Marriage of Ibrahim PDF

Ebru TURAN 3
THE MARRIAGE OF IBRAHIM PASHA

(CA. 1495–1536)
The rise of Sultan Süleyman’s favorite to
the grand vizierate and the politics of
the elites in the early sixteenth-century
Ottoman Empire*
A mong all the colorful public personalities gracing the Süleymanic

era (1520–1566), Ibrahim Pasha, known as “∞makbul [favorite] and
maktul [executed],∞” stands out as a particularly intriguing figure. In
1523 this childhood friend, favorite, and slave of Sultan Süleyman was
most irregularly promoted to the highest office in the empire, the grand
vizierate, directly from the sultan’s personal service, without having
had any experience in government. For the following thirteen years,
with the enormous power and authority that he assumed, Grand Vizier
Ibrahim Pasha ruled the empire like a second sultan. As the sultan’s
chief advisor and commander, Ibrahim Pasha not only was single-
Ebru TURAN, Fordham University, History Department, Bronx, NY 10458, USA

[email protected]
* An earlier version of this article was presented as a paper at a workshop at the Insti-
tute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in November 2008. I am
very grateful to all participants in that meeting for their insightful comments and reflec-
tions. Thanks also to Tijana Krstic for her excellent suggestions. I dedicate this article to
the memory of Professor M. Tayyip Gökbilgin (1907-1981), whose work on Ibrahim
Pasha made it possible for me to write this essay. Unless otherwise noted, all translations
are mine.
Turcica, 41, 2009, p. 3-36. doi: 10.2143/TURC.41.0.2049287

© 2009 Turcica. Tous droits réservés.
93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 3 7/07/10 15:24

4 EBRU TURAN
handedly in charge of the political and military administration of the

empire but also acted as the sultan’s alter ego and absolute representa-
tive in public. In this way Ibrahim Pasha played a pivotal role in the
promotion of the Ottoman sultan’s image as the world ruler and in the
consolidation of Ottoman claims to universal sovereignty both within
and beyond the empire’s borders — two crucial developments that
defined the Ottoman Empire for centuries to come. Ibrahim Pasha’s
career abruptly ended one night in March 1536, when he was mysteri-
ously executed in the imperial palace on the orders of his beloved
sultan.1
Although he presided over one of the most celebrated eras in early
modern Ottoman history, Ibrahim Pasha remains one of the least known
Ottoman grand viziers.2 The years preceding his elevation to the grand
vizierate are particularly obscure. References to the pasha’s origins,
enslavement, and meeting with Süleyman found in secondary literature
are inconsistent, blended with rumor and speculation, and not always
supported by historical evidence.3 In addition, the identity of Ibrahim
Pasha’s wife has been the subject of an ongoing controversy∞: although
historians generally tend to hold that the pasha was married to one
of Süleyman’s sisters, no evidence has been discovered to prove it. In
this article my aim is first to reexamine the biographical information on
1
Gülru NECIPOGLU, “∞Süleyman the Magnificent and the Representation of Power in
the Context of Ottoman-Habsburg-Papal Rivalry,∞” Art Bulletin 71 (1989)∞: 401-427∞;
NECIPOGLU, “∞A Kanun for the State, a Canon for the Arts∞: Conceptualizing the Classical
Synthesis of Ottoman Art and Architecture,∞” in Soliman le Magnifique et son temps, ed.
G. Veinstein (Paris∞: La Documentation Française, 1992), 195–216∞; Cornell FLEISCHER,
“∞The Lawgiver as Messiah∞: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süley-
man,∞” in Veinstein, Soliman le Magnifique et son temps, 159–177∞; Ebru TURAN, “∞The
Sultan’s Favorite∞: Ibrahim Pasha and the Making of the Ottoman Universal Sovereignty∞”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2007).
2
Two studies became standard accounts on Ibrahim Pasha in the twentieth century∞:
Hester Donaldson JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha, Grandvizir of Suleiman the Magnificent (New
York∞: Columbia University Press, 1911)∞; Tayyip GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim Pa≥a,∞” Islâm
Ansiklopedisi (hereafter IA).
3
For the traditions on Ibrahim Pasha’s origins, see Joseph HAMMER-PURGSTALL, Ges-
chichte des osmanischen Reiches, 10 vols. (Pest∞: C. A. Hartleben, 1827), 3∞: 32∞; Nicolae
IORGA, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, 5 vols. (Gotha∞: F. A. Perthes, 1908), 2∞:
347-349∞; JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha, 18–19∞; Ismail Hakkı UZUNÇAR≥ILI, Osmanlı Tarihi,
4 vols. (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1947), 2∞: 343–348∞; Ismail Hami
DANI≥MEND, Izahlı Osmanlı Tarihi (Istanbul, 1948), 2∞: 93–99∞; GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim
Pa≥a∞”∞; Roger BIGELOW MERRIMAN, Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520–1566 (New York∞:
Cooper Square, 1966), 76-77∞; J. M. ROGERS and R. M. WARD, Süleyman the Magnificent
(London∞: Trustees of the British Museum, 1988), 9-11.

THE MARRIAGE OF IBRAHIM PASHA (CA. 1495–1536) 5
Ibrahim Pasha as well as the debate on the identity of his wife in light of
new Venetian and Ottoman documents, and then to explore the political
meaning of the pasha’s marriage in the context of his unconventional rise
to the grand vizierate.
I contend that the pasha’s swift promotion to the highest office in the
empire was not a whimsical act on the part of a young sultan simply
seeking to advance his favorite. Indeed, his ascension to the political
stage must be understood within the matrix of the long-term political,
institutional, and social developments that transpired in the empire fol-
lowing the conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Here the formation of an
imperial center in Constantinople and the making of a new elite that
derived its power from and justified its existence with the political, mil-
itary, fiscal, and judicial institutions at the city were most significant. The
relations between this imperial elite and the dynasty — ranging from
mutual dependency to cooperation to tension to open conflict — set the
parameters of Ottoman politics in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries. Through an analysis of the marriage arrangements between the
elite and the Ottoman dynasty in this period, I will delineate the intricate
web of interactions between the sultans and their officials. By discussing
the ways in which the Ottoman elite contributed to the process of cen-
tralization, gained a distinct group consciousness through professionali-
zation, and cultivated the means to reproduce itself politically as well as
socially, I will demonstrate that the Ottoman elite after the conquest
gradually increased its collective control over the monarchy at the
expense of the dynasty. In this context, Süleyman’s elevation of his slave
from nothingness to the top of the empire was a carefully conceived and
staged political act that aimed to harness the elite and establish the per-
sonal supremacy of the sultan in Ottoman polity. As my interpretation of
Ibrahim Pasha’s marriage will show, however, Süleyman’s intentions to
elevate his own standing through his slave were contested both in politi-
cal and in social spheres.
IBRAHIM PASHA’S ORIGINS AND EARLY YEARS
Ibrahim Pasha was born a Venetian subject about 1495 in Parga, a

small port on the northwestern coast of Greece.4 Originally, he probably
4
Parga came under Venetian control in 1401∞; see Donald M. NICOL, The Despotate

6 EBRU TURAN
spoke a Slavic dialect∞; sources mention that during the peace negotia-
tions with the Habsburgs in 1533 he conversed in his mother tongue with
Ferdinand I’s representative Jerome of Zara, who was a Croatian.5 Given
that Epirus — the region in northwestern Greece where Parga is located
— was invaded and dominated throughout the late Middle Ages by dif-
ferent Greek, Italian, Albanian, and Serbian peoples, this should not
come as a surprise.6 Very little is known of Ibrahim’s natural family,
except that his father was a sailor or fisherman of very humble means.7
After his rise to the grand vizierate, Ibrahim brought his parents and two
brothers to Istanbul. His family converted to Islam, and his father, who
then assumed the Muslim name Yunus, ascended to the ranks of the
military elite by becoming a governor in Epirus.8
According to one tradition, Ibrahim was captured as a young boy by
Turkish corsairs and then was sold to a widow in Manisa, who educated
him and taught him to play a musical instrument resembling the violin.
When Prince Süleyman arrived in Manisa as governor, he met Ibrahim
and, charmed by his musical as well as other talents, took him into his
princely household.9 According to another tradition, Ibrahim was seized
during the reign of Sultan Bayezid (1481–1512) in a raid by Iskender
Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Bosnia, who later presented him to
Prince Süleyman.10 Although the first story cannot be traced beyond
the nineteenth-century historian Hammer’s Ottoman history, the second
one can be found in a contemporary account, namely the Historia of
the famous sixteenth-century Italian historian Paolo Giovio (1483–
of Epiros (Cambridge∞: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 184∞; JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha,
18∞; GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim Pa≥a.∞”
5
Kenneth MEYER SETTON, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, 4 vols (Philadel-
phia∞: American Philosophical Society, 1976), 3∞: 383. Venetian sources indicate that the
pasha could also speak Greek and Albanian, see Marino SANUDO, I diarii, 58 vols., eds.
Rinaldo Fulin, Federico Stefani, Nicolò Barozzi, Guglielmo Berchet, Marco Allegri (Ven-
ezia, 1879-1903), vol. 41, col. 535 (hereafter Sanudo).
6
NICOL, Despotate of Epiros, 217∞; Timothy E. GREGORY, “∞Epiros,∞” in The Oxford
Dictionary of Byzantium (New York∞: Oxford University Press, 1991).
7
JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha, 18.
8
GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim Pa≥a∞”∞; Ömer Lu†fi BARKAN and Ekrem Hakkı AYVERDI, Istanbul
Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri 953 (1546) Târîhli (Istanbul, 1970), 437.
9
Different versions of this tradition can be found in HAMMER, Geschichte des osma-
nischen Reiches, 3∞:32∞; JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha, 18∞; GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim Pa≥a∞”∞; MER-
RIMAN, Suleiman the Magnificent, 76∞; ROGERS and WARD, Süleyman the Magnificent, 9.
10
GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrâhim Pa≥a∞”∞; Ismail Hakkı UZUNÇAR≥ILI, “∞Kanunî Sultan Süleyman’ın
Vezir-i Âzamı Makbûl ve Maktûl Ibrahim Pa≥a Padi≥ah Dâmadı Degildi,∞” Belleten 29
(1965)∞: 355.

1552).11 Giovio, who never had any personal contact with the Ottomans,
must have drawn his data from the Venetian sources.12 Through their
direct access to Ottoman lands as ambassadors, merchants, spies, resi-
dents, or visitors in the sixteenth century, the Venetians furnished Italy
and the rest of Europe with immediate information on Turkish affairs.13
Specifically about Ibrahim Pasha himself, however, there was one par-
ticular Venetian gentleman who disseminated most of the news in the
West∞; this was Pietro Zen, the Venetian orator (ambassador) to the Otto-
man court in 1523–1524.14
Although historians have extensively cited Zen’s correspondence from
the Ottoman capital and his Relazioni, read before the Senate in 1524,
another account attributed to him has remained little known.15 Based on
Zen’s observations in Istanbul from June through August 1523, this sec-
ond text contains some invaluable biographical details on Ibrahim Pasha
that allow one to critically assess the tradition related by Giovio∞:
11
Hammer does not provide a citation for this information∞; it is unclear if he had come
to this conclusion by himself or had drawn on other sources. As for the other tradition,
Gökbilgin and Uzunçar≥ılı have cited Thomas Artus and Giovanni Sagredo as primary
references, but it escaped their notice that both of these seventeenth century accounts had
drawn largely on Giovio∞; see Thomas ARTUS, L’histoire de la décadence de l’empire grec
et establissement de celuy des Turcs, 2 vols. (Paris, 1629), 2∞:548∞; Giovanni SAGREDO,
Memorie istoriche de’ monarchi ottomani (Venetia∞: Presso Combi e La Noù, 1679),
214–215∞; Paolo GIOVIO, La seconda parte dell’istorie del suo tempo, trans. M. Lodovico
Domenichi (Venice∞: Segno della virtu, 1555), 335–336.
12
For instance, the famous Venetian historian Marino Sanudo was Giovio’s friend and
correspondent∞; see T. C. Price ZIMMERMANN, Paolo Giovio∞: The Historian and the Crisis
of Sixteenth-Century Italy (Princeton∞: Princeton University Press, 1995), 15, 50∞; V. J.
PARRY, “∞Renaissance Historical Literature in Relation to the Near and Middle East (with
Special Reference to Paolo Giovio),∞” in Historians of the Middle East, ed. Bernard Lewis
and P. M. Holt (London∞: Oxford University Press, 1962), 288–289.
13
Hans J. KISSLING, “∞Venezia come centro di informazione sui turchi,∞” in Venezia
centro di mediazione tra Oriente e Occidente (secoli xv–xvi)∞: aspetti e problemi, ed.
Manoussos Manoussacas, Hans-Georg Beck, and Agostino Pertusi (Florence∞: Olschki,
1977), 97–109∞; Peter BURKE, “∞Early Modern Venice as a Center of Information and Com-
munication,∞” in Venice Reconsidered∞: The History and Civilization of an Italian City-
State, 1297–1797, ed. Dennis Romano and John Martin (Baltimore∞: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 2000), 389–419.
14
For a short biography of Zen, see Francesca LUCCHETTA, “∞L’‘Affare Zen’ in Levante
nel primo Cinquecento,∞” Studi Veneziani 10 (1968)∞: 109–110.
15
Most of Zen’s reports from Istanbul are included in summaries in Sanudo, see vol.
34, cols. 359–360∞; vol. 35, cols. 258–260, 273–274, 342∞; vol. 36, cols. 366, 445∞; Pietro
ZEN, “∞Sommario della relazione [1524],∞” in Relazioni degli ambasciatori veneti al Senato
durante il XVI secolo, ed. Eugenio Albèri, ser. 3, vols. 1–3 (Florence, 1842–1855), 3∞:95–
97 (hereafter Zen [1524])∞; R. FULIN, “∞Itinerario di ser Piero Zeno oratore a Costanti-
nopoli nel MDXXIII,∞” Archivio Veneto 22 (1881)∞: 106–136 (hereafter Zen [1523]).

