The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]
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See also: Sultans: Selim II; Süleyman I
Further Reading
Clot, André. Süleiman the Magnificent. London: Saqi Books, 2005.
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.
Kunt, Metin, and Christine Woodhead, eds. Süleyman the Magnificent and His Age. London: Longman House, 1995.
Lybyer, Howe Albert. The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.
Köprülü Mehmed Pasha (d. 1661)
Grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1656 to 1661. The son of an Albanian father, Mehmed Köprülü was recruited through the devșirme (devshirme) system. Before he was appointed grand vizier in 1656, he had served many masters and patrons both within the palace and in various provinces and acquired a reputation for competence and honesty. When the Ottoman sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648–1687) ordered him to become grand vizier, Mehmed Köprülü asked the sultan for certain promises and commitments. He knew that the commanders of the janissary corps and the palace officials regularly interfered with the management of the state. If the sultan wished to restore power, prosperity, and peace for his subjects and neutralize the threat posed by the Venetians, who were blockading Istanbul at the time, it was essential for the new grand vizier to have a free hand. He requested and received a promise from his royal master that all appointments and dismissals would be made by the grand vizier and that the sultan would refuse to listen to any story accusing his chief minister of malice and treachery.
Having secured the support of the sultan, Mehmed Köprülü began a policy of purging present and future opponents and replacing them with his own clients and protégés. The chief eunuch, the imperial treasurer, the commander of the navy, and the chief mufti, who had accumulated a great deal of wealth and influence in the court, were banished. With his position secured in Istanbul, Köprülü embarked on the expulsion of the Venetians from the Dardanelles, which was achieved in July 1657. Although the grand vizier had planned to further his victory over the Venetians by an invasion of Crete, events in Transylvania forced him to focus his attention northward. Prince George Rákoczi (Rakoczy) had established an anti-Catholic alliance with Sweden, Moldavia, and Wallachia to conquer and unify Poland and Hungary under his own rule. In alliance with the Crimean khan, the Ottomans invaded from the south, while the Tatars attacked from the east, defeating Rákoczi and replacing him with Ákos Barcsay (Barkczai). The defeated Prince Rákoczi sought refuge in Habsburg territory, where he died in 1660. By 1662 the Ottomans had defeated Rákoczi’s successor, Janos Kemény, re-establishing their suzerainty under the new prince, Mihail Apafi (Apaffy).
In autumn 1658 Köprülü focused his military campaigns on the rebellion staged by Abaza Hassan Pasha in Anatolia. The conditions that had given rise to the celāli (jelāli) revolts were reignited by the arrival of sipāhis and janissaries who were fleeing the regime of the new grand vizier in Istanbul. Despite efforts to suppress Abaza Hassan, the revolt gained momentum as an increasing number of officials and troops sent to Anatolia from Istanbul joined the rebels. As the grand vizier assumed command of the army, he paid his troops their wages in advance and distributed bribes among the members of the rebel army, forcing Abaza Hassan and his supporters to retreat eastward toward the Anatolian heartland. Forced to sue for peace, Abaza Hassan and his immediate followers were invited to a banquet on February 17, 1659, where they were slaughtered by their host and his armed agents. The rebellion crushed, the grand vizier sent his agents and troops to Anatolia, where they were ordered to kill everyone, including members of the ulema, the army, and the professional class, who might be entertaining antigovernment sympathies. According to one source, some 12,000 heads were sent back to Istanbul. Back in Istanbul, the ailing grand vizier, who had lost his mobility, resigned in favor of his son, Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed Pasha, who rushed from his post as the governor of Damascus to replace his father, who passed away on October 29, 1661.
See also: Beys and Pashas: Köprülü Mehmed Pasha; Sultans: Kösem Sultan; Mehmed IV
Further Reading
Kurat, A. N. “The Reign of Mehmed IV, 1648–87.” In A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, edited by M.A. Cook, 157–177. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
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.
Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed Pasha (d. 1676)
Grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire for 15 years from 1661 to 1676. He succeeded his father, Mehmed Köprülü Pasha. He was born in Vizierkopru in northern Anatolia in 1635 and died near Chorlu in Thrace in 1676. Before he succeeded his father as the grand vizier in October 1661, Köprülüzade Fazil Ahmed Pasha served as the governor of Damascus.
Trained as a member of the ulema, Fazil Ahmed Pasha exhibited the brilliance and ruthlessness of his father. His education and sophistication, however, allowed him to achieve his objectives through diplomacy and negotiations rather than brutality and violence. He was also a patron of the arts and scholarship.
As his father had done, Fazil Ahmed pursued a foreign policy that aimed at checking the Habsburg intervention in Transylvania. After his demand for nonintervention was rejected by the Habsburgs, the grand vizier led a large army through Buda and captured the fortress of Neuhäusel (Ujvar) on September 24, 1663. In response, a Holy League was organized under the leadership of Pope Alexander VII, allowing the Habsburgs to take the offensive. The decisive battle between the armies of the Holy League and the Ottoman Empire took place near the village of St. Gotthard on August 1, 1664. The Ottomans were defeated and lost many more men and much more equipment than the troops of the Holy League, which included Habsburg, Spanish, and French units. When the peace treaty was negotiated at Vasvár on August 10, however, the Habsburgs agreed to evacuate their troops, and Ottoman rule over Transylvania was once again secured.
