The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]
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Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History. New York: Picador, 2005.
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Gāzi Osman Pasha (1832–1900)
Ottoman military commander and the hero of the Russo-Ottoman war of 1877–1878. He was born in Tokāt in north central Anatolia in 1832. As a young man he joined the Ottoman army, where he received military training. He participated in the Crimean War, which began on August 1, 1853, and ended with the victory of France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire over Russia in 1856. In 1862 Osman Pasha went to Lebanon and participated in the military campaign to quash that country’s civil war and suppress the rebellion of Youssef Bey Karam, the Maronite notable who had revolted against the Ottoman state. In 1866 Osman Pasha traveled to Crete, where he participated in the efforts to pacify the Greek nationalists who were fighting for the union between their island and Greece. Osman Pasha served for a time under the command of Gāzi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha in Yemen. In 1875, when an anti-Ottoman rebellion erupted in Herzegovina and shortly after in Bosnia, Osman Pasha traveled to the Balkans and assumed command of the Ottoman forces, which fought and defeated the Serbs and the Montenegrins.
During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–1878 Osman Pasha served as the commander of Ottoman forces in Bulgaria. Against all odds, for nearly five months, extending from July to December 1877, the Ottoman forces under the command of Osman Pasha defended Plevna (Plevne) in present-day Bulgaria against repeated attacks by numerically superior Russian and Romanian armies. Though he was ultimately forced to surrender, in recognition of his heroism and exceptional leadership, Osman Pasha received the title of gāzi (holy warrior). After the end of the Russo-Ottoman war the reigning Ottoman sultan, Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909), appointed him commander of the forces responsible for the security of the imperial palace. Until his death in 1900, Osman Pasha remained a respected member of Abdülhamid II’s inner circle.
Gāzi Osman Pasha was an Ottoman field marshal who emerged as the hero of the Siege of Plevna in 1877. (Culture Club/Getty Images)
See also: Battles and Treaties: Congress of Berlin; Beys and Pashas: Midhat Pasha; Sultans: Abdülhamid II
Further Reading
Davison, Roderic H. Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1999.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers 1804–2011. London: Penguin Books, 2012.
Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Jelavich, Charles, and Barbara Jelavich. The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Kaplan, Robert D. Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History. New York: Picador, 2005.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Gedik Ahmed Pasha (d. 1482)
Ottoman statesman and commander who played an important role in the political life and military campaigns of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–1446, 1451–1481). He also played a central role in securing the throne for Mehmed’s son Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512).
Gedik Ahmed was born in either a Greek or Albanian family and joined government service through devșirme (devshirme). He served with distinction in Mehmed II’s campaigns in Anatolia. He was appointed by Mehmed II as the Ottoman beylerbey of Anatolia. When Mehmed II created a new frontier province in Anatolia as the first step toward countering the threat posed by Karaman and the White Sheep Turkomans of Iran led by Uzun Hassan, the province was put under Gedik Ahmed Pasha’s beylerbeyi (Shaw: 1:64). In the late 1460s and early 1470s Mehmed II expanded Ottoman rule in south central Anatolia through several military campaigns organized against Karaman. Gedik Ahmed Pasha served as the Ottoman commander in the campaigns against Karaman. He also participated in the military campaign against Uzun Hassan, the chief of Aq Qoyunlu (Ak Koyunlu) or the White Sheep Turkomans, who was defeated by the Ottomans at the battle of Bașkent (Bashkent) on August 11, 1473.
In 1474 Mehmed II appointed Gedik Ahmed Pasha his grand vizier, a post he served in until 1477. As the grand vizier he led the Ottoman armies in their conquest of Kefe on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Soon the Tatars of Crimea accepted Ottoman suzerainty. For the next three centuries the Crimean Tatars would support the Ottoman domination of the Black Sea, while at the same time providing the sultan with fighting men.