8 EBRU TURAN
“∞The second day that Zen arrived, the magnificent Ibrahim, who was aga,
came out of the palace as pasha. He came out with great pomp, and to
everybody’s great astonishment, was given camels, beautiful horses, jewels,
and slaves by the sultan. This Ibrahim was from Parga, the castle under
Corfu on the mainland, where a constable with some soldiers would be sent
for custody every two months. Called Pietro, Ibrahim was Christian. When
the Turks had Santa Maura, he was taken at a young age by Turkish corsairs
to the sea and was sold to a widowed daughter of that magnificent Iskender
who raided in Friuli. That woman lived near Edirne, which the present
sultan, Süleyman, held for his father, Selim. When Süleyman came to the
house of this woman, since she did not have anything else to present him,
she gave him this slave named Ibrahim, who played and sang and was of
the same age as the sultan.∞”16
The passage indicates that Ibrahim, or rather Pietro, must have been
enslaved sometime between 1499 and 1502. The Ottomans conquered the
island of Santa Maura in 1479 and held it until 1502, when the Venetians
retook it during the Ottoman-Venetian war (1499–1503)∞; their justifica-
tion was that the Ottomans, using the island as a base, were constantly
raiding the other Venetian holdings in the area, such as Parga, Ibrahim’s
hometown.17 It is very probable that Ibrahim was captured on one of
these raids that provoked the Venetian assault on the island.
Ibrahim’s first master was the widowed daughter of Iskender Pasha,
the Ottoman dignitary whose name was also mentioned by Giovio. One
of the most prominent political figures of Bayezid II’s reign, Iskender
Pasha was born in Byzantine Constantinople to a Genovese father and a
Greek mother around 1434.18 Following the Ottoman conquest of the
16
ZEN [1523], 108–109.
17
Santa Maura is the Venetian name given to the Greek island Levkás in the Ionian
Sea. The Republic restored the island to the Ottomans in 1503 as part of the truce∞; see
NICOL, Despotate of Epiros, 213∞; Sydney Nettleton FISHER, The Foreign Relations of
Turkey, 1481–1512 (Urbana∞: University of Illinois Press, 1948), 75∞; SANUDO, vol. 4, cols.
390–391. Cf. FISHER, Foreign Relations of Turkey, 76n124.
18
Several famous personalities named Iskender populated the Ottoman elite in the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries∞: Mihaloglu Iskender Bey (d. 1496), Iskender Pasha
(d. 1504), Bostancıba≥ı Iskender Pasha (d. 1515)∞; a certain Iskender who was Bayezid’s
confidant and slave, and who was charged with executing the son of Bayezid’s rival, Cem,
in 1482∞; and Iskender Çelebi (d. 1534), Süleyman’s defterdar. For the literature on these
individuals, see Hans J. KISSLING, “∞Zur Personalpolitik Sultan Bayezid’s II∞” (paper pre-
sented at the Internationalen Balkanologenkongresses, Athens, 1970), 108∞; KISSLING,
“∞Quelques problèmes concernant Iskender-Pasa, vizir de Bayezid II,∞” Turcica 2 (1970)∞:
130–137∞; Ismail Hakkı UZUNÇAR≥ILI, “∞Yavuz Sultan Selim’in Kızı Hanım Sultan ve
Torunu Kara Osman ≤ah Bey Vakfiyeleri,∞” Belleten 40, no. 159 (1976)∞: 467–478. For
the particular one who raided Friuli, see Hedda REINDL’s prosopographic study on Bayezid

city, Iskender converted to Islam and entered Mehmed II’s service. When
the sultan died, Iskender sided with Mehmed’s elder son, Bayezid, in the
struggle for succession against his brother, Cem. Upon Bayezid’s acces-
sion, Iskender Pasha’s fortunes began to thrive∞: he assumed several times
the governorship of Bosnia, served as governor-general (Beglerbey) of
Rumelia and Anatolia, and was the fourth vizier in the imperial council
between 1489 and 1496. He became famous for the raids that he under-
took in Croatia during the Ottoman-Venetian war, and he died in 1504
in Bosnia.19 As a distinguished member of the Ottoman political and
military elite, Iskender Pasha was also in possession of a great fortune,
with which he built a mosque in Fatih and established the first hospice
of the Mevlevi order of Istanbul on his estate in Galata. For the mainte-
nance of these buildings he endowed the income of his several properties
in Istanbul, which included many houses, stores, gardens, fountains, as
well as a guesthouse. In addition, he also owned four villages in Vize,
where he built another mosque, next to which he was later buried.20
It was at the estate of Iskender Pasha’s daughter near Edirne that
Süleyman and Ibrahim first met. During the reign of his father, Selim,
Süleyman was sent to Edirne twice, each time to guard the western bor-
ders of the empire while the sultan was campaigning in the east∞: first in
1514–1515, and then in 1516–1518.21 Since references in both the Italian
and the Ottoman period sources attest to the fact that Süleyman and Ibra-
him had grown up together, it seems more likely that they met at the
earlier date, namely 1514.22 As we shall see, however, Ibrahim’s connec-
tion with Iskender Pasha’s family did not dissolve after he was given to
Prince Süleyman. On the contrary, it was yet to become even more inti-
mate.
II’s elite, Männer um Bayezid∞: Eine prosopographische Studie über die Epoche Sultan
Bayezids II (1481–1512) (Berlin∞: K. Schwarz, 1983), 240–261.
19
REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 240–261.
20
Ibid., 261∞; M. Tayyip GÖKBILGIN, XV–XVI∞: Asırlarda Edirne ve Pa≥a Livâsı∞;
Vakıflar, Mülkler, Mukataalar (Istanbul, 1952), 432–433∞; BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul
Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 222∞; I. Aydın YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde II∞: Bâyezid Yavuz
Selim Devri (886–926/1481–1520) (Istanbul∞: Istanbul Fetih Cemiyeti, 1983), 89, 257, 299,
300∞; Vize is a small town in northwestern Turkey, approximately ninety miles from Istan-
bul.
21
GÖKBILGIN, “∞Süleymân I,∞” IA.
22
ZEN [1523], 109∞; Celalzade Mustafa, Geschichte Sultan Süleyman Kanunis von 1520
bis 1557, oder Tabakat ül-Memalik ve Derecat ül-Mesalik, ed. Petra Kappert (Wiesbaden∞:
Steiner, 1981), 110b.

10 EBRU TURAN
IBRAHIM PASHA’S WEDDING IN 1524 AND HIS BRIDE
Ibrahim Pasha married in May 1524 in a sumptuous wedding cele-

brated in the Hippodrome for two weeks. The event was honored by the
sultan, who personally attended the festivities, watching them from the
kiosk built for him in Ibrahim Pasha’s palace at the Hippodrome.23
Bringing the sultan, his grandees, his court, and the Janissaries together
with the entire urban populace of Constantinople, Ibrahim Pasha’s wed-
ding was the first of the grand-scale dynastic festivities to be organized
at the Hippodrome throughout the sixteenth century to celebrate the cir-
cumcisions of princes and the marriages of princesses to high-ranking
Ottoman officials.24 Impressed by the pomp and the sultan’s involvement
in the pasha’s wedding, modern historians starting with Hammer have
often assumed that Ibrahim Pasha’s wife was one of Süleyman’s sisters.25
This claim gained even more supporters in the mid-twentieth century
after the famous Turkish historian Ismail Hakkı Uzunçar≥ılı stated in his
history of the Ottoman Empire that the name of the princess whose hand
was supposedly given in marriage to Ibrahim Pasha was Hatice Sultan.26
As a matter of fact, in 1965 Uzunçar≥ılı published an article that
acknowledged that he had previously been mistaken, and Ibrahim Pasha’s
wife was not an Ottoman princess. Uzunçar≥ılı justified his new stance
by asserting that the pasha’s wife was a certain Muhsine Hatun, who had
built a small mosque in the Kumkapı district of Istanbul, known also as
“∞The Mosque of Ibrahim Pasha’s Wife,∞” around which a neighborhood
23
For Ibrahim Pasha’s wedding, see SANUDO, vol. 36, cols. 505–507∞; CELALZADE, Ges-
chichte Sultan Süleyman, 115b–121a∞; JENKINS, Ibrahim Pasha, 37–41∞; Metin AND, “∞Eski
Osmanlı ≤enlikleri Üzerine Üç Italyan Kaynagı,∞” Forum 14, no. 184 (December 1961)∞:
14–16∞; Leslie P. PEIRCE, The Imperial Harem∞: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman
Empire (New York∞: Oxford University Press, 1993), 68∞; TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s Favorite,∞”
221–223.
24
TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s Favorite,∞” 152–155.
25
Hammer probably drew on Dimitrie Cantemir’s work, the most comprehensive his-
tory written on the Ottomans in a European language before his own∞; see Demetrius
CANTEMIR, Histoire de l’Empire othoman, 2 vols. (Paris, 1743), 2∞:292∞; HAMMER, Ges-
chichte des osmanischen Reiches, 3∞:38∞; UZUNÇAR≥ILI, Osmanlı Tarihi, 2∞:356∞; DANI≥MEND,
Izahlı Osmanlı Tarihi, 103∞; GÖKBILGIN, “∞Ibrahîm Pa≥a∞”∞; A. D. ALDERSON, The Structure
of the Ottoman Dynasty (London∞: Oxford University Press, 1956), table XXIX∞; MER-
RIMAN, Suleiman the Magnificent, 77∞; Stanford J. SHAW, History of the Ottoman Empire
and Modern Turkey, 2 vols. (New York∞: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 1∞:90∞; Çaga-
tay ULUÇAY, Padi≥ahların Kadınları ve Kızları (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1980), 32∞;
PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 66∞; Caroline FINKEL, Osman’s Dream∞: The Story of the Ottoman
Empire, 1300–1923 (New York∞: Basic Books, 2005), 120.
26
UZUNÇAR≥ILI, Osmanlı Tarihi, 2∞:356.