Following the signing of the treaty with the Habsburgs, Fazil Ahmed led the Ottoman fleet in an invasion of Crete. The Ottoman blockade of Iraklion (Herakleion), as well as the conflict between the Venetians and the French, allowed the grand vizier to secure the evacuation of the island by the Venetian defenders. The Ottoman-Venetian peace treaty of September 5, 1669, allowed the Ottomans to establish their rule over Crete. Fazil Ahmed then moved against Poland. After a series of wars with Russia over the control of Dnieper Cossacks, the Poles had succeeded in establishing a military presence on the northern shores of the Black Sea, posing a direct threat to Ottoman hegemony. The Cossacks, however, revolted against the Poles, joined the Crimean Tatars, and appealed to the sultan for support and assistance. Determined to resist Polish military might, the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed IV (r. 1648–1687), assumed leadership of the campaign against Poland, which would span five important years of his reign. In 1672 the sultan succeeded in establishing Ottoman rule over the strategic fort of Podolia (Podole). With Sweden threatening from the north and the specter of Russia looming in the east, the Poles agreed to a tactical peace treaty in 1672. The death of Polish king Casimir in 1673 and the rise of the charismatic Jan Sobieski, who invaded the Ukraine, broke the peace treaty. Ottoman forces crossed into Polish territory and defeated the Poles at the battle of Żurawno on September 27, 1676. Shortly after the end of the Polish campaigns, Fazil Ahmed died and was replaced by his foster brother, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha.
See also: Beys and Pashas: Köprülü Mehmed Pasha; Sultans: Kösem Sultan; Mehmed IV
Further Reading
Kurat, A. N. “The Reign o
f Mehmed IV, 1648–87.” In A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, edited by M.A. Cook, 157–177. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
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.
Mehmed Ali (Muhammad Ali) (1769–1849)
Governor, viceroy, and ruler of Egypt (r. 1805–1848), who founded a dynasty that ruled Egypt from 1805 to 1952. Mehmed Ali was born in 1769 in Kavala, Macedonia (now in Greece). Some have suggested that he was an ethnic Albanian. Though his ethnic origins remain uncertain, we know for certain that he was a Muslim.
His father, Ibrahim Ağā (Aghā), was the commander of a small army unit that served the governor of Kavala in Macedonia. Mehmed Ali was a young boy when his father died. After the death of his father, Mehmed Ali was brought up by the governor of Kavala. Mehmed Ali married a relative of the governor when he was 18. The marriage produced five children. Mehmed Ali married several times, and by the end of his life he reportedly had close to 95 children.
Mehmed Ali’s rise to power began after 1789, when a French expeditionary force under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded and occupied Egypt. Mehmed Ali arrived in Egypt in 1801 as one of the commanders of a 300-man Albanian unit dispatched by the Ottoman sultan, Selim III (r. 1789–1807), to expel the French from Egypt. By 1805, through skillful maneuverings, Mehmed Ali had emerged as the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt. With his new post came the title of pasha.
Mehmed Ali (Muhammad Ali) was an Ottoman officer who seized control of Egypt in 1805 and ruled the country until 1848. The dynasty he established would rule Egypt until 1952. (Library of Congress)
With assistance and support from France, Mehmed Ali built a strong and modern army. The Ottoman sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839), who knew of Mehmed Ali’s successes and his newly organized army, asked for his support when the Greek revolution erupted. Despite their initial success, the Ottomans were defeated in Greece. The Ottoman-Egyptian fleet was destroyed at the battle of Navarino in 1827. The governor of Egypt was forced to withdraw his troops. Mehmed Ali lost his fleet during the Greek campaign and could not receive any satisfactory compensation from the sultan in Istanbul (Zürcher: 36). The battles of the Greek revolution had demonstrated that the Ottoman army was in a sorry state. Initially, Mehmed Ali had thought of building his own empire in North Africa by attacking Algeria and Tunisia, but the French had acted faster by attacking and occupying Algiers in July 1830.
With North Africa falling into the hands of the French, Mehmed Ali turned his attention to the Arab Middle East. His son, Ibrahim Pasha, attacked Palestine and Syria in October 1831. In May 1832 the town of Acre fell, followed by Damascus in June. By July Ibrahim Pasha had routed the Ottoman forces twice and established his rule over Greater Syria. Mahmud II refused an offer for a negotiated settlement, which allowed the Egyptian army to push into Anatolia. By February 1833 the Egyptians had reached Kütahya in western Anatolia. Mahmud II responded to the military reverses by opening negotiations with the European powers, with the aim of securing their support against Mehmed Ali. When the British and Austrians turned down the request, the sultan asked for military intervention from Russia, which agreed to provide it. Although the arrival of the Russian fleet in February 1833 prevented the Egyptian army from marching to Istanbul, it could not dislodge Mehmed Ali’s forces from their newly conquered territories in Anatolia. To end the crisis, the sultan agreed to sign the Treaty of Kütahya in April and appointed Mehmed Ali governor of Syria. In July of the same year he also signed the Treaty of Hünkar Iskelesi with Russia, an eight-year defense pact that obligated the Ottoman government to close the straits to all ships during times of war between Russia and a foreign power.
