Posted on 03/04/2021 9:44:57 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1656, an Istanbul mutiny against debasing coinage resulted in thirty-odd high officials hanged at the gates of the Blue Mosque.
In Ottoman periodization, 1656 is the end point of the Sultanate of Women — a century-plus span stretching all the way back to Roxelana when powerful harem women consistently defined Topkapi Palace intrigue, often alongside shaky male executives.
Many of the sultans in that span were minors, as was the the putative head of state for our scene, 14-year-old Mehmed IV. Their succession was invariably achieved by the skillful maneuvering of their mothers, who then figured to graduate to Valide Sultan, “Mother Sultan” and wield considerable power in their own right. In Mehmed’s case, Mother Sultan was a Ukrainian former slave named Turhan Hatice … but you can just call her the power behind the throne.
(Actually, Turhan was initially aced out of the powerful Valide Sultan gig by Mehmed’s paternal grandmother when Mehmed inherited the throne at the age of six; Turhan herself was only about 20 years old at that time. Turhan had that woman assassinated in 1651 to swipe the position.)
Come the 1650s, the Ottomans were mired in a long war with Venice over control of Crete — ultimately a Pyrrhic victory for the Ottomans in view of the enormous cost.
One of the ongoing costs of that conflict was currency depreciation; silver coins were so hard to come by that European traders made tidy money hauling debased silver-coated copper coins to sell in Istanbul — and had no shortage of buyers who knew exactly what they were getting and were happy to have it....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
Thanks for posting.
Excellent post, thanks, I read that and thought...Okay, this is going to be something I must read.
I always found it interesting that upon the death of a sultan, the appointed heir to the always killed all of his siblings, so that there could only be one heir, and in one care is included an infant brother less than a year old.
You are welcome. I am glad when someone finds these interesting. A lot of people find these posts bizarre.
Kids doing the Zoom learning thing, which probably leaves them with several hours of nothing productive to do, could learn a lot of history from this blog—Important history, such as that the U.S. wasn’t the only country to ever have slaves.
Headsman sometimes lets some snarky liberal comments slip in, but for the most part he plays it straight.
I have a real travel bug, been all over Europe, Istanbul was one of the greatest and cheapest to stay, would go back in a heartbeat and stay a month.
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