later developed named after her.27 A year later, in 1966, Nigar Anafarta
produced additional evidence endorsing Uzunçar≥ılı’s new argument
when she published a letter written to the pasha by his wife signed
“∞Muhsine.∞”28 Nevertheless, despite the contrary evidence, the belief that
Ibrahim Pasha was married to Süleyman’s sister Hatice Sultan continued
to have many adherents among historians.29 The main reason behind this
persistence was that no information other than her name was ever dis-
covered about Ibrahim Pasha’s wife. If not a sister of Süleyman, who was
she∞? The answer is once again found among Pietro Zen’s papers from
Istanbul. In a four-page letter dated 20 October 1523 and written to the
Council of Ten, Zen reported∞:30
“∞On the 13th of this month, a person came to see me, who was around 35
years old, not well dressed, making himself in his report by name and prac-
tice the nephew of the mother of the wife of the magnificent Ibrahim
Pasha…. Let it be first known to your Signori that as to the relations with
whom he associated himself was Iskender Pasha who raided in Friuli and
to whom Zerbo was later sent by your Excellency to save him from his
sickness. This one [Iskender] had initially as wife a noble woman from Pera
who had already died many years ago, leaving him two daughters. One of
them was married to that Yakub Aga who died, leaving his wife childless.
She being a widow at the time when the sultan had San Maura, some Turks
bought Ibrahim Pasha, who was very young, to him [Iskender Pasha], who
later gave him [Ibrahim] to this Madonna, as she was still held by her father
near Edirne. The other real daughter of that Iskender had two daughters with
a sancak beg [governor of a sub-province] and one of them married before
a çavu≥ ba≥ı [head of palace officials] of this sultan, and the other one is at
the moment being married to the aforementioned Magnificent Ibrahim
Pasha. At the beginning she did not want to take him as husband, saying
that he was her slave, but she was persuaded to consent as she has done and
27
UZUNÇAR≥ILI, “∞Ibrahim Pa≥a Padi≥ah Damadı Degildi,∞” 355–361.
28
Anafarta found this letter in the Topkapı Palace Archives. Nigar ANAFARTA, “∞Mak-
bul Ibrahim Pa≥a Kanuni’nin Damadı Mıydı∞?∞” Hayat Tarih Mecmuası, 1 September
1966, 74–76.
29
Uzunçar≥ılı’s chief critic was Çagatay Uluçay, who responded to Uzunçar≥ılı in his
article “∞Kanunî Sultan Süleyman ve Ailesi ile Ilgili Bazi Notlar Vesikalar,∞” in Kanuni
Armaganı (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1970), 227–258. However, most of Uluçay’s
references lack proper citation, and he also quotes from popular works of dubious scholar-
ship, such as Cemal KUTAY’s article entitled “∞Makbûl Ibrahim Pa≥a Nasıl Maktûl Ibrahim
Pa≥a Olmu≥tur∞?∞” Tarih Konu≥uyor 3 (1965)∞: 1181–1186.
30
Archivio di Stato di Venezia, Lettere degli ambasciatori a Costantinopoli (1504–
1550), Capi del Consiglio di Dieci, Reg. 1, 20 October 1523. Although the letter lacks a
signature, Zen must have authored it, as he served in Istanbul between June 1523 and May
1524 as vice bailo, replacing the bailo Andrea Priuli, who died of plague in July 1523.

12 EBRU TURAN
condescend to the wish of the sultan who wished it that way. And being
these things true…∞”31
Zen’s letter not only confirms the information given in the account of
1523 on Ibrahim’s origins but also establishes that his wife was a grand-
daughter of Iskender Pasha. Ibrahim Pasha’s relationship by marriage to
Iskender Pasha’s family can also be verified through a late sixteenth-
century Ottoman chronicle, Ibtihacü’t-tevariÌ. In the section describing
Ibrahim Pasha’s expedition to Egypt in 1524, Ibtihac notes, “∞He [Ibra-
him Pasha] left Aleppo on the third of Rebiyülahir and turned toward
Damascus. The governor of Damascus, Hürrem Pasha, was son of
Iskender Pasha, and he was one of the relatives of the [Ibrahim] Pasha’s
honorable wife.∞”32 Furthermore, other details about Ibrahim Pasha and
his wife can also be brought to light that build on Zen’s letter, including
the identity of Ibrahim Pasha’s first owner. The registers detailing the
disbursements made from the imperial treasury name Mihri≥ah and Hafsa
as Iskender Pasha’s daughters, and Fatma as his granddaughter.33 Ibra-
him Pasha’s first owner, it seems, was this Mihri≥ah Hatun, who was
better known by her epithet, Hacı Hatun, which denotes that she had
become a pilgrim after undertaking the required rites at Mecca.34 In his
letter to Muhsine, Ibrahim Pasha also refers to her by this name, while
31
“∞Alli 13 del presente vene à me una persona de eta de anni circa 35 non ben vestito
del nome et exercitio che in la sua relatione ha deposto facendosi nepote della madre de
la sposa del magnifico Ybrayn bassa… perche saperano primo le signorie vostre circa el
parente de chi lui si fa che è Scanderbassa che fu quello che corse in Friul et al quale poi
dalle Excelentie Vostre è sta mandato el Zerbo per liberarlo dalla egritudine sua el qual
inantemente have per moglier una nobile perota la qual sonno molti anni che manchò de
questa lui lassate doe figliole luna maridata in el qual Jacob Aga el qual lassò la moglie
senza figliolo alchuno et lei essendo vedoa al tempo che’l Signor hebbe Sancta Maura
comproli alcuni Turchi el Magnifico Imbrayn Bassa alhora picolo el qual poi dono à
questa Madonna essendo lei allora tenuta dal padre verso Andernopoli. L’altra veramente
fiola del qual Scander ha avute do fiole cum uno sanzacco et una de esse per inanti fu
maridata in el chiaus Bassi de questa Maestà et dell’altra è sta fatto matrimonio al presente
in el prefato Magnifico Ibrayn Bassa la qual inanti non voleva consentir à tuorlo per
marito cum dir che era sta suo schiavo Ma è stata persuasa à consentar come lha fato et
condescender alla voluta del Signor che cosi ha voluto∞: et essendo queste cose vere…∞”
32
Ibtihacü’-tevariÌ, Süleymaniye Hüsrev Pa≥a, 321, 142a∞; for Hürrem Pa≥a’s being
Iskender Pasha’s son, see Franz BABINGER, “∞Fatih Sultan Mehmet ve Italya,∞” Belleten 65
(1958)∞: 74∞; Rebiyülahir is the fourth month in the Islamic calendar.
33
Istanbul Ba≥bakanlık Ar≥ivi (BBA), Kamil Kepeci (KK) 7097, 8–9∞; 78∞; BBA Mal-
iyeden Müdevver 17884, 5–6. Ibrahim Pasha’s wife is mentioned separately∞; see KK
1764, 40, 143, 196.
34
BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 370/foundation nr. 2175∞:
Vakf-ı Hacı Mihir≥ah Hatûn binti Iskender Pa≥a.

sending his best regards to Her Excellency Hacı Hatun (Hacı Hatun
Hazretlerine) and his mother-in-law (kayın anama).35 It is obvious that
Mihri≥ah Hatun was held in great esteem by Ibrahim Pasha, who refers
to her in the same letter as “∞the crown of good deeds and the ultimate in
great things, may her chastity increase until the Day of Judgment.∞”36
Like her father, Iskender Pasha, Mihri≥ah Hatun was very wealthy, a fact
documented by the numerous properties whose income she endowed for
the maintenance of her mosque in the Kocamustafapa≥a quarter of Istan-
bul.37 Mihri≥ah must have died before 1527 because Ibrahim Pasha’s
endowment deed drawn up in that year stipulates that the Quran be
recited daily for her soul.38
As Mihri≥ah Hatun was married to Yakup Aga, Iskender Pasha’s other
daughter, Hafsa — Ibrahim’s mother-in-law, to whom he never failed to
send greetings in his letters — was married to the governor of Nigbolu
(Nikopol), Mustafa Bey.39 Since the Ottoman military elite in the late
fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries abounds with Mustafa Beys, it is
very difficult to fully identify the particular one who was Muhsine’s
father. It is known only that Mustafa Bey had a school built in Nish
(Serbia) and a mosque in Stara Zagora (Bulgaria), for whose maintenance
he established a foundation to be supported by several villages he owned
in Bulgaria.40 Ibrahim Pasha’s endowment deed shows that Mustafa Bey
was dead by 1527.41 Lastly, Zen’s letter states that Ibrahim Pasha’s sister-
in-law, Fatma, whose name is mentioned in Ibrahim’s letters in abbrevi-
ated form, Fati, was married to a Çavu≥ Ba≥ı at the court. In the Venetian
35
Ibrahim Pasha’s letters to Muhsine are currently found in Topkapı Palace Archives,
catalogued as E 5860/2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11. These letters are also published by Uluçay∞;
see Çagatay ULUÇAY, Osmanlı Sultanlarına A≥k Mektupları (Istanbul, 1950), 64–76∞; for
the pasha’s reference to Mihri≥ah Hatun, see ULUÇAY, Osmanlı Sultanlarına A≥k
Mektupları, 64.
36
Ibid.
37
BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 370–371.
38
Ibid., 437–438∞; there must be a mistake with the note in ÎadiÈatü’l-cevami‘, which
states that Mihri≥ah Hatun’s gravestone, located near her mosque, is dated 947/1540–41∞;
see Hafız Hüseyin AYVANSARAYI, The Garden of the Mosques∞: Hafiz Hüseyin al-Ayvan-
sarayî’s Guide to the Muslim Monuments of Ottoman Istanbul, trans. and annot. Howard
Crane (Boston∞: Brill, 2000), 100.
39
Reindl notes that in 1494 Iskender Pasha undertook great festivities to celebrate his
sons’ circumcisions and his daughter’s marriage to Yakub Aga∞; see REINDL, Männer um
Bayezid, 250–251n47∞; for Iskender Pasha’s son-in-law Mustafa Bey’s properties and
foundations, see GÖKBILGIN, XV–XVI∞: Asırlarda Edirne ve Pa≥a Livası, 440–441.
40
YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde, 443–444.
41
BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 438.

14 EBRU TURAN
sources, Ibrahim Pasha’s brother-in-law appears as Zemath Bey, who was

the commander of the sipahis (the sultan’s standing cavalry corps) in
1523 and who was entrusted with the commandership of the Ottoman
armada in 1532.42
THE POLITICS OF IBRAHIM PASHA AND MUHSINE’S MARRIAGE
Although it reveals invaluable information about Ibrahim Pasha and

his wife, Zen’s letter also raises intriguing questions for the Ottoman
historian. It is known that during the Süleymanic era it was a common
practice for the highest-ranking military and administrative officials of
the empire, the viziers, to marry into the dynasty and become the sultan’s
brothers- or sons-in-law.43 For example, three of Süleyman’s sisters were
given in marriage to Ferhad, Mustafa, and Lutfi Pashas, his only daugh-
ter was married to his famous grand vizier Rüstem, and his two grand-
daughters wed his last two grand viziers, Semiz Ali and Sokollu
Mehmed.44 As Leslie Peirce has pointed out, marrying into the royal
family elevated the official’s position by creating a unique personal bond
with the monarch and, as such, was a sign of being in the special favor
of the sultan.45 Among all the viziers and servants of Süleyman, no one
ever enjoyed the sultan’s favor as much as Ibrahim. From the moment
that he mounted the throne, Süleyman presented Ibrahim in public as his
beloved friend with whom he wanted to share all that he had, including
his royal prerogatives.46 Described by the Venetians as the sultan’s
“∞breath and heart,∞” Ibrahim was showered with myriad favors, including
the most beautiful palaces, horses, jewels, robes, slaves, and camels,
which in splendor and magnificence matched only the sultan’s own.47
42
SANUDO, vol. 39, col. 368∞; vol. 56, cols. 105, 402, 469, 655, 736.
43
PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 65.
44
Ibid., 66∞; ULUÇAY, Padi≥ahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 31–34.
45
Peirce, Imperial Harem, 65.
46
For example, Süleyman not only granted a palace for Ibrahim at the Hippodrome,
which in several respects mirrored his own, but also bestowed on him the privilege to hold
divan (imperial council) meetings at his own residence. The distribution of justice was
considered a duty and prerogative of the sovereign, which was traditionally executed at
the sultan’s threshold. It seems that, with Ibrahim Pasha, this later became the norm for
the grand vizier∞; see ZEN [1523], 109∞; Halil INALCIK, The Ottoman Empire∞: The Classical
Age, 1300–1600 (London∞: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973), 89–90, 95.
47
Pietro BRAGADIN, “∞Sommario della relazione [1526],∞” in Albèri, Relazioni, 3∞:103
(hereafter Bragadin [1526]∞; ZEN [1523], 115–116∞; SANUDO, vol. 34, cols. 359–360.