Despite the peace with Mehmed Ali, the sultan was anxious to strengthen his army and strike back at the disloyal governor of Egypt. In 1838 the tension between Mahmud II and Mehmed Ali erupted again. The sultan was determined to secure the support of Great Britain in a campaign to destroy Mehmed Ali. Despite warnings from the British, Mahmud II mobilized a force against Mehmed Ali’s army in Syria. Once again, however, Egyptian forces under the command of Ibrahim Pasha soundly defeated the Ottoman army, which had attacked Syria in June 1839. Less than a week later, Mahmud died in Istanbul after a long battle with tuberculosis. In October 1840 the Ottomans and the British began to exert military pressure on Mehmed Ali, forcing his troops to evacuate Palestine and Syria in February 1841. The sultan, however, issued a decree granting Mehmed Ali and his family the right to rule Egypt. Mehmed Ali died on August 2, 1849, in Alexandria, Egypt.
See also: Battles and Treaties: Greek War of Independence; Beys and Pashas: Mustafa Reșid Pasha; Sultans: Mahmud II
Further Reading
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.
Vatikiotis, P. J. A History of Modern Egypt. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.
Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha (d. 1683)
Grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1676 to 1683, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha was the adopted son, as well as the son-in-law, of Köprülü Mehmed Pasha, who served as the Ottoman grand vizier from 1656 to 1661. Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha was appointed grand vizier in 1676, immediately after the death of his foster brother, Köprülüzāde Fazil Ahmed Pasha.
The Ottoman grand vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, led the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1683, which resulted in the humiliating defeat of the Ottoman forces at the hands of an Austrian-Polish army under the command of Jan Sobieski (John Sobieski). (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
In 1676 the growing threat from Sweden forced Poland to agree to a peace treaty with the Ottomans, which was signed at Żurawno (Zorawno) on October 27. Poland ceded Podolia (Podole) and western Ukraine to the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of the western Ukraine forced the Ottomans to confront the emerging power of the Russian state. The new grand vizier began his tenure with a new campaign against Russia, which extended from 1677 to 1681. Alarmed by the recent Ottoman territorial gains, Czar Alexis appealed for support from the Cossacks. Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha was distracted by the anti-Habsburg uprising in Hungary and the prospect of using it as an opportunity to invade and conquer the city of Vienna. He had also failed to establish a military foothold along the key region between the Dnieper and Bug Rivers. Thus, the grand vizier opted for a quick peace with Russia. He renounced the Ottoman claim to the Ukraine and signed a peace treaty with Russia in February 1681 (Kurat: 171). The peace treaty with Russia established the Dnieper River as the border between the two states.
Kara Mustafa Pasha focused his future military plans on Hungary, where the leader of the anti-Habsburg revolt, Imre Thököly, had sought Ottoman protection, promising to accept the sultan’s suzerainty in return for Ottoman military support (Kurat: 172). The anti-Habsburg uprising was also supported by the French, who hoped to ease the pressure on themselves as they fought the Habsburg emperor. Ironically, the Habsburgs’s attempt to avoid a military confrontation with the sultan and renew the Treaty of Vásvar was construed by Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha as a sign of weakness.
Convinced that the Habsburg military was on the verge of collapse and encouraged by the French, who viewed an Ottoman invasion as essential to their victory in the west, Kara Mustafa Pasha moved with a large army against Vienna in June 1683. By July the Habsburg capital was under Ottoman siege. The Habsburg emperor, however, had organized a coalition that included the Polish monarch, Jan Sobieski (John Sobiesk
i), the pope, the Spaniards, and the Portuguese. The defenders’ heroic resistance, the poor generalship of the Ottoman grand vizier, and a massive attack by a large Polish army led by Sobieski made an Ottoman defeat inevitable (Sugar: 199). In a fierce battle on September 12, the Ottoman forces were routed (Finkel: 286). More than 10,000 Ottoman soldiers were killed (Kurat: 176). The Ottoman army disintegrated and lost any semblance of organization and discipline, leaving behind its heavy cannons (Shaw: 1:214–215). The humiliated grand vizier tried to rally his army in Belgrade, but it was already too late. His enemies in Istanbul had convinced the sultan that his chief minister was solely responsible for the humiliating debacle at the gates of Vienna. On December 25, 1683, the grand vizier was executed by order of his royal master (Finkel: 287).
See also: Beys and Pashas: Köprülü Mehmed Pasha; Köprülüzāde Fazil Ahmed Pasha; Sultans: Mehmed IV
Further Reading
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Kurat, A. N. “The Reign of Mehmed IV, 1648–87.” In A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, edited by M.A. Cook, 157–177. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.