Black Eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire: Networks of Power in the Court of the Sultan by George Junne

Author:George Junne [Junne, George]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780857728937
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Published: 2016-06-22T04:00:00+00:00

From many accounts of the time, Moralı Beşir Ağa wielded a lot of influence but used it primarily for personal gain. He loved money and made a fortune illegally. He sold handwritten editions of the Qur'an plus books that famous calligraphers such as the noted Şeyh Hamdullah, Mustafa Dede and Hafız produced. Moralı Beşir Ağa would use trickery or just take the works from their owners, using force if necessary.135

Noted Ottoman historian, author and diplomat Ahmed Resmi Efendi wrote a pamphlet in which he described a ruse that Moralı Beşir Ağa perpetrated for his own gain. The Kızlar Ağası located a handwritten Qur'an in the palace that Şeyh Hamdullah wrote and assigned it to one of the palace workers. He was to take it to the Sahaflar Çarşısı (Book Bazaar area of the Grand Bazaar) and sell it. Right away, he sent a second worker and had him tell the Book Bazaar tradesmen that Beşir Ağa wanted to own a Qur'an written by Şeyh Hamdullah and if they could locate and purchase one and give it to them, he would be very pleased. The tradesmen were afraid of him and collected a hundred golden coins to purchase the Qur'an for Beşir Ağa, sending it to him as a gift. Upon receipt of both the coins and the Qur'an, he returned the book from where he obtained it and kept the money:136

Having at one point managed to have his man appointed grand vizier, this Beşir was so bold as to call the highest officer of the Ottoman Empire his personal apprentice. He had no scruples. At another time, when he was at first unsuccessful in bringing about the dismissal of a grand vizier, he had a fire set in Istanbul and the vizier blamed for it, thus gaining his end.137

Beşir Ağa II had anyone removed from office who did not support him, so people were afraid of him. Regarding the Grand Vizier associated with the fires, Beşir Ağa spread the word that his rival was jinxed because he would not fall in line. The ruse worked and the sultan sacked the Grand Vizier. Anyone who wanted a job in the public arena had to pay Beşir Ağa large bribes and everyone dishonoured their positions by going along with him. His collaborators insulted public officials and even religious officers if they failed to toe the line. His six-year reign of terror raised the fear that some soldiers were going to revolt on a scale of the infamous Patrona Halil Rebellion that ended with the abdication of Sultan Ahmed III in 1730. Sultan Mehmed I received some secret information about the impending rebellion and imprisoned Beşir Ağa and followers.138

James Caulfeild, the fourth Viscount Charlemont, began a tour of the European continent in 1746. Supposedly ‘rich, handsome, well bred, amorous, impressionable and in his eighteenth year’, he arrived in The Hague in the fall of that year. In June 1749, he sailed from Malta to Constantinople. Although he praised the sultan, it was obvious that he despised the Chief Black Eunuch Beşir Ağa.

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