One wonders, then, why Süleyman, who was not known for withholding
the highest honors from his favorite, did not also make him his brother-
in-law.
The first explanation that immediately comes to mind suggests an ear-
lier romantic attachment on Ibrahim’s part, although his feelings, it
seems, were initially hardly reciprocated. Had this been the case, how-
ever, the marriage would have happened earlier, at least sometime
between October 1521 and May 1522, when Süleyman granted Ibrahim
a private palace at the Hippodrome, where he could start a family.48
Another explanation would be the lack of an Ottoman princess who could
be given to the pasha in marriage. Although three of Süleyman’s sisters
— Hanim, Beyhan, and ≤ah Sultans — were already married in 1524 and
were thus not eligible, it would certainly have been possible to find a
suitable match for Ibrahim within the extended royal family.49
Circumstantial evidence suggests, however, that Muhsine was specifi-
cally chosen as Ibrahim’s bride and that Ibrahim Pasha’s marriage was
primarily a political arrangement related to his unusual rise to the grand
vizierate. Zen’s letter shows that although Ibrahim Pasha’s wedding was
celebrated in May 1524, the marriage had already legally taken place and
had publicly been known before October 1523, only a few months after
Ibrahim’s promotion. Furthermore, the Venetian sources indicate that
immediately after the marriage took place, Süleyman ordered vast
amounts of sugar from Cyprus for the celebrations.50 It seems that from
the very beginning the wedding was conceived as a grand-scale public
event and was therefore deliberately postponed until the spring, when the
weather would allow outside festivities in which all the people in the city
could take part. The preoccupation with receiving public recognition for
the pasha’s marriage, the unprecedented pomp surrounding the wedding,
and the full dynastic commitment to the event all show that Ibrahim’s
marriage to Muhsine was considered a matter of the utmost political
importance. To be able to decipher the political meaning underlying this
marriage, however, one has first to explore why Ibrahim Pasha did not
48
Nurhan ATASOY, Ibrahim Pa≥a Sarayı (Istanbul∞: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi,
1972), 15∞; TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s Favorite,∞” 143.
49
In 1517 Mustafa Pasha married the widow of Bostancıba≥ı Iskender Pasha, whom
Selim had executed in 1515∞; SANUDO, vol. 25, col. 615∞; Ferhad Pasha married Beyhan
Sultan after the Belgrade campaign∞; SANUDO, vol. 33, cols. 37, 43–44∞; and Lutfi Pasha
seems to have married ≤ah Sultan by April 1524∞; ULUÇAY, Padi≥ahların Kadınları Kızları,
33n2.
50
SANUDO, vol. 35, col. 259.

16 EBRU TURAN
conform to the common practice of the time and marry a woman from
the dynasty. This task calls for an analysis of the marriage alliances
between the Ottoman dynasty and the slave elite that originated in the
second half of the fifteenth century.
MARRIAGES BETWEEN THE OTTOMAN DYNASTY AND

THE RULING ELITE
Leslie Peirce has rightly argued that the primary objective of such
marriages was to boost the bonds of loyalty between the dynasty and the
members of the slave elite (kul), who had come to occupy the most prom-
inent posts in the empire since the time of Mehmed the Conqueror.
Through the enormous power they wielded over the military administra-
tion and the political apparatus, kuls were a potential threat to the autoc-
racy of the sultan. Therefore, to ensure their long-term attachment to the
dynasty, the sultans began to tie more closely the most powerful mem-
bers of the slave institution through marriages to the imperial family.51
Peirce’s keen observation notwithstanding, the evolution of the practice
has to be contextualized within the broader political, institutional, and
social developments that the empire had undergone from the time of
Mehmed II through the first decades of the sixteenth century. Only in this
way can it be understood why, for example, much-trusted slave viziers
like Rüstem and Sokollu Mehmed were given the honor of marrying into
the imperial family, whereas Sultan’s favorite, Ibrahim, was not.
First and foremost, the rise of the marriage alliances between the Otto-
man dynasty and the ruling elite was related to the centralizing reforms
that Mehmed II introduced into the Ottoman polity after the conquest of
Constantinople (1453). Mehmed claimed to be the successor to Roman
emperors, and his imperial ambitions involved rebuilding Constantinople
as the new center of the Ottoman monarchy, which would pronounce the
new imperial image of the sultan as well as his supreme power.52 For this
purpose Mehmed launched a grand architectural program in the city to
51
PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 70–71.
52
Halil INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II,∞” IA∞; Gülru NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and
Power∞: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge∞: MIT
Press, 1991), 10–21∞; Çigdem KAFESÇIOGLU, “∞The Ottoman Capital in the Making∞: The
Reconstruction of Constantinople in the Fifteenth Century∞” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard Univer-
sity, 1996), 3–6.

build new military, administrative, and religious institutions that concen-

trated political, military, financial, and ideological resources at unprec-
edented levels in one place under the command of the sultan.53 Nonethe-
less, what really gave life to Mehmed’s imperial project was the making
of a new imperial elite recruited primarily from slaves of Christian back-
ground. Mehmed relied on his new elite, trained and acculturated in the
imperial palace under the sultan’s personal supervision, to articulate his
new political and ideological order.54 This elite ran the military and
administrative institutions that embodied his supreme authority∞; this elite
celebrated his imperial majesty by performing assigned roles in court
ceremonials∞; this elite helped him rebuild the city by simultaneously
undertaking construction of its own∞; and this elite delineated the new
hierarchies in Ottoman society by participating in the monumentalization
of the capital with projects that, compared to those of the sultan, com-
municated a sense of humility and thereby reinforced the sultan’s most
magnificent status.55 Employing the members of this new elite in all the
military and administrative positions across the empire, at high levels and
at low, and at the center as well as in the provinces, Mehmed’s central-
ized empire functioned through a web of personal networks, connected
with personal loyalties and patron-client relations that converged on the
sultan, rather than through bureaucratic institutions.56
Historians have explained how Mehmed used his expanded power,
materialized in the hands of his new elite, to emasculate the traditional
forces in the Ottoman polity with which the sultans usually had had to
contend for power, namely the frontier warlords and the landed Turkish
nobility.57 However, they have not examined the effects of this new polit-
ical configuration on the dynasty, especially on the crown princes holding
53
INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II∞”∞; NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 21∞;
KAFESÇIOGLU, “∞Ottoman Capital in the Making,∞” 3–6, 26–163.
54
INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II∞”∞; NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 256.
55
INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II∞”∞; NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 250∞;
KAFESÇIOGLU, “∞Ottoman Capital in the Making,∞” 87–100, 173–178, 201–204, 321–324.
56
Although it is generally assumed that the Ottoman Empire took on a bureaucratic
character after Mehmed II, Cornell Fleischer’s work has demonstrated that the expansion
and consolidation of the bureaucratic bodies were a product of Süleyman’s reign∞; see
Cornell FLEISCHER, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire∞: The Historian
Mustafa Âli (Princeton∞: Princeton University Press, 1986), 201–231∞; FLEISCHER, “∞Pre-
liminaries to the Study of Ottoman Bureaucracy,∞” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986)∞:
135–141.
57
INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II∞”∞; Cemal KAFADAR, Between Two Worlds∞: The Construction
of the Ottoman State (Berkeley∞: University of California Press, 1995), 146–150.

18 EBRU TURAN
court in the provinces and on the process of dynastic succession.

Mehmed’s centralizing reforms immensely increased the power of the
sultan’s household, now permanently located in Istanbul, and as such
partly dwarfed and peripheralized the princely households, yet the Otto-
man sovereignty remained fragmented along the collateral male lines of
the dynasty.58 Theoretically, each crown prince continued to have an
equal claim on the throne, and the imperial center, despite its supreme
power, did not have the legitimacy to choose the next sultan. Be that as
it may, from Mehmed on, no prince could remain indifferent to the
immense power that the center wielded through its unmatched military,
financial, and political resources. It was obvious that to gain the throne,
a prince had to win the support of those who controlled the center or of
those who were connected to it through personal networks. This required
the establishment of political alliances between princes and members of
the centralized elite, and dynastic marriage turned out to be the key
means by which such alliances came to be cemented.
For example, during Mehmed’s time, Prince Bayezid, then governor
of Amasya, married two of his daughters to his father’s prominent men,
(Kara) Mustafa Pasha and (Arnavud) Sinan Pasha, in order to gain the
advantage over his brother, Cem, whose court was in Konya.59 Eventu-
ally, both connections proved extremely useful for Bayezid∞: when
Mehmed died, Mustafa Pasha was the governor of Bolu, and Sinan the
governor-general of Anatolia, and in these capacities the pashas effec-
tively blocked the roads between Konya and Istanbul, which enabled
their father-in-law to arrive in Istanbul first and ascend the throne.60 In a
similar fashion, Bayezid’s sons during their princehood also engaged in
marriage alliances with the centripetal ruling elite in order to develop a
following on which they hoped to rely in the future. Bayezid’s favorite
son, Ahmed, for instance, married three of his daughters to Mustafa Bey,
the governor of Midilli, Silahdar (keeper of the sword) Süleyman Bey,
58
The sovereignty of the princes, albeit limited, is evident in the fact that the princely
courts were located in the capitals of the old Turkish principalities in Anatolia that had
been conquered by the Ottomans∞; see Ismail Hakkı UZUNÇAR≥ILI, “∞Sancaga Çıkarılan
Osmanlı ≤ehzadeleri,∞” Belleten 39 (1975)∞: 667–668.
59
REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 294, 319∞; Çagatay ULUÇAY, “∞Bayezid II. nin Âilesi,∞”
Tarih Dergisi 10 (1959)∞: 119.
60
REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 294–295, 320–325. It is also worth mentioning that
Sinan Pasha was a friend and an ally of Ishak Pasha, the leader of the pro-Bayezid faction
in the capital∞; see REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 38, 321.

and Ser-ulufeciyan (head of the Janissary Cavalry Corps) Mehmed Bey.61

Likewise, Selim chose as his son-in-law his father’s trusted servant
Bostancıba≥ı Iskender, who later in Bayezid’s reign became the com-
mander of the Ottoman fleet. While holding this post, Iskender delivered
great help to his father-in-law in 1512 by imposing a blockade on the
Bosphorus and preventing his chief rival, Prince Ahmed, from crossing
from Üsküdar to Istanbul.62
Indeed, these marriage arrangements were symbiotic, beneficial to
both parties. For the ruling elite, forging political alliances by marriage
was a strategy to retain position in a political culture in which there was
no security of tenure from one reign to another. Although the Ottomans
were one of the first among early modern states to develop a class of state
servants defined by office rather than family, noble birth, or wealth, the
central government continued to be an extension of the sultan’s house-
hold, inseparable from his person.63 Officials thus remained essentially
the sultan’s personal servants, deriving their power from the service they
rendered to him. Nothing can demonstrate this point more forcefully than
Mehmed’s legal code, or kanunname. In it the sultan not only defined the
chief military, administrative, and religious officials of the empire and
outlined the hierarchies regulating their promotions, ranks, salaries, and
ceremonial positions at court, but also referred to the officeholders and
their assigned tasks by using the first-person possessive pronoun, such as
“∞my viziers, my financial directors, my military judges,∞” or “∞in my impe-
rial council, my estate, my imperial signet.∞” In this way he stressed the
personal nature of Ottoman rule and showed that no formal distinction
existed between the person of the monarch and the state.64
61
The governor of Midilli, Mustafa Bey, was Iskender Pa≥a’s son, in other words
Muhsine’s maternal uncle∞; see ULUÇAY, “∞Bayezid II. nin Âilesi,∞” 110–111∞; on ulufeci-
yan, see Ismail Hakkı UZUNÇAR≥ILI, Osmanlı Devleti Te≥kilâtından Kapukulu Ocakları, 2
vols. (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1943), 2∞:137.
62
FISHER, Foreign Relations of Turkey, 98, 100∞; ULUÇAY, “∞Bayezid II. nin Âilesi,∞”
116n83∞; UZUNÇAR≥ILI, “∞Yavuz Sultan Selim’in Kızı Hanım Sultan,∞” 469–471∞; Reindl
thinks that this Iskender was the one whom Bayezid entrusted with the execution of Sultan
Cem’s son Oguz (ex. 1482)∞; see REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 124, 245–246n26.
63
Heath Lowry indicates that the noble birth to some degree remained an important
factor among the chief Ottoman elite between 1453 and 1516, as many of the Ottoman
grand viziers came from the old Byzantine and Balkan noble houses∞; see Heath LOWRY,
The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany∞: State University of New York Press,
2003), 115–130∞; INALCIK, Classical Age, 77∞; FLEISCHER, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 196∞;
NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 21.
64
Abdülkadir ÖZCAN, “∞Fâtih’in Te≥kilât Kanunnamesi ve Nizam-ı Âlem Için Karde≥
Katli Meselesi,∞” Tarih Dergisi 33 (1980–1981)∞: 6–48.