In 1477 Gedik Ahmed Pasha was detained and imprisoned because of his opposition to Mehmed’s decision to invade northern Albania. He was released the following year and appointed commander of the Ottoman fleet. Under his command the Ottoman navy attacked Christian-held positions on the Ionian islands. Toward the end of Mehmed’s reign, Gedik Ahmed Pasha was appointed sancāk bey (sanjāk bey) of Avlona/Avlonya in southwest Albania on the Bay of Vlorë, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea. He also assumed the post of “the commander of the Ottoman fleet in the Aegean with the task of organizing a naval expedition against both Italy and Rhodes” (Shaw: 1:69). An Ottoman force under the command of Gedik Ahmed Pasha landed at Otranto, Italy, in the summer of 1480, establishing a bridgehead from which the Ottoman general planned to stage his conquest of Rome. The pope and the other Italian states were in a state of panic, and a new crusade was called for with support from “Italian city-states, Hungary, and France” (Shaw: 1:70). The sudden death of Mehmed II in May 1481, however, put an end to the plan for conquest of Italy.
The death of Mehmed II was followed by a war of succession between his two sons: Bayezid, who served as the governor of Amasya in northern Anatolia, and Cem Sultan (Jem Sultan), who was the governor of Karaman in south central Anatolia. Although Mehmed II and his grand vizier Karamani Mehmed Pasha had favored Cem as the next sultan, Gedik Ahmed Pasha and the janissary units stationed in Istanbul supported Bayezid. As soon as Mehmed died, the army commanders went into action, encouraging janissary units stationed in the capital to riot and storm the palace, where they killed the grand vizier. Cem and his supporters were prevented from reaching Istanbul. With support from Gedik Ahmed Pasha and the janissary units in Istanbul, Bayezid seized the throne of the Ottoman Empire. Gedik Ahmed Pasha was rewarded for his services by being appointed grand vizier in 1481.
The conflict between Cem and Bayezid reflected the tension within the Ottoman system between the old Turkish aristocracy and the kāpi kullāri (the Christian boys who were trained as slaves of the sultan) who had been recruited through the devşirme system. Bayezid had seized the Ottoman throne with the active support of the devşirme, who exercised a great deal of power over him. To free himself from their influence, Bayezid ordered the execution of Gedik Ahmed Pasha in 1482 and replaced him and his supporters with men who owed their new positions and power to him. The execution of Gedik Ahmed Pasha also was the result of the grand vizier’s popularity among the janissaries, as well as his insistence on resuming the campaign to invade Italy.
See also: Sultans: Bayezid II; Cem Sultan (Jem Sultan); Mehmed II
Further Reading
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Lord Kinross. The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire. New York: William Morrow, 1977.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sugar, Peter. Southeast
ern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Tursun Beg. The History of Mehmed the Conqueror. Translated by Halil Inalcik and Murphey Rhoads. Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1978.
Ibrahim Pasha (Nevşehirli Damad; Nevşehirli
Damad Ibrahim Pasha; Nevshehirli Damad
Ibrahim Pasha) (1662–1730)
The grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire during the Tulip period (Lale Devri), which began in 1718 and ended in 1730. He was born in 1662 in Mușkara (Mushkara), present-day Nevșehir (Nevshehir) in Cappadocia in central Anatolia (Somel: 126). As a young man he entered palace service and served as a secretary in various sections of the palace. He eventually came to the attention of the Ottoman sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730) and rose in rank. Ibrahim Pasha married Princess Hatice (Hatije), the daughter of Ahmed III. Hatice was a strong-willed woman who exerted a great deal of influence over her father and husband.
In 1715 Ottoman forces invaded the Morea (the Peloponnesus) to expel the Venetians. While the Ottomans regained their control over the Morea, their advances against Croatia ignited war with the Habsburgs, who declared war on the sultan. The war against the Habsburg armies under the command of Eugene of Savoy proved to be disastrous for the Ottomans. Ottoman forces were routed at Petrovaradin on the Danube in present-day northern Serbia on August 5, 1716. The Ottoman defenses collapsed, and they lost Temeşvár in September, followed by Belgrade, which fell into the hands of the Habsburg armies on August 18, 1717. Ahmed III used the humiliating defeats suffered at the hands of the Habsburgs to appoint Ibrahim Pasha as his new grand vizier in May 1718. The peace negotiations with the Habsburgs resulted in the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz on July 21, 1718, with all sides agreeing to maintain possession of the territory they had conquered. While the Ottomans retained the territory they had conquered from the Venetians, they ceded the Banat of Temeşvár and northern Serbia to the Habsburgs.
