34. Murad IV’s Mind Games Left His Last Surviving Brother a Gibbering Idiot
Ibrahim I, AKA The Mad Sultan (reigned 1640 – 1648), was imprisoned in the Kafes at age 8 when his brother Murad IV ascended the throne in 1623. While in the Kafes, Murad executed his other brothers, one by one, until only Ibrahim was left, quaking in fear that he might be next. He remained in confinement until he was suddenly dragged out of the Kafes to ascend the throne following Murad’s death in 1640. Ibrahim refused at first, and rushed back into the Kafes 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 Murad’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 Kafes, 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 habit of feeding the fish in the palace pool with coins instead of food. As it became clear that Ibrahim was crazy, his mother ruled in his stead. She also encouraged 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, Ibrahim was the last surviving male of the Ottoman dynasty.