20 EBRU TURAN
Partly as a consequence of the new imperial image that Mehmed cul-

tivated, which endowed the sultan with a previously unknown majesty,
dignity, and even sacredness, the Ottoman sultans after the conquest
largely refrained from contact with the outside world and secluded them-
selves in the private quarters of the palace.65 As a result, they had to
delegate most of the routine tasks of everyday government to their prin-
cipal officials. Indeed, it was a great privilege to be entrusted with car-
rying out the sultan’s public responsibilities, as it meant having a share
of the tremendous power and authority that the sultan possessed. For the
sultan, however, delegation of power involved great risk because it
implied granting multiple individuals access to royal prerogative.
Although most of the military officials were slaves and thus could not be
an alternative to the sultan, they might still use their immense power
primarily to advance their own interests rather than his. Thus, the most
important virtue that the sultan sought from his officials was faithful
service. Not surprisingly, only a close personal relationship, based on ties
of loyalty, would ensure such dedication. Therefore, sultans usually
appointed to key positions those who had first served them privately in
the inner court and demonstrated absolute commitment to their cause.66
Since all power devolved from the monarch and was exercised in his
name, performance of office depended purely on his consent. As a corol-
lary, appointments of the chief officials remained effective only as long
as such consent could be manifest, that is, as long as the sultan was alive.
Just as all treaties signed and all concessions and privileges granted by
the sultan became void at his death, so too did officials lose their claim
to an office once the sultan whom they personally had served was gone.67
In theory, the successor could, and often did, discharge all his father’s
men and replace them with people from his own household, with whom
he had close personal ties and on whose loyalties he fully relied.68 There-
fore, to perpetuate power as well as secure upward advancement, the
ruling elite often sought to cultivate personal connections with the crown
princes to win their trust. As kinship ties were the most effective means
of forging personal bonds, marriage became the most popular method of
doing so.
65
NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 10–16, 250.
66
INALCIK, Classical Age, 77–79.
67
Ibid., 61.
68
For examples, see my discussion below of Selim’s and Süleyman’s relations with
the elite that they found in government when they first mounted the throne.

In the post-Mehmed era, the sultans also engaged in marriage alliances

with the elite to manipulate politics, especially with respect to promo-
tions. Although personal relations based on ties of loyalty remained
paramount in Ottoman politics, the Ottoman military and civil adminis-
tration was at the same time growing more professional. Besides the
sultan’s trust and grace, know-how, capability, and experience became
factors in acquiring and holding an office.69 Undoubtedly, Mehmed’s
project to create a new imperial elite composed of slaves was central to
this process. Making the quality of service to the ruler the most important
criterion for upward mobility, Mehmed indirectly promoted the impor-
tance of acquiring skills and gaining expertise for performing a job. In
the constantly expanding early sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire, where
on the one hand there was a growing demand for qualified manpower in
administration, and on the other wars, executions, epidemics, and primi-
tive medical skills made early death a common phenomenon, the profes-
sional elite was in terribly short supply.70 Their insufficient number in
fact greatly enhanced their political leverage against the sultan, whom
they could easily manipulate or even patronize with their knowledge of
and experience in government. This was especially the case in the first
years of each reign, when the sultan, as a novice in central government,
had no other choice but to rely on the advice and expertise of the chief
officials.71 For instance, even a true autocrat like Selim I (r. 1512–1520)
had to bend to the power of his father’s able officials when he first came
to the throne. Although he had become sultan against their wishes, Selim
initially kept most of his father’s grandees in office∞: the pool of experi-
enced and skillful officials needed to run the empire was very small in
the early sixteenth century.72
69
Ebru TURAN, “∞Voices of Opposition in the Reign of Sultan Süleyman∞: The Case of
Ibrahim Pa≥a (1523–36),∞” in Studies on Istanbul and Beyond∞: The Freely Papers, Volume
I, ed. Robert G. Ousterhout (Philadelphia∞: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Arche-
ology and Anthropology, 2007), 32.
70
FLEISCHER, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 211.
71
Venetian reports from the early years of Süleyman’s reign attest that Grand Vizier
Piri Pasha, whom Süleyman inherited from his father, was in charge of all government
affairs∞; see Sanudo, vol. 29, cols. 390–392∞; vol. 33, col. 37.
72
Çagatay ULUÇAY, “∞Yavuz Sultan Selim Nasıl Padi≥ah Oldu∞?∞” Tarih Dergisi 9
(1954)∞: 53–90∞; for Selim maintaining his father’s men in office, see Erdem ÇIPA, “∞The
Centrality of the Periphery∞: The Rise to Power of Selim I, 1487–1512∞” (Ph.D. diss.,
Harvard University, 2007), 136∞; the Venetian ambassadors Alvise Mocenigo and Bar-
tolomeo Contarini noted in 1517 that after eliminating all his father’s men, Selim had no
senior and experienced pashas around him∞; see MOCENIGO and CONTARINI, “∞Sommario
delle relazioni di Alvise Mocenigo e di Batolomeo Contarini,∞” in Albèri, Relazioni, 56.

22 EBRU TURAN
In this respect, accepting the elite in the imperial family as sons-in-law

was to some degree the dynasty’s acknowledgment of the elite’s increas-
ing political importance and power. Otherwise, as they were mostly
slaves, it was socially unacceptable, if not legally forbidden, for the kuls
to marry freeborn women, much less those of royal blood.73 A passage
in A≥ıkpa≥azade’s history indicates that Sultan Bayezid’s innovation in
choosing his sons-in-law from among his slave elite gave rise at that time
to a public debate questioning the legitimacy of the practice. In an alleged
conversation between Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha, Bayezid’s son-in-law
and governor-general (later also grand vizier), and the Mameluke Sultan,
who was himself a slave, the latter inquired about the pasha’s recent
marriage into the dynasty by asking him how a slave could take the sul-
tan’s daughter as his wife. In response, Ahmed Pasha justified Bayezid’s
action by stating that his master has shown him grace in acknowledgment
of his loyal service.74
Professionalization not only increased the slave elite’s power but also
led them to develop a new self-perception that allowed them to justify
their existence and authority separately from the person of the sultan.
After Mehmed, and especially from the early decades of the sixteenth
century on, the members of the Ottoman imperial elite came to define
themselves by the jobs they performed∞; they asked for professional rec-
ognition and advancement on the basis of their achievements and capa-
bilities. They even began to see themselves as entitled to superior office,
status, or authority on the basis of merit, independent of, and sometimes
even in opposition to, the sultan’s discretion.75 In these circumstances, as
professionalization began to diminish the sultan’s personal control over
the state apparatus, the sultans introduced dynastic marriages as a strat-
egy to maintain a firm grip on the elite, especially at the higher echelons,
73
R. BRUNSCHVIG, “∞‘Abd,∞” Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (hereafter EI2)∞; J. SCHACT,
“∞NikaÌ,∞” EI2.
74
“∞‘A≥ıkpa≥azade,∞” TevariÌ-i Âl-i ‘OÒman‘, ed. Ali Bey (Istanbul∞: Ma†ba‘a-yı Amire,
1914 [1332], 234∞; Gülru Necipoglu shows that even in the later sixteenth century, when
the slave elite reached the height of its power, the princesses married to high-ranking
officials would still look down on their husbands because of their status as slaves∞; see
Gülru NECIPOGLU, The Age of Sinan∞: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (Prin-
ceton∞: Princeton University Press, 2005), 43–44.
75
Both Ferhad Pasha’s (ex. 1524) and (Hain) Ahmed Pasha’s (ex. 1524) disappoint-
ment with and protest against Ibrahim’s elevation to the grand vizierate, which eventually
led to their executions, should be interpreted in this framework∞; see TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s
Favorite,∞” 184–191.

in order to keep a tight rein on decision making. Bestowing on certain

favored individuals the honor of marrying into the dynasty and having
them promoted rapidly to higher posts on the basis of this personal con-
nection, the sultans forced the elite to compete for their favor and made
them understand that regardless of how competent or proficient they
were, they still had to court the favor of the sultan to reach the top of the
pyramid.76
Not surprisingly, a sultan’s willingness to place his kin by marriage in
key positions was considered a blatant disregard of the elite’s sensibilities
that could easily backfire. A good example in this regard from the late
fifteenth century is the case of the aforementioned Hersekzade Ahmed
Pasha. Originally a descendant of Bosnian nobility, Ahmed Pasha was
the governor of Hamidili — a relatively minor post in the political hier-
archy — when Bayezid II ascended the throne in 1481. Shortly after his
rapid nomination to the governor-generalship of Anatolia in 1483, Ahmed
Pasha not only married Bayezid’s daughter Hundi Sultan (1484) but also
assumed the commandership of the imperial campaign against the Mame-
lukes in 1486, probably as the surrogate for his father-in-law, who did
not participate in the campaign.77 Being several years junior to the expe-
rienced generals in the army, however, Ahmed Pasha was not fully
acknowledged as the commander in chief. Senior commanders, such as
Karagöz Pasha and Hızıroglı Mehmed Bey, flatly refused to take orders
from him and broke ranks. Ahmed Pasha not only lost the battle but also
fell captive to the Mamelukes.78 This early incident, it seems, did little
to deter Bayezid in the future from establishing marriage alliances with
76
This trend among the professionalized elite gained a new momentum in the later
decades of the sixteenth century with the rise of a bureaucratic consciousness. Associating
the legitimacy of the state with its commitment to universalist principles, such as meritoc-
racy, seniority, and capability, the elite came to denounce the sultan’s personal interference
in state affairs — particularly in the case of nominating people to government positions
on the basis of mere personal favor — as illegitimate and even detrimental to the interest
of the Ottoman commonwealth∞; see FLEISCHER, Bureaucrat and Intellectual, 214–231,
293–307∞; and FLEISHER, “∞The Lawgiver as Messiah,∞” 159, 172–173.
77
On Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha, see Erdmute HELLER, Venedische Quellen zur Leb-
ensgeschichte des Ahmed Pasa Hersek-Oghlu (Munich∞: Uni-Druck, 1961)∞; REINDL, Män-
ner um Bayezid, 129–146.
78
Selâhattin TANSEL, Sultan II∞: Bâyezit’in Siyasî Hayatı (Istanbul∞: Millî Egitim
Basımevi, 1966), 102n57∞; Richard Franz KREUTEL, Der fromme Sultan Bayezid∞: Die
Geschichte seiner Herrschaft (1481–1512) nach den altosmanischen Chroniken des Oruç
und des Anonymus Hanivaldanus (Graz∞: Verl. Styria, 1978), 204∞; REINDL, Männer um
Bayezid, 133–134∞; 265–266.

24 EBRU TURAN
the elite. Throughout his thirty-one-year reign, he continued to marry his

numerous daughters and granddaughters to those among the elite who
were in his good graces.79
THE CHIEF OTTOMAN ELITE FROM BAYEZID II TO SÜLEYMAN
Only a few of Bayezid’s sons-in-law, however, reached the highest-

ranking office, the vizierate.80 Many of Bayezid’s favorites either fell
slain on the battlefield during the campaigns led by his warlike successor,
Selim, or were executed or at best slighted by the new sultan, who had
no trust in his father’s grandees after they collectively opposed his acces-
sion.81 Although Selim was eager to replace them as soon as possible
with his own men, it took him several years to develop a set of chief
officials whom he had personally chosen. More specifically, it was in the
period following the Mameluke Campaign in 1517 that the upper strata
of the Ottoman elite came to be completely recast. Piri Pasha ascended
to the grand vizierate (1517), Mustafa Pasha to the post of the second
vizier (1519), and Ferhad Pasha to that of the third vizier (1519), and
Ahmed Pasha became governor-general of Rumelia (1519).82 Apart from
their joint dedication to the sultan, however, Selim’s new elite was a
factionalized one, divided by a fierce competition for office and power.
The intra-elite rivalry was related mostly to the different professional
backgrounds of these individuals. Piri Mehmed Pasha was originally a
financial bureaucrat during the time of Bayezid∞; he was raised in 1514
by Selim to the vizierate mainly to curb the influence of his father’s
79
A. D. ALDERSON, The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty (London∞: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1956), table XXVIII∞; ULUÇAY, “∞Bayezid II. nin Âilesi,∞” 109–124.
80
PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 66.
81
For example, Bayezid’s favorite, Hasan Pasha, fell in the Battle of Çaldıran in 1514∞;
see Selâhattin TANSEL, Yavuz Sultan Selim (Ankara∞: Milli Egitim Basımevi, 1969), 61∞;
REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 205n3∞; Dukaginzade Ahmed Pasha, who was married to one
of Bayezid’s granddaughters, was executed by Selim in 1515∞; see TANSEL, Yavuz Sultan
Selim, 73∞; Yunus Pasha, who was very dear to Bayezid and was also married to one of his
granddaughters, was executed in 1517∞; see TANSEL, Yavuz Sultan Selim, 203∞; REINDL, Män-
ner um Bayezid, 210n23∞; KREUTEL, Der fromme Sultan Bayezid, 277∞; SANUDO, vol. 19, col.
225∞: “∞E se dice che ditto Signor non vol con lui gran maistri, et vol far zente nova.∞”
82
Yusuf KÜÇÜKDAG, Vezîr-i Âzam Pîrî Mehmed Pa≥a (1463∞?–1532) (Konya∞: Hayra
Hizmet Vakfı, 1994), 39∞; Celâl-zâde Mustafa Çelebi, Selim-nâme, ed. Ahmet Ugur and
Mustafa Çuhadar (Istanbul∞: Milli Egitim Bakanlıgı, 1997), 343–344∞; SANUDO, vol. 27,
col. 280∞; vol. 28, col. 409.

