35. Sultan Murad IV Got a Kick Out of Playing Deadly Mind Games With His Captive Brothers
Unlike many of his predecessors, Sultan Murad IV (reigned 1623 – 1640) did not murder his siblings upon ascending the throne, and settled instead for locking them up inside his Harem in the Kafes, or “Cage”. While the Kafes system was set up as a more merciful alternative to how prior generations of Ottoman Sultans had dealt with their brothers, it might not have been much of a mercy in Murad’s case. All things considered, many of his imprisoned male siblings might have wished that Murad had simply gotten it over and done with, and gone ahead and executed them at the start of his reign.
Murad IV seems to have combined paranoia with sadism. He constantly suspected his captive brothers of plotting against him, and never tired of trying to entrap them into saying any careless old thing that could remotely be interpreted as validating his suspicions. Murad sent seemingly sympathetic guards or servants to try and draw out this or that imprisoned brother into uttering anything that could be seen as treasonous. Any slip of the tongue could result in an imprisoned sibling getting accused of plotting against the Sultan, who was just itching for an excuse to execute his brothers. That eagerness to shed blood was unsurprising, considering that Murad’s “entertainment” included shooting arrows to kill any unwary fishermen whose boats drifted to close to his seaside palace.