Reign of Murad IV depicting the young
Murad IV (anonymous, c. 17th century) Kösem entered the
Topkapı Palace with a grandiose ceremonial procession in front of which a thousand
dervishes were marching with prayers to celebrate her forthcoming. She was once again thrust into the political arena when her son ascended to the throne on 10 September 1623 as
Sultan Murad IV. Since he was a minor, she was appointed not only as valide sultan but also as official regent (
naib-i-sultanat), the first in the Ottoman Empire's history. Shortly after
Murad's enthronement, a Venetian ambassadorial message remarked on Kösem's political experience: A month before the Venetian despatch, the English envoy
Thomas Roe predicted that the new sultan would be "gouemed by his mother, who gouemed his father, a man of spirit and witt." As per Ottoman tradition, Murad had all his brothers confined in the Kafes, a part of the
Imperial Harem where the palace
eunuchs kept possible successors to the
throne under a form of house-arrest and constant surveillance. As regent, Kösem effectively ran the empire through her son, Murad, attending and arranging
divan (cabinet) sessions from behind a curtain. She was in charge of appointing political figures and overseeing the state's administration, which allowed her to establish connections with statesmen, judges, and other court figures. Kösem seemed to have distinct expectations about her role when she first became regent. According to the Turkish historian Özlem Kumrular: In 1623,
Kemankeş Kara Ali Pasha was appointed grand vizier. His worst blunder was permitting the Safavid
Shah Abbas to
capture Baghdad and
Erivan in 1624, and then hiding the news from Kösem and Murad, who was twelve years old at the time. Already displeased, Kösem immediately deposed him and had him strangled with the support of the
Chief Black Eunuch Mustafa Ağa. He was replaced as grand vizier by
Çerkes Mehmed Pasha. During the early years of Murad's reign, Kösem had to deal with the loss of Baghdad and Erivan during the
Ottoman–Safavid War; the rebellion of tribes in
Lebanon; the
Abaza rebellion in northern
Anatolia; the wavering allegiances of governors in
Egypt and other provinces; the assertion of independence by the
Barbary states; a revolt by the
Tatars in
Crimea; and raids by marauding
Cossacks on the
Black Sea coast. Cossack incursions into the Ottoman Empire were common throughout the early 17th century, disrupting the security of the Black Sea and forcing the Ottomans to consider reinforcing the
Bosphorus, especially after the
Cossack incursion of 1624. On behalf of her son, Kösem ordered the construction of two fortresses near the mouth of the Bosphorus, one in
Anadolukavağı and the other in
Rumelikavağı. The fortresses were erected in a single year. During her regency, Kösem ably restored the state's finances after a period of severe inflation. She also helped stabilise the government by melting down much of the palace gold and silver to pay the Janissaries. When the grand vizier, who was
campaigning against the Safavids to recapture Baghdad, ran out of food for the army, he turned to Kösem for assistance. In one letter, she responded to his request, writing: "You say that attention must be paid to provisions for the campaign. If it were up to me, it would have been taken care of long ago. There is no shortcoming on either my or my son's part." In another, she sent good news: "You wrote about the provisions. If I were able to, I would procure and dispatch them immediately. I am doing everything I can, my son likewise. God willing, it is intended that this Friday ten million aspers will be forwarded to
Üsküdar, if all goes well. The rest of the provisions have been loaded onto ships."
Bayram Pasha, the governor of
Egypt and Kösem's son-in-law, wrote to her on a number of issues and she communicated the contents of his letters to the
Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha along with her own thoughts. Among the problems discussed were delays in the provision of gunpowder, the troublesome situation in the
Yemen, and shortfalls in the province's revenue (in 1625, Egypt sent only half of its normal revenue because of the ravages of a plague known in Egyptian annals as "the plague of Bayram Pasha"). The extent of the cooperation between Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha and Kösem is suggested by her frank comment: "You really give me a headache. But I give you an awful headache too. How many times have I asked myself. 'I wonder if he's getting sick of me'? 'But what else can we do?" In 1625, Murad, who was already critical of his mother's foreign policy, objected to her proposed truce between the Ottoman Empire and
Spain. According to a Venetian dispatch of