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chapter 7 Khaldunist Philosophy: Innovation Justified

The repercussions following Murad IV’s death in 1640 did nothing to reinforce the optimism that his activity had undoubtedly aroused in the circles lament- ing Ottoman decline.1 His younger brother and successor, Ibrahim, was consid- ered mad, or at least feeble-minded (as Colin Imber notes, it is no coincidence that Koçi Bey’s second treatise, composed for him, was “written in appropri- ately uncomplicated language”2): he suffered from continuous headaches and soon fell under the influence of an exorcist, Cinci Hoca. After a few calm years at the beginning of his reign, trouble began: in 1645, the Ottomans launched the , which, although quickly resulting in the conquest of almost all , nevertheless stalled before the largest city, Candia (Kandiye), as the Venetians captured and effected an intermittent blockade of the Dardanelles. In addition, the extravagance of Ibrahim pushed state expenditure to incalculable heights, while his anxiety about not having a male descendant led (or contributed) to an obsession with his , which was subsequent- ly invested with more and more power. A revolt by the and high ulema led to his deposition and eventual execution (by şeyhülislam’s fetva) in 1648; his son IV being still a minor, actual power passed to the valide , Kösem Mahpeyker (Murad IV’s and Ibrahim’s mother).3 The power of Kösem lay mostly in her networking activity: her protégés were promoted and she arranged marriages of princesses to pashas who were thus connected to the dynasty. The early years of Mehmed’s reign were equally turbulent: a rebellion just after his accession was suppressed by the janissaries, while the Celali rebel Gürcü Nebî marched on demanding the removal of the “regicide” şeyhülislam. The role of the janissaries in dealing with both revolts resulted in a “ junta” led by a triumvirate composed of Bektaş Ağa, Kara Çavuş, and kul kethüdası Mustafa Ağa (Çelebi Kethüda Beğ), which domi- nated both economic and political life in the capital. Economic and social problems intensified; a massive protest of the “people of the market” against the in 1651 led only to his dismissal,4 but

1 On the political and military events of the period see Imber 2009, 71–74; Mantran 1989, 236– 264; Emecen 2001b, 49–55. 2 Imber 2009, 72. 3 On Kösem’s formidable career, see Peirce 1993, 105ff., 236ff., 248–252 and passim. 4 See Yi 2004, 213–233; Sariyannis 2012, esp. 268–282, for an alternative interpretation of the 1651 revolt.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/9789004385245_009 280 chapter 7 soon after a re-arrangement of factions in the palace itself would bring about the fall of Kösem Sultan, who was murdered upon the order of Mehmed IV’s mother Turhan, and the subsequent fall of the janissary aghas as well. The grand vizier, Tarhuncu Ahmed Pasha, tried to reduce state expenditure, to farm out vacant timars, and to force well-to-do officials and subjects to contribute to the treasury, but he was dismissed and executed in 1653. Anarchy in the capital continued: the domination of the harem aghas, which had succeeded that of the janissaries, came to an end in 1656 after a joint revolt of the and janissaries (the so-called “plane-tree incident”, vak’a-ı çınar or vak’a-ı vakvakiye; the harem aghas’ bodies were suspended from a plane tree, hence the name), only to be replaced with a “sipahi junta”. Finally, Turhan was forced to name as grand vizier a protégé of hers, the aged pasha Mehmed Köprülü (1656–61). To assume this post, Köprülü explicitly laid down his terms, asking for almost absolute power in order to restore the em- pire. He suppressed rebellions in Istanbul and Anatolia, broke the Venetian blockade in the Dardanelles, and in general became so powerful that, upon his death, he was succeeded by his own son, Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha (1661–76), an unprecedented phenomenon in Ottoman politics. According to Rifaat Abou-El-Haj, the beginning of the Köprülü “dynasty” marked the rise of a new source of power, the vizier and pasha households (kapı): these officials and magnates promoted their own relatives, servants, and protégés to high ad- ministrative posts, gradually diminishing the percentage of people originating in the palace or the army. Metin Kunt, however, has argued that this process started much earlier, and that private households had been established by the beginning of the seventeenth century.5 The influence of the Kadızadeli movement in Köprülü internal policies was described in chapter 6; in other fields, Fazıl Ahmed was credited with the cap- ture of Candia in 1669 (he went to Crete and led the campaign in person), as well as with victories in Transylvania and Podolia. Later campaigns were not so successful: the siege of in 1683 was a complete disaster, as a Polish army routed the Ottoman besiegers; in the aftermath, a uniting Austria, the papacy, Poland, and Venice conquered (1686), while a little later Venetian armies took possession of the Peloponnese. An army revolt on the Habsburg front led, in 1687, to Mehmed IV’s deposition and a short period

5 Abou-El-Haj 1984, 7–9, 89–91 and passim; Kunt 1983, xvii, 40, 46, 64–67 and passim; Kunt 2012; Hathaway 2013. For an example of such a career see the biography of Mahmud Paşa (d. 1685) in Silahdar – Refik 1928, 2:223 (Silahdar – Türkal 2012, 1019): initially an Istanbul merchant, he became agha of Kara Mustafa Paşa and managed to rise to hold the posts of vizier and deputy grand vizier.