33. Murad IV Turned His Successor Into “The Mad Sultan”
Murad IV’s sadistic mind games, while his brother Ibrahim was locked up in the Kafes, drove his sibling insane. After getting coaxed into accepting the throne, Ibrahim I, the Mad Sultan, took to having the run of the Harem with a relish, swiftly fathering three future Sultans, plus a number of daughters. Until he woke up one morning, and in a fit of madness, ordered the roughly 300 women of his Harem to tied up in weighted sacks, and drowned in the Bosporus. Ibrahim also engaged in other depravities, such as kidnapping the daughter of the Grand Mufti – the Empire’s highest religious authority – and ravishing her for days, before returning her to her father.
Eventually, Ibrahim exiled his mother, who had been ruling in his stead, and assumed personal control of the government. The results were catastrophic: 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 the bungled wars and for Ibrahim’s extravagant lifestyle, and with a Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles that brought the Ottoman capital to the brink of starvation, discontent boiled over. A revolt erupted in 1648, urged on by religious scholars, and the army joined in. 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 18th, 1648.