Inside the Seraglio by John Freely

Author:John Freely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, Topkapi Sarayi, sultans, harem
ISBN: 9780857728708
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

A Cage for Princes

When Mehmet IV was deposed, after a reign of thirty-nine years, his eldest son Mustafa was twenty-three years old, and in earlier centuries would have inherited the throne as the eldest son of the departed sultan. But after some discussion he was passed over in favour of Mehmet's brother Süleyman, in keeping with the principle of seniority that had now been in use for seventy years. Thereupon Mustafa and his younger brother Ahmet were imprisoned in the Cage along with their father, while their uncle emerged from the same prison to take the throne as Süleyman II.

Süleyman's younger brother Ahmet remained in the Cage. Never before had it enclosed so many royal captives, housing one deposed sultan and three princes. But by now their imprisonment was more humane than it had been in the past, particularly when the captives were brought to Edirne Sarayı, where the Cage was less of a prison than it was in Topkapı Sarayı.

Süleyman II had been a prisoner in the Cage for thirty-nine years, during which time he had learned calligraphy, spending his days copying out Kurans and praying. When the bostancıbaşı came to release him from the Cage Süleyman thought that he was going to be executed by his brother, and his first words were, according to Cantemir, ‘Why, in the name of the immortal God, do you endeavour to disturb my tranquility? Suffer me, I entreat you, to pass in peace, in my cell, the few days I have to live, and let my brother rule the Othman Empire; for he was born to rule, but I to the study of eternal life.’ To which the bostancıbaşı responded, according to Cantemir: ‘“You must give way, most resplendent Emperor, to the entreaties and wishes of the Musulman people”: and with these words forces him, as it were, out of the chamber, and leads him to the throne.’

Süleyman was midway through his forty-sixth year when he came to the throne, having known no life other than the Cage, except for occasional trips that he and his brother Ahmet had made with the late Hadice Turhan. Süleyman had not been allowed to have concubines while he was in the Cage, and in fact he showed no interest in women after his release, being of a contemplative spirit and exceedingly religious. Thus for the first time in the history of the Ottoman Empire there was a sultan without his own harem. Süleyman's mother Saliha Dilaşub became valide sultan on his accession, but when she died two years later the feminine hierarchy in the harem was without a head. The former haseki, Rabia Gülnüş Ümmetüllah, mother of the captive princes Mustafa and Ahmet, had been relegated to the Old Palace on the Third Hill, and so the harem of Topkapı Sarayı was virtually uninhabited, except for some women slaves and the black eunuchs who guarded them.

Süleyman's first official act as sultan was the reappointment of Siyavuş Pasha as grand vezir. Siyavuş was immediately confronted

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