him. Therefore, when the Viziers came to proclaim him Sultan, the first thing he did was to pile all the furniture and anything else including the kitchen sink in front of the door. Once convinced that he was not to be executed, he indulged himself in all manner of crazy and criminal whims. He built a kiosk and lined it with sable, he threw gold sequins to goldfish in the palace lake, he festooned his beard with precious stones, and one fine morning had all three hundred of his concubines put into a sack with a stone at their feet and pitched into the Sea of Marmara.

---Hatice Muazzez Sultan.She was the Polish Jewish spouse of Ottoman Sultan Ibrahim I and the biological mother of Sultan Ahmed II. However, she was not Valide Sultan to her son because she died four years before Ahmed II's accession to the throne in 1687 in Istanbul. Her resting place is located at the tomb of Suleiman I inside Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul. Read More:http://www.polyvore.com/hatice_muazzez_sultan/set?id=42105147

Ibrahim made the General of the Janissaries a bath attendant while appointing an itinerant street musician to the lofty position of Lord Chamberlain. Even Evliya Effendi, a staunch admirer of Sultans was obliged to write:

” Man proposes, but God disposes.” I have since heard from the pearl-shedding lips of my worthy lord, Kara Mustafi’i, that had God spared Murâd but six months longer, the whole of the infidels would have been reduced to the capitation tax. The Ragusians came forward as mediators for the infidels of Malta and Spain, stipulating on the part of the former to give up the island of Malta, and on the part of the latter, the Red-
apple (Rome). But fate had otherwise decreed.

Ibrahim, the youngest of Sultân Ahmed’s seven sons, ascended the throne in the year 1049 (1639). He was then twenty-five years old ; but not very intelligent….

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---Siege of Constantinople, by Jean Chartier---source: Wiki

After eight years of Ibrahim, a janissary revolution overthrew him and put him back in the Cage where the mutes with bowstrings paid him an overdue visit. A son of Ibrahim succeeded to the throne, and new new Queen Mother very sensibly had the old one strangled, a common occupational hazard of Viziers, and turned over her power to a capable Vizier.

ADDENDUM:

( see link at end) …Kara Mustafâ Pâshâ, the brave and sagacious vezir, being put to death, the Sultân fell into the hands of all the favourites and associates of the harem, the dwarfs, the mutes, the eunuchs, the women, particularly Jinji Khoâjeh, and the vezir Ahmed Hazâr-pâra Pâshâ, who corrupted him to such a degree that he received bribes from his own vezirs. He lavished the treasures of Egypt on his favourite women Polieh, Sheker Para, Telli, and Sâjbâghli Khâseki ; and squandered his revenues in circumcision feasts, building koshks lined with sable, and in presents to his favourite Jinji Khoâjeh, who at last, with the vezir Ahmed, fell under the displeasure of the public. So loud was the cry for vengeance, that the vezir was obliged to call to his assistance the Ottoman troops who had served in Candia under the command of Deli Husain
Pâshâ. Jinji Khoâjeh, the favourite, was constantly about the person of the Sultân, the vezir, or the vâlideh ; and whenever the latter went out in the carriage or the chair, he always accompanied her. “When any gave good advice he laughed in their faces, and by his flattering conversation, he kept the Sultan in a state of constant lethargy : in short, he knew nothing of state affairs. He was originally called Shaikh-zadeh, and attended with me at the college of Hamid Efendi. I was then reading the Kufiyeh with Jami’s commentary, under my worthy tutor Akhfash Efendi, when this boy was taken from his grammar into the presence of the Sultan, whose favour he obtained by reading several tales, and lulled him into the sleep of carelessness. He then received the name of Jinji Khoajeh. As I was well acquainted with him, I knew that he had no taste for the secret sciences ; and that the rise of his brilliant star would only tend to his own misfortune and that of the empire. Read More:http://www.archive.org/stream/narrativeoftrave01evli/narrativeoftrave01evli_djvu.txt …

…At length MuKİd Aghâ arrived from Candia to the assistance of the Sultan ;but the latter having demanded of him a present of one thousand purses, seventy sable skins, and two female slaves, he put himself at the head of the Sipahis and Janissaries, who turned out in the At-maidan in open rebellion. Sultân Ibrahim was confined in a part of the palace called Sircheh-serai’, and his son Mohammed IV. was proclaimed emperor. The divines and vezirs made obeisance to him ; Dervish Mohammed was named grand vezir, and Murad, âghâ of the Janissaries. The day after, Ahmed Pasha, the late vezir, who had concealed himself, was discovered and torn to pieces by the populace, as were also Yani Sireh and Jinji, and their bodies were thrown out upon the At-maidan. The rest of the favourites were either killed or exiled. Of the favourite women, Sheker-para was banished to Ibrim, the rest were confined in the old Serai, or distributed amongst the vezirs. On the morning of the 25th of Rajab, Sultân Mohammed proceeded in state to the mosque of Eyub, to be invested with the sword. On his return, he visited the tomb of his ancestor Mohammed II. and then took his seat in the Khâs-odâ. In the mean time a report was circulated through the city that Sultân Ibrahim had escaped from his confinement, and that he was supported by a party of the Bostânjis. In consequence of this report, many thousands were in an uproar, and proceeded armed to the At-maidan, where they received a fetvc’i, or warrant for the execution of Ibrahim Abdu-r-rahmân Efendi. The grand vezir, Murâd, Emir-Pâshâ, and some of the first officers of government, also assembled in the Sircheh Serai. The vezir, with many blows, obliged Kara Ali, the executioner, to enter the Sircheh Serai and do his work. Ibrahim asked : ” Master Ali, wherefore art thou come ?” He replied, ” My emperor, to perform your funeral service.” To this, Ibrahim replied, ” We shall see.” Ali then fell upon him ; and whilst they were struggling, one of Ali’s assistants came in, and Ibrahim was finally strangled with a garter. This happened in. 1058 (1648).( ibid.)