astute advisors. A senior official, Piri Pasha had sufficient experience in

the affairs of central government, yet he did not belong to the core mili-
tary elite surrounding Bayezid.83 Mustafa Pasha, on the other hand, was
a junior governor during Bayezid’s reign, and he was rapidly promoted
first to the governor-generalship of Anatolia (1516) and then immediately
to that of Rumelia (1517).84 He must have caught Selim’s eye for his
political skills as well as loyalty, for in 1517 he was also given the honor
of marrying Selim’s daughter Hanım Sultan, the widow of Bostancıba≥ı
Iskender Pasha, whom Selim had earlier executed.85 In contrast to Piri and
Mustafa Pashas, who started their careers during Bayezid’s reign and rose
mainly through the ranks —indeed, notwithstanding the touch of the sul-
tan’s favor — Ferhad and Ahmed were Selim’s slaves and favorites from
his own household, whom he had kept by his side constantly since his
princely years.86 Nurtured and instructed by the sultan, having attended to
him for years and fought alongside him in all his wars, Ferhad and Ahmed
each saw himself entitled to the highest office, the grand vizierate, and
detested the others, especially Piri and Mustafa Pashas, who not only
stood in their way but were also originally men of another master.87
This was the elite that Süleyman inherited in 1520, when Selim sud-
denly died after ruling for only eight years. In fact, Süleyman’s accession
amplified the polarization at the top of the empire. With the disappear-
ance from the political scene of Selim’s autocratic person, which was the
83
On Piri Pasha’s appointment to the grand vizierate, see CELÂL-ZÂDE, Selim-nâme,
251∞; KÜÇÜKDAG, Vezîr-i Âzam Pîrî Mehmed Pa≥a, 19–28.
84
Selim had two viziers called Mustafa, and secondary sources have confused one with
the other. The confusion comes from the fact that both once held the governorship of
Morea. The first, known also as Mustafa Jurisevic, was raised to the vizierate upon Selim’s
accession (1512), and dismissed in 1514∞; he died in 1519. The second, who became vizier
in 1519, is also known as Çoban Mustafa Pasha∞; he died in 1529. See REINDL, Männer
um Bayezid, 76n177∞; YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde II, 393-397∞; for the confusion of the
two, see GÖKBILGIN, Edirne ve Pa≥a Livası, 524–525∞; for Çoban Mustafa Pasha’s appoint-
ments, see Feridun BEY, Mün≥e’atü’s-sela†in, 2 vols. (Istanbul, 1857 [1274], 1∞:451, 453∞;
for his death, see SANUDO, vol. 50, cols. 471–472.
85
TANSEL, Yavuz Sultan Selim, 74∞; for Mustafa’s marriage to Selim’s daughter, see
SANUDO, vol. 25, col. 615.
86
ZEN [1523], 110∞; HADÎDÎ, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman (1299–1523), ed. Necdet Öztürk
(Istanbul∞: Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1991), 429∞; KEMALPA≥AZÂDE, Tevarih-i Âl-i
Osman X. Defter, ed. ≤erafettin Severcan (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1996), 12∞; Hoca
∑ADE’DDIN, Tacü’t-tevarîh, 2 vols. (Istanbul∞: Tabhane-yi Âmire, 1862–1864 [1279–1280],
2∞:604∞; ÇIPA, “∞The Centrality of the Periphery,∞” 212.
87
For the rivalry and enmity among the pashas, see CELALZADE, Geschichte Sultan
Süleyman, 24b, 46a–57a, 83a∞; HADÎDÎ, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, 443–444∞; Zen [1523], 111,
125∞; SANUDO, vol. 29, col. 490∞; vol. 36, col. 99.

26 EBRU TURAN
only force unifying the elite, the pashas gained free rein to start a fero-
cious war with each other by manipulating the new sultan. For his own
part, Süleyman was far too young and inexperienced to insulate himself
from their manipulations. Compared to his grandfather Bayezid, who was
thirty-four when he assumed the throne, and his father, Selim, who was
forty-two, Süleyman was just twenty-six.88 More than his relatively
young age, however, his limited acquaintance with warfare and politics
made Süleyman a complete novice in state affairs. Although Ottoman
princes would occasionally accompany their fathers in their campaigns
and take active part in battles by commanding troops, Süleyman never
attended any of his father’s wars.89 As the only son, he was always left
behind to guard the western borders of the empire while his father was
campaigning in the east.90 His status as heir apparent thus significantly
reduced the chances of his gaining experience and legitimacy on the bat-
tlefield. Civil war routinely broke out among princes after the death of a
sultan, the victor of which would succeed as the new sultan.91 As Selim’s
only son, however, Süleyman had no competitors for the throne. Although
this point is often cited as Süleyman’s great advantage, it also left him
unproven in the eyes of his officials, servants, subjects, and enemies.92
The revolt that broke out in Syria immediately following his accession,
the relief and joy that the Christian powers in the West showed upon
hearing of Selim’s death, the pope’s immediate call for a joint crusade to
take advantage of the “∞lamb∞” that had replaced a “∞wolf∞” on the Otto-
man throne, the reluctance on the part of Hungary and Venice to renew
the peace treaties they had with the Ottoman sultan all clearly demon-
strate that Süleyman paid dearly for his advantage.93
88
V. J. PARRY, “∞Bayazid,∞” EI2∞; Halil INALCIK, “∞Selim,∞” EI2∞; Franz BABINGER, “∞Sule-
jman’s des Prächtigen Geburstag,∞” Mitteilungen zur osmanischen Geschichte, no. 2
(1923–1926)∞: 165.
89
Haldun EROGLU, Osmanlı Devletinde ≤ehzadelik Kurumu (Ankara∞: Akçag, 2004),
147–158.
90
GÖKBILGIN, “∞Süleymân I.∞”
91
INALCIK, Classical Age, 59–60∞; PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 18–27.
92
Contemporary Ottoman historians mention Süleyman’s extraordinary fortune and
cherish his auspicious accession, which did not lead to any bloodshed in the family∞; see
HADÎDÎ, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, 422∞; Ma†raÈçı NAÒUÌ, Süleymanname, Topkapı Sarayı
Kütüphanesi Revan 1286, 11a.
93
Paolo GIOVIO, Commentario de le cose de’ turchi (Rome, 1531), 33r∞: “∞et certamente
parea a tutti che che un’ leon’ arrabbiato havesse lasciato un’ mansueto agnello per suc-
cessore∞”∞; for the first reactions to Süleyman’s accession, see TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s
Favorite,∞” 22–52.

Naturally, the internal and external threats that Süleyman as an

unproven and insecure ruler encountered at the beginning of his reign
greatly increased his dependency on his grandees. Yet he was deeply
alienated from them. That mutual distrust between the new sultan and the
old guard was present in the extreme, and Süleyman’s experience was
more difficult than those of his predecessors. Since there were no other
contenders for the throne, during his princehood neither Süleyman nor
the members of the elite had felt an urge to make connections or alliances
with one another. More than anything else, however, what made Süley-
man an easy prey to his pashas’ manipulations was his lack of experience
in imperial politics. This too was linked to the fact that he was Selim’s
only son. After Selim had eliminated all his brothers and nephews, Süley-
man remained his sole alternative. Selim knew well that sons could be as
dangerous as brothers — his own revolt that had dethroned his father,
Bayezid, proved that.94 Most interestingly, although contemporary Otto-
man accounts prefer to remain silent on the subject, European sources
indicate that during 1514–1515, while Selim dragged his army off to a
long, harsh, and uncertain eastern campaign against his archrival, Shah
Ismail Safavi, the raging Janissaries threatened to depose Selim and bring
his son to the throne. According to the Venetian sources, Selim, intimi-
dated by the Janissaries’ threats, sent a poisoned robe to Süleyman. Sus-
picious of his father’s motives, Süleyman had one of his slaves wear it
first, upon which the slave immediately died.95 Even though it is hard to
verify the truth of the anecdote, it implies that a certain degree of distrust
existed between the father and the son.96 Hence, it is reasonable to think
that Süleyman was aware of the rumors that the Janissaries wanted to
depose his father and make him the sultan, and therefore was very care-
ful not to provoke his father’s wrath. Thus, he preferred to keep a low
public profile by secluding himself in his princely court in Manisa and
showing no interest in politics.97
94
ULUÇAY, “∞Yavuz Sultan Selim Nasıl Padi≥ah Oldu∞?∞”.
95
SANUDO, vol. 19, cols. 86–87∞; vol. 20, col. 225.
96
Ibid.,vol. 21, cols. 142–143∞: “∞contra sò fiol ha mal animo.∞”
97
In this regard Guillaume Postel, who came to the Ottoman Empire first in 1535–1537
and again in 1549-1550, gives an interesting anecdote that he heard in Istanbul. Allegedly,
a few years before his death, Selim asked his sons who would be the sultan after him∞; and
those who said “∞me∞” died immediately. Only Süleyman, advised by his mother, who knew
the sultan well, completely refused the throne and said he was not his father’s son but a
slave — even to accept the sultanate after his death would give him great pain. This story
further strengthens the idea that Süleyman owed his survival to his lack of interest in poli-

28 EBRU TURAN
Under these circumstances, Süleyman sought first to exploit the con-

flicts and rivalries among the elite to enhance his standing. To this end,
he appeared bent on diminishing the governmental influence of his expe-
rienced and in some respects overbearing grand vizier, Piri Pasha, and
his protégé, the second vizier, Mustafa Pasha, by supporting their chief
rivals, Ferhad and Ahmed.98 For example, he married his sister Beyhan
Sultan to Ferhad, who was craftily excluded by Piri Pasha from the first
two imperial campaigns in Hungary and Rhodes with tasks in eastern
Anatolia that kept him far away from the action.99 More than Ferhad,
however, it was Ahmed who enjoyed Süleyman’s favor and regard at the
expense of the grand vizier. Following the Hungarian campaign in 1521,
which resulted in the conquest of Belgrade, Süleyman raised Ahmed to
the vizierate in recognition of his superb performance, even though it was
well known that during the siege the pasha frequently clashed with the
grand vizier on many issues.100 In a similar fashion, a year later, at the
Rhodes campaign, Süleyman, dissatisfied with his conduct in the siege,
removed Mustafa Pasha from the general commandership and appointed
Ahmed Pasha in his place.101
When in June 1523 Süleyman dismissed Piri Pasha and sent him to
retirement, many expected that Ahmed Pasha would succeed him in
office.102 To everyone’s surprise, however, Süleyman instead chose his
tics. Cited in PEIRCE, Imperial Harem, 230∞; see also Guillaume POSTEL, Des histoires ori-
entales∞: Et principalement des turkes ou turchikes et schitiques ou tartaresques et aultres
qui en sont descendues, ed. Jacques Rollet (Istanbul∞: Editions Isis, 1999), 196.
98
Celalzade mentions that Piri Pasha personally requested Selim to raise another vizier
who would support him in every matter. Upon this request, Selim promoted Mustafa Pasha
to the vizierate∞; see CELÂL-ZÂDE, Selim-nâme, 343. Likewise, Piri Pasha recommended
Mustafa Pasha as the general commander of the Rhodes campaign in 1522, although
Ahmed Pasha volunteered for it∞; see Hüseyin G. YURDAYDIN, Kanuni’nin Cülusu ve Ilk
Seferleri (Ankara∞: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1961), 36.
99
SANUDO, vol. 33, cols. 37, 43–44∞; YURDAYDIN, Kanuni’nin Cülusu ve Ilk Seferleri,
13, 38∞; ULUÇAY, Padi≥ahların Kadınları ve Kızları, 31.
100
Süleyman appreciated Ahmed Pasha’s courage and dedication during the Belgrade
campaign, and he honored him with a caftan, an ornate sword, and two thousand gold
coins∞; see Feridun BEY, Mün≥e’atü’s-sela†in, 1∞:512∞; CELALZADE, Geschichte Sultan Süley-
man, 46a–46b∞; YURDAYDIN, Kanuni’nin Cülusu ve Ilk Seferleri, 33–34.
101
YURDAYDIN, Kanuni’nin Cülusu ve Ilk Seferleri, 40.
102
Ahmed Pasha was considered the hero of the Rhodes campaign∞; see Sanudo, vol.
34, cols. 13, 16∞; Feridun BEY, Mün≥e’atü’s-sela†in, 1∞:533. It seems that Ahmed had many
supporters who wanted to see him in the grand vizierate. Celalzade notes that Ahmed
Pasha and his supporters plotted against Piri Pasha and thus made Piri Pasha fall, see
CELALZADE, Geschichte Sultan Süleyman, 110a∞; for Ahmed Pasha’s disappointment after
Ibrahim’s rise to office, see NE≥RI, Cihannüma, Türk Tarih Kurumu Y 45, 197b.

