8. An Idiot or a Nutjob?
Sultan Ibrahim I (1615 – 1648) ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648. Also known as Ibrahim the Mad, he might have been not so much an idiot, as a raving lunatic. His upbringing amply explained what drove him around the bend. When his older brother Murad IV became Sultan, he had the then-eight-year-old Ibrahim confined to the Kafes, or “Cage” – a secluded part of the Harem. There, 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. It was actually an improvement: before, Ottoman Sultans simply killed all their brothers as soon as they ascended the throne.
That expedient, known as Ottoman Fratricide, reduced civil wars and internal strife. However, many were troubled by the murder of innocent royal siblings at the start of each reign. Those misgivings reached a peak in 1595 when Sultan Mehmed III inaugurated his reign with the strangulation to death of his nineteen brothers, some of them mere infants. It was said that “the Empire wept” as a procession of child-sized coffins exited the palace the next day, and a reaction set in against such extreme measures. Thus, the Kafes. It was a harsh existence that drove some imprisoned princes to madness. However, it beat death.