Sultan Ibrahim
Ibrahim I (1615 – 1648), also known as Ibrahim the Mad, ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648. When his older brother Murad IV ascended the throne, he had the then-8-year-old Ibrahim confined to the Kafes, or “Cage” – a secluded part of the Harem in where possible successors to the throne were kept under house arrest, under surveillance by palace guards and isolated from the outside world to prevent intrigues and plots.
While in the Cage, Ibrahim’s brother, the Sultan Murad, executed his other brothers, one by one, until Ibrahim was the only one left, quaking in fear that he might be next. He remained in confinement until he was suddenly dragged out of the Cage to ascend the throne following his brother’s death in 1640. He refused at first and rushed back into the Cage to barricade himself inside, suspecting it was a cruel trick to entrap him into saying or doing something that his fratricidal brother would take as treasonous. Only after his brother’s dead body was brought to the door for him to examine, and the intercession of his mother “who had to coax him out like a kitten with food“, was Ibrahim convinced to accept the throne.
By then, however, the years of isolation in the Harem, and the constant terror that he might get executed at any moment had unhinged Ibrahim and left him unfit to rule. Already known to be mentally unstable, his condition was worsened by depression over the death of his brother the Sultan, whom he apparently loved in a Stockholm Syndrome type of way.
An early worrying sign was the new Sultan’s feeding of fish in the palace pool with coins instead of food. As it became clear that Ibrahim was crazy, his mother assumed ruled in his stead, encouraging him to spend as much time as possible in the Harem with his nearly 300 concubines – both to keep him out of her hair and out of trouble, and to father male heirs since, by then, he was the last surviving male of the Ottoman dynasty.
For years, Ibrahim took to the Harem with relish, fathering 3 future Sultans and a number of daughters. As a contemporary put it “In the palace gardens he frequently assembled all the virgins, made them strip themselves naked, and neighing like a stallion ran amongst them and as it was ravished one or the other”. Until he woke up one morning, and in a fit of madness ordered his entire Harem tied in weighted sacks and drowned in the Bosporus.
He had a fetish for fat women, and one time he got turned on by a cow’s vagina, so he ordered copies made of gold and sent them around the empire, with inquiries to find a woman similarly endowed. A 350-pound woman with matching parts was found in Armenia and taken to his Harem, she became one of his favorite concubines. He also had a fetish for fur, decorating his clothes, curtains, walls, and furniture with it. He also stuffed his pillows with it, and preferred to have sex on sable furs.
When he saw the beautiful daughter of the Grand Mufti, the empire’s highest religious authority, he asked for her hand in marriage. Aware of Ibrahim’s depravities, he urged his daughter to decline. When she did, Ibrahim ordered her kidnapped and carried to his palace, where he ravished her for days, before sending her back to her father.
Eventually, he exiled his mother and assumed personal control of the government. The results were disastrous: after ordering the execution of his most capable ministers, he spent profligately until he emptied the treasury, even as he got himself into a series of wars and managed them poorly. By 1647, between heavy taxes to pay for his extravagant lifestyle and for the bungled wars, and with a Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles that brought the Ottoman capital to the brink of starvation, discontent boiled over.
In 1648, the population revolted, urged on by religious scholars, and was joined by the army. An angry mob seized Ibrahim’s Grand Vizier and tore him to pieces, and the Sultan was deposed in favor of his 6-year-old son. A fatwa was then issued for Ibrahim’s execution, which was carried out by strangulation on August 18, 1648.