Ibrahim Pasha consolidated his position by purging the sultan’s inner circle and installing his own men in key positions. To distract the sultan and focus his attention on sexual desires and personal fantasies, Ibrahim Pasha ordered the construction of a palace named Saadabad (Place of Joy), which was to serve as the center for various royal entertainments. Designed after the Palace of Fontainebleau (Château de Fontainebleau) outside Paris, Saadabad emerged as the model for other palaces later built by the wealthy members of the ruling elite along the banks of the Bosphorus. Ibrahim Pasha built a palace for himself on the Anatolian side of the strait. It contained gardens and fountains in the French style.
Ibrahim Pasha understood that the empire needed to use diplomacy as the principal means of resolving conflict. He also appreciated the need for collecting information on European political and military affairs. He dispatched Ottoman ambassadors to European capitals, where they served not only as diplomats, but also as informants. Observing the latest developments and advances in Europe, these diplomats soon recognized the need to borrow selectively those innovations that could help the Ottoman state catch up with its European rivals. One of these innovations was the first printing press, which was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in 1727 and was immediately opposed by the religious establishment and the scribes, who feared that it would put an end to their relevance in society. The grand vizier silenced the opposition by promising that the printing press would only be used for nonreligious publications, particularly in the arts and sciences (Shaw: 236–237).
Ottoman grand vizier, Nevşehirli Damad Ibrahim Pasha, ca. 1727–1730. (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
A crisis in Iran and Ottoman intervention in that country’s internal affairs brought the Tulip period to a sudden end. Ottoman-Iranian relations had remained peaceful following the campaigns of Murad IV (r. 1623–1640) and the signing of the Treaty of Qasr-i Shirin in 1639. In October 1722, however, an Afghan army, which had rebelled against the Safavid monarchy in Iran, sacked the Iranian capital, Isfahan, and deposed the reigning shah, Sultan Hossain (Roemer: 6:324). The sudden collapse of the Safavid state created opportunities as well as anxieties for the Ottomans. The sultan and his grand vizier could use the vacuum created by the disintegration of the Safavid state to occupy Iran’s western provinces and increase the revenue collected by the central government. But Ahmed III was not the only sovereign determined to conquer this valuable territory. Having triumphed over Sweden, the Russian czar, Peter I the Great, was determined to profit from the sudden disappearance of the Safavid dynasty in Iran, a country that could serve Russia as a land bridge to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and the riches of India.
Despite early victories in Iran, the Ottomans soon ran into trouble after the Iranian leader, Nader Qoli (soon to become Nader Shah), struck back and pushed Ottoman forces out of western Iran in 1730. The decision to start a new campaign against Iran ignited an urban rebellion in Istanbul. The leader of the revolt was Patrona Halil, a member of the janissary corps, who denounced the sultan and his grand vizier as incompetent and corrupt. The rebels succeeded in forcing the sultan to dismiss his chief minister and eventually order his execution. The murder of Ibrahim Pasha did not, however, end the revolt. Emboldened by their initial success, the rebels demanded the abdication of the sultan in favor of another member of the Ottoman ruling family. Without any power to resist the rebels, the palace deposed Ahmed III and replaced him with Mahmud I (r. 1730–1754).
See also: Empire and Administration: Nader Shah Afshar; Sultans: Ahmed III; Mahmud I
Further Reading
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Roemer, H. R. “The Safavid Period.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, edited by Peter Jackson and Lawrence Lockhart, 6:189–350. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.
Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Sykes, Sir Percy. History of Persia. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1951.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Ibrahim Pasha (of Parga) (Pargali Ibrahim
Pasha) (1493–1536)
Grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Süleyman I (r. 1520–1566). He was born into a Christian family in 1493 in Parga, on the northwestern shores of present-day Greece. At the time Parga was ruled by the Republic of Venice. As a young boy Ibrahim was captured by pirates, who sold him as a slave to a wealthy Turkish woman from Manisa in western Anatolia. As a young boy he received a new name, Ibrahim, as well as a traditional Muslim education. The intelligent and talented young slave came to the attention of the Ottoman crown prince, Süleyman, who at the time served as the governor of Manisa.
When Süleyman succeeded his father, Selim I, in 1520, Ibrahim accompanied the new sultan to Istanbul. He served in the inner section (enderun) of the Topkapi Palace. Because of his unwavering loyalty and exceptional competence, Ibrahim rose in rank and joined Süleyman in his military campaigns. In 1523 Süleyman appointed Ibrahim as his grand vizier. A year after he had been appointed grand vizier, Ibrahim married Süleyman’s sister, Hatice (Hatije) Sultan, thus converting himself to a Damad or a bridegroom of the Ottoman state. In 1524 Ibrahim Pasha went to Egypt to reorganize the political and administrative institutions of the country after a revolt had erupted against the authority of the Ottoman sultan. In 1526 Ibrahim Pasha participated in the Battle of Mohács, in which the Ottoman armies led by Süleyman I defeated and killed King Louis of Hungary. The victory at Mohács allowed the Ottomans to incorporate Hungary into their empire. A year later Ibrahim played an important role in suppressing a pro-Safavid rebellion in Anatolia. As he accumulated more power, Ibrahim Pasha adopted an
opulent lifestyle. He built a magnificent palace for himself. He also began to dress in a fashion and attire strikingly similar to his royal master’s.
In 1532 Ibrahim Pasha performed brilliantly as a commander of the Ottoman forces in a new campaign against the Habsburgs. Two years later he led the Ottoman forces against the armies of the Safavid monarch Tahmasp I. Despite his unwavering loyalty and brilliant performance as an army commander, Ibrahim could not protect himself from palace intrigues, particularly the rumormongering of the sultan’s favorite wife, Hürrem Sultan. Hürrem Sultan denounced the powerful grand vizier as an ambitious and arrogant administrator who viewed himself as an equal to his royal master. In 1535, after he had ordered the execution of an Ottoman official in Baghdad, Süleyman ordered the dismissal of his grand vizier. Ibrahim Pasha was subsequently executed by order of the sultan.
IBRAHIM PASHA SARAYI (IBRAHIM PASHA’S PALACE)
Pargali Ibrahim Pasha was the best friend, the grand vizier (1523–1535), and the brother-in-law of Süleyman I the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566). The close friendship between the sultan and his grand vizier caused a great deal of jealousy among Ibrahim Pasha’s rivals in the imperial harem. Süleyman’s favorite wife, Hürrem Sultan, who resented the power and influence of Ibrahim Pasha, claimed that the arrogance of the grand vizier was such that he viewed himself as equal to the sultan. At the height of his power the ill-fated grand vizier was dismissed from his post and subsequently executed. During his long tenure as Süleyman I’s grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha built a palace in the European style. In sharp contrast to the majority of Ottoman buildings of the time, which were built from wood, Ibrahim Pasha’s palace was built of stone. The palace also had a large balcony from which the sultan, his ministers, and his companions watched the games and the festivities that were held in the Hippodrome (Turkish: At Meydani [Horse Square], or later Sultan Ahmad Meydani [Sultan Ahmed Square]), the sporting and social center of Constantinople. Today Ibrahim Pasha’s palace houses the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, which contains an impressive collection of artifacts from various provinces of the Ottoman Empire, as well as exquisite artistic pieces dating back to the Umayyad (661–750), Abbasid (750–1258), Seljuk (r. 1055–1157), Mamluk (1250–1517), and Safavid (1501–1722) periods.