12. Kinky Crazy
For years, Ibrahim took to the Harem with relish, fathering three 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 were 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.
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, the Grand Mufti urged his daughter to decline. When she did, Ibrahim ordered her kidnapped and carried her to his palace, where he ravished her for days, before sending her back to her father.