favorite and the head of the Privy Chamber, Ibrahim Aga, as his new
grand vizier. Ibrahim was an intimate friend and confidant of Süleyman
from his princely household, and his rise to the grand vizierate signified
Süleyman’s determination to free himself from the tutelage of his father’s
grandees and assume personal rule.103 In 1523 Süleyman as a ruler was
much different from the young, ill-prepared, obscure man who mounted
the Ottoman throne in 1520. After successfully suppressing the revolt led
by the Mameluke Canberdi Gazali in Syria and triumphantly seizing Bel-
grade and Rhodes, he recast his image as a terrifying ruler who inspired
awe and reverence both at home and abroad, and he gained the self-
confidence to take the government under his control by appointing a
grand vizier who fully represented his own will.104
In addition to establishing the sultan’s personal rule over the political
apparatus, Ibrahim’s elevation to the grand vizierate was meant to neu-
tralize the destructive competition for office among the elite. Torn
between his pashas vying for his ear, Süleyman had seen how the rival-
ries and conflicts among them had ruined the coordination within the
Ottoman high command during the campaigns and, as a result, had jeop-
ardized the effectiveness of the military operations, exposing the troops
to unnecessary danger, increasing casualties, and wasting time and
resources.105 Furthermore, Ibrahim’s rise to office significantly curtailed
the elite’s chances of having direct access to and influence with the sul-
tan. Not only did each pasha suddenly lose any favored status he had
previously enjoyed at the sultan’s side and find himself equal to the oth-
ers in the sultan’s eyes, but he now also had to communicate his views,
wishes, or complaints first to Ibrahim, who had immediate access to the
sultan.106 Having Ibrahim act as an intermediary between himself and his
chief officials, Süleyman hoped to insulate himself from intra-elite poli-
103
The seventeenth-century historian Peçevî remarks that Süleyman would later say
that when Piri Pasha was in office, he could not enjoy his sultanate. He would always feel
inadequate in front of the experienced grand vizier∞; see Ibrahim PEÇEVÎ, Tarîh-i Peçevî,
2 vols. (Istanbul∞: Enderun Kitabevi, 1980), 1∞:20.
104
Marco MINIO, “∞Relazione di Marco Minio alla porta ottomana [1522],∞” in Albèri,
Relazioni, 74∞; Kenneth MEYER SETTON, The Papacy and the Levant, 1204–1571, 4 vols.
(Philadelphia∞: American Philosophical Society, 1976–1984), 3∞:208, 213n57.
105
TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s Favorite,∞” 88-89, 96-97.
106
Both Ahmed and Ferhad fell from Süleyman’s favor after Ibrahim’s rise to the
grand vizierate. Ahmed Pasha was distanced from the capital and sent to Cairo as gover-
nor∞; Ferhad Pasha was dismissed from the vizierate and appointed to a frontier post in the
Balkans (Semendire)∞; see ZEN [1523], 110, 112∞; HADÎDÎ, Tevârih-i Âl-i Osman, 443-444∞;
CELALZADE, Geschichte Sultan Süleyman, 130a–130b.

30 EBRU TURAN
tics and at the same time transform the competition for office into one
for the favor of his grand vizier, whose mediating role rendered the sul-
tan even more formidable and distant.
Nevertheless, in many ways Ibrahim was an unconventional grand
vizier. First, the grand vizier’s relationship and interaction with the sultan
had assumed a formal character since Mehmed’s time, especially with
the construction of a new imperial palace and the development of its
ceremonial. Designed along several outer and inner spaces dividing the
court physically as well as functionally, Mehmed’s new palace delineated
the boundaries between the sultan’s public and private domains. The
second courtyard was dedicated to his public affairs, discussed in the
imperial council, which consisted of the chief officeholders of the empire
and met under the leadership of the grand vizier∞; the inner court com-
prised the third courtyard and spaces beyond and was designated as the
sultan’s private realm.107 No official from the imperial council, not even
the grand vizier, was allowed to enter the sultan’s private quarters. The
council members were, rather, received by the sultan in the Chamber of
the Petitions — a separate room built between the second and third court-
yards — on certain days each week, following the council meetings.108
Ibrahim, however, continued to have immediate access to the sultan in
the inner court, even after his elevation to the grand vizierate. The Vene-
tian bailo (a representative and diplomat) Pietro Bragadin in 1526 noted
that Süleyman and Ibrahim would sleep together in the same bed, their
heads touching.109 A slave intimately attached to his master both physi-
cally and sentimentally, Ibrahim straddled the border between the public
realm and the private body of the sultan. As such, his rise to the highest
office in the empire was meant to bring the government, which had been
politically and institutionally slipping away from the ruler’s personal con-
trol, again within the sultan’s orbit.
Second, and more important, Ibrahim had never held any military or
administrative office before his rise to the highest office of the empire.
He attended Süleyman’s first two campaigns, but he never assumed any
responsibility in them, be it logistic, strategic, or military — he just
stayed at Süleyman’s side as his intimate friend.110 Given that by the
107
NECIPOGLU, Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power, 15-30, 88-90.
108
Ibid., 96-110.
109
Ibid., 257∞; BRAGADIN [1526], 103.
110
Although no direct evidence showing Ibrahim’s presence at the Hungarian cam-
paign has been found, Kemalpa≥azâde’s history notes that Ibrahim was with the sultan at

early sixteenth century the Ottoman political apparatus had been highly
professionalized, and competence and experience had already become the
necessary criteria for success in office, Ibrahim’s abrupt rise from the
personal service of the sultan to the grand vizierate came as a shock to
his contemporaries. Although, as already discussed, the Ottoman sultans
often tried to manipulate elite promotions by bestowing their favor on a
select few, especially through marriage, Ibrahim’s swift rise was still
exceptional∞: no Ottoman grand vizier had ever before been created solely
on the basis of a sultan’s favor. As a matter of fact, Ibrahim’s rise was
widely resented and criticized both by the general public and in elite
circles, and it was considered an ill omen heralding the ruin of the House
of Osman.111
Indeed, to question the legitimacy and soundness of Ibrahim’s promo-
tion meant an implicit challenge to the authority that stood behind it∞: the
sultan. Removing the doubts surrounding Ibrahim’s credentials and jus-
tifying his elevation to the office thus bore great political significance for
Süleyman.112 This, however, was quite a difficult task in the early six-
teenth-century Ottoman context, in which the person of the officeholder
was more important than the office itself. The sultan might bring whom-
ever he wished to the highest office in the empire, but he could not
immediately endow this person with the respectability and authority
that the office commanded. For many, despite his status as grand vizier,
Ibrahim was still not considered part of the ruling elite, in charge of
the empire’s military and civil administration, but a mere domestic slave
whose job was to amuse his master in his bedchamber.113 Hence, trans-
forming Ibrahim from a private slave in the inner court into a public
figure inspiring awe and reverence called for a meticulously designed
the Rhodes campaign and had influence over Süleyman’s decisions∞; see KEMALPA≥AZÂDE,
Tevarih-i Âl-i Osman X. Defter, 161-162. Considering Süleyman’s emotional dependency
on him, it is plausible to assume that Ibrahim accompanied the sultan in his first military
adventure as well∞; see BRAGADIN [1526], 103∞: “∞è il fiao dil Signor, qual non pol star un
hora si pol dir senza dil lui.∞”
111
ZEN [1523], 117∞; TURAN, “∞Voices of Opposition,∞” 30.
112
TURAN, “∞Voices of Opposition,∞” 31-34.
113
Bragadin in his relazioni describes Ferhad Pasha’s last meeting with the sultan, at
which he was executed. Narrated in a highly dramatic tone, the passage probably reflects
more the rumor circulating in the Ottoman capital about Ibrahim Pasha’s promotion than
a literal representation of the actual meeting between Ferhad and the sultan. Ferhad Pasha
blamed Ibrahim for his demotion and expulsion from the threshold of the sultan by declar-
ing, “∞That whore Embraim is the reason for this∞”∞; see BRAGADIN [1526], 108.

32 EBRU TURAN
program geared toward enhancing the pasha’s political and social stand-
ing.
At the center of this project was Ibrahim’s marriage to Iskender
Pasha’s granddaughter Muhsine. Disregarding the custom of the time,
Süleyman did not choose an Ottoman princess as a wife for the pasha. In
1523, in the aftermath of his unusual rise to the grand vizierate, Ibrahim
was by no means in need of the sultan’s additional favor∞; his whole
being was, after all, the embodiment of it. What Süleyman and Ibrahim
wished to obtain was, rather, the public’s recognition and confirmation
of the sultan’s power to override the social and political norms regulating
the public order, and to bestow rank and status through his own will to
such an extent that he could transform overnight an obscure slave into
the greatest man of the empire.114 Because Ibrahim was originally a slave
of theirs, the Iskender Pasha family’s acceptance of him as a son-in-law
implied that the patriarchs of the household recognized Ibrahim’s new
position in society and considered him socially their equal. It was indeed
of utmost importance that a family such as Iskender Pasha’s acknowledge
Ibrahim’s metamorphosis. One of the most prominent families of early
sixteenth-century Istanbul, Iskender Pasha, his sons, and his sons-in-law
had been in the service of the dynasty for more than three generations
since the time of the conquest. The family wielded such great power and
prestige that they offered political patronage to others.115 Furthermore,
through their lavishly endowed foundations scattered in different parts of
Istanbul, which provided charity and other social services to various seg-
ments of the society, and through their generous architectural, religious,
and literary patronage, the family had close connections with the larger
fabric of the city as well.116 As a result, Iskender Pasha’s family’s consent
114
TURAN, “∞Voices of Opposition,∞” 32.
115
Like Iskender Pasha’s sons-in-law, Yakub Aga and Mustafa Bey, his sons Hürrem
and Mustafa were members of the Ottoman ruling elite. For his son Mustafa Pasha’s build-
ings and endowments, see YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde, 428, 445-446, 432-433. Latîfî
notes that Mustafa Bey was also a poet with the penname ∑un‘i and was made the gover-
nor of Tablus (Tripoli) during the reign of Sultan Selim∞; see LATÎFÎ, Tezkiretü’≥-≥u’arâ ve
tabsiratü’n-nuzamâ, ed. Rıdvan Canım (Ankara∞: Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Ba≥kanlıgi,
2000), 360-361. It seems that Iskender Pasha, in the manner of the patriarchs of the Otto-
man dynasty, chose his sons-in-law for political reasons, indicating his protection over
these lower-ranking members of the elite. It is no surprise that his son-in-law Mustafa is
called in the sources after his father-in-law Iskender (Iskender Pa≥a damadı)∞; see GÖK-
BILGIN, Edirne ve Pa≥a Livası, 440-441. In addition, the Bayezid’s famous vizier (Hadım)
Yakup Pasha was Iskender’s protégé∞; see REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 352-353.
116
For Iskender Pasha’s family’s pious foundations in the city, see the biographical

to Ibrahim’s elevated status was crucial in realizing the new power and
authority that Süleyman claimed over the entire Ottoman polity, from the
very top to the bottom.
In this context, Muhsine’s initial refusal to marry Ibrahim Pasha, who
had just been promoted to the highest office in the empire, because he
had been her slave, should not be dismissed as a girlish caprice. Consid-
ering Ibrahim Pasha’s position in society in 1523, her concern that such
a marriage would degrade her social status was well justified. More
important, however, Muhsine’s reaction points to the existence of an
urban-based social elite in the early sixteenth century Ottoman capital,
one possessing a certain degree of cohesiveness that set its members apart
from the rest of the society. Although a social history of the metropolitan
Ottoman elite in the early modern period is yet to be written, one may
tentatively suggest that its formations lie in the reign of Sultan Bayezid.
Having come to the throne with the support of his father’s men, a sign
of his indebtedness, Bayezid retained most of them in power.117 As a
result, many of Mehmed’s elite continued to thrive during the time of
Bayezid, and they could carve out a social base in the city through the
means of patronage supported by their expanding political and economic
power.118 Furthermore, an ideological affinity connected Bayezid with
those who had brought him to power. Sensitive to the political criticisms
accusing Mehmed of disregarding the Islamic law for the sake of his own
selfish interests, the elite in the post-Mehmed era, as much as Bayezid,
was committed to seeking reconciliation between the Ottoman monarchy
and Islamic principles.119 As Istanbul became the main site to refashion
sections on Iskender Pasha and Mihri≥ah Hatun∞; A≥ık Çelebi notes, for example, that
Iskender Pasha gave patronage to ∑afayi, a poet originally from Sinop∞; see ‘A≥ıÈ ÇELEBI,
Me≥a‘irü’≥-≥u‘ara, ed. G. M. Meredith-Owens (London∞: Lowe and Brydone, 1971),
219b∞; for the relationship between patronage and establishing a power base among the
city population, see Edward MITCHELL, “∞Institution and Destitution∞: Patronage Tales of
Old Stamboul∞” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1993), 280∞; KAFESÇI-
OGLU, “∞Ottoman Capital in the Making,∞” 200-201, 208.
117
On Bayezid having come to the throne with the help of his father’s grandees, see
TANSEL, Sultan II. Bâyezit’in Siyasî Hayatı, 15∞; for example, Davud Pasha (d. 1498),
Mesih Pasha (d. 1501), Iskender Pasha (d. 1504), and Sinan Pasha (d. 1504) had all started
their careers during Mehmed’s time and remained in power during Bayezid’s reign.
118
For the pious foundations and the socioreligious complexes that these grandees
founded in the city, see YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde, 221, 227-231, 234-243, 257-258,
299-300∞; BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 82, 142, 222, 345-347.
119
For the critics of Mehmed and the place of the city of Constantinople in their argu-
ments, see INALCIK, “∞Mehmed II∞”∞; Stéphane YERASIMOS, La fondation de Constantinople
et de Sainte-Sophie dans les traditions turques∞: Légendes d’empire (Paris∞: Institut

34 EBRU TURAN
the Ottoman sultan as a law-abiding Muslim ruler, Bayezid relied on his

elite not only to rule but also to create a city that would lend ideological
justification to the political and social order that the Ottoman rule repre-
sented. Even in the later years of his reign, when he finally managed to
develop a new set of elite primarily from his own household, Bayezid
continued to rule collectively, and he depended on his chief officials to
extend his power beyond the second courtyard of the imperial palace to
the broader urban context.120 At the heart of turning Istanbul into the
stronghold of the Ottoman imperial order was fashioning it as a place
where a Turkish-speaking Muslim population would find peace and com-
fort∞; and Bayezid’s political elite played a pivotal role in this context∞:
they were the ones who converted most of the remaining Byzantine
churches to mosques, welcomed the Sufi brotherhoods, and built new
mosques and other socio-religious complexes, in addition to providing
various social services, employment, support, and protection to the resi-
dents of the city, which experienced rapid growth in the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries.121 Indeed, all these factors significantly pro-
moted the elite’s distinguished position among the city’s population.
Muhsine, as a member of this Constantinopolitan elite, in her initial
refusal to recognize Ibrahim’s new status, created overnight by the sultan,
indicates that the Ottoman urban elite in the early sixteenth century
assumed the liberty to determine independently the constituents of high
status and set the criteria to include or exclude outsiders. In this respect,
it is possible to interpret Muhsine’s reaction as an attempt to defy the
royal authority that transgressed the unwritten rules ensuring the cohe-
siveness and continuity of the elite. That said, Ibrahim’s elevation to the
grand vizierate was also meant to subdue the nascent Ottoman patriciate,
français d’études anatoliennes, 1990)∞; KAFESÇIOGLU, “∞Ottoman Capital in the Making,∞”

273-283∞; TURAN, “∞The Sultan’s Favorite,∞” 162-164, 173-176.
120
For Bayezid’s reliance on his elite to rule, see REINDL, Männer um Bayezid, 65-68.
Three figures among Bayezid’s later elite particularly stand out as social and cultural
patrons∞: his famous grand vizier Hadım Ali Pasha (d. 1511), chancellor Tacizade Cafer
Çelebi (ex. 1515), and chief judge of Rumelia, Müeyyedzade Abdurrahman Çelebi (d.
1516)∞; see BARKAN and AYVERDI, Istanbul Vakıfları Tahrîr Defteri, 67-72, 298, 340∞;
YÜKSEL, Osmanlı Mimârisinde, 162-177, 223-224, 286∞; Halûk IPEKTEN, Divan Edebiya-
tında Edebî Muhitler (Istanbul∞: Milli Egitim Bakanlıgı Yayınları, 1996), 44-59, 138-
143.
121
For the Byzantine churches that Bayezid’s elite converted to mosques, see YÜKSEL,
Osmanlı Mimârisinde II, 177, 221, 249-250, 255, 259, 273, 281, 291∞; for the dervish
convents that the elite built in Istanbul during this time, see ibid., 174, 226, 232, 248, 299,
279, 265, 291, 294, 299∞; INALCIK, “∞Istanbul,∞” EI2.

which, through its role of representing the sultan’s power and protection
to the broader urban milieu in the previous decades, had established itself
as a corporate body of considerable importance in society. Capitalizing
partly on the political and social vacuum that Selim’s ferocious reign
brought about, Süleyman and Ibrahim worked together in later years as
a team to flatten the top of the social pyramid and establish the sultan’s
authority as the ultimate source of power, rank, and status. Especially
through the medium of the pasha’s palace at the Hippodrome, where
Ibrahim as the sultan’s alter ego opened up the fountain of royal patron-
age to anyone and everyone in the city, Süleyman turned himself into an
absolute monarch par excellence whose presence came to be felt at once
by both the highest and the lowest in society.122
* * *
Despite the bride’s initial reluctance, which probably cast a shadow

over the union at first, Ibrahim and Muhsine’s relationship seems to have
improved over the years. Featuring such expressions of endearment as
“∞my darling, my beloved,∞” and “∞your lover Ibrahim who is longing for
you,∞” the pasha’s letters to his wife reveal a genuine and tender affec-
tion.123 The couple remained married until the pasha’s execution in 1536∞;
and they had a son, Mehmed≥ah, who died very young in 1539.124
122
For Ibrahim Pasha’s extensive patronage, see IPEKTEN, Divan Edebiyatında Edebî
Muhitler, 143-146.
123
For these letters and expressions, see ULUÇAY, Osmanlı Sultanlarına A≥k Mektupları,
65-76.
124
Kemal ÖZERGIN, Sultan Süleyman Han Çagına Ait Tarih Kayıtları (Erzurum∞:
Atatürk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 1971), 13.

36 EBRU TURAN
Ebru TURAN, The Marriage of Ibrahim Pasha (ca. 1495–1536). The Rise of Sul-
tan Süleyman’s Favorite to the Grand Vizierate and the Politics of the Elites in
the Early Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Empire
Sultan Süleyman’s childhood friend, favorite, and grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha,
is one of the most intriguing characters of Ottoman history. From his swift rise
directly from the personal service of Süleyman to the highest office of the empire
in 1523 until his sudden execution in 1536, Ibrahim Pasha ruled the empire with
unprecedented power and authority as a virtual sultan. Although recent studies
have celebrated the pasha as the key political figure who crafted and promulgated
Süleyman’s image as world emperor at home and abroad, Ibrahim Pasha remains
one of the least known of the Ottoman grand viziers. The primary purpose of this
study is to illuminate the early years of the pasha’s career by focusing particu-
larly on the historiographical debate on the identity of his bride, whom he mar-
ried in 1524. Introducing newly discovered material from Ottoman and Venetian
accounts, the article not only establishes the identity of the pasha’s wife but also
interprets his marriage in relation to his unusual promotion to office. By engag-
ing issues of elite formation, centralization, and professionalization in state
administration, the paper discusses Ibrahim Pasha’s rise to power within the
context of the long-term political, social, and institutional developments that the
empire had undergone after the conquest of Constantinople.
Ebru TURAN, Le mariage d’Ibrahim Pacha (ca. 1495–1536). L’ascension du

favori du sultan Süleyman jusqu’au grand vizirat, et la politique des élites dans
l’Empire ottoman au début du XVIe siècle.
L’ami d’enfance, favori et grand vizir du sultan Süleyman, Ibrahim Pacha, est
l’un des personnages les plus fascinants de l’histoire ottomane. Entre son ascen-
sion rapide, passant directement du service personnel de Süleyman aux plus
hautes fonctions de l’empire en 1523, jusqu’à son exécution inattendue en 1536,
Ibrahim Pacha gouverna l’empire avec un pouvoir sans précédent et l’autorité
d’un sultan. Bien que des études récentes aient célébré le pacha comme la figure
politique clé, qui façonna et promulgua l’image de Süleyman en tant qu’empe-
reur universel aussi bien à l’intérieur qu’à l’étranger, Ibrahim Pacha reste l’un
des grand vizirs de l’Empire ottoman les moins connus. Cette étude a pour prin-
cipal but d’éclairer les premières années de sa carrière en se concentrant parti-
culièrement sur le débat historiographique portant sur l’identité de sa femme,
qu’il épousa en 1524. Présentant des documents récemment découverts prove-
nant de récits ottomans et vénitiens, cet article établit non seulement l’identité
de la femme du pacha, mais interprète aussi son mariage en relation avec son
étrange promotion au pouvoir. Abordant des questions de formation des élites,
de centralisation et de professionnalisation de l’administration d’État, cet article
discute l’ascension au pouvoir d’Ibrahim Pacha dans le contexte des développe-
ments politiques, sociaux et institutionnels de long terme que l’Empire a subi
après la conquête de Constantinople.

Marriage of Ibrahim PDF

Uploaded by

Document Informationclick to expand document information

Document Informationclick to expand document information

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marriage of Ibrahim PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marriage of Ibrahim PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ebru TURAN 3

THE MARRIAGE OF IBRAHIM PASHA

A mong all the colorful public personalities gracing the Süleymanic

Ebru TURAN, Fordham University, History Department, Bronx, NY 10458, USA

Turcica, 41, 2009, p. 3-36. doi: 10.2143/TURC.41.0.2049287

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 3 7/07/10 15:24

handedly in charge of the political and military administration of the

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 4 7/07/10 15:24

IBRAHIM PASHA’S ORIGINS AND EARLY YEARS

Ibrahim Pasha was born a Venetian subject about 1495 in Parga, a

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 5 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 6 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 7 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 8 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 9 7/07/10 15:24

IBRAHIM PASHA’S WEDDING IN 1524 AND HIS BRIDE

Ibrahim Pasha married in May 1524 in a sumptuous wedding cele-

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 10 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 11 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 12 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 13 7/07/10 15:24

sources, Ibrahim Pasha’s brother-in-law appears as Zemath Bey, who was

THE POLITICS OF IBRAHIM PASHA AND MUHSINE’S MARRIAGE

Although it reveals invaluable information about Ibrahim Pasha and

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 14 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 15 7/07/10 15:24

MARRIAGES BETWEEN THE OTTOMAN DYNASTY AND

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 16 7/07/10 15:24

build new military, administrative, and religious institutions that concen-

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 17 7/07/10 15:24

court in the provinces and on the process of dynastic succession.

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 18 7/07/10 15:24

and Ser-ulufeciyan (head of the Janissary Cavalry Corps) Mehmed Bey.61

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 19 7/07/10 15:24

Partly as a consequence of the new imperial image that Mehmed cul-

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 20 7/07/10 15:24

In the post-Mehmed era, the sultans also engaged in marriage alliances

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 21 7/07/10 15:24

In this respect, accepting the elite in the imperial family as sons-in-law

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 22 7/07/10 15:24

in order to keep a tight rein on decision making. Bestowing on certain

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 23 7/07/10 15:24

the elite. Throughout his thirty-one-year reign, he continued to marry his

THE CHIEF OTTOMAN ELITE FROM BAYEZID II TO SÜLEYMAN

Only a few of Bayezid’s sons-in-law, however, reached the highest-

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 24 7/07/10 15:24

astute advisors. A senior official, Piri Pasha had sufficient experience in

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 25 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 26 7/07/10 15:24

Naturally, the internal and external threats that Süleyman as an

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 27 7/07/10 15:24

Under these circumstances, Süleyman sought first to exploit the con-

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 28 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 29 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 30 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 31 7/07/10 15:24

93119_Turcica41_02_Turan-ME.indd 32 7/07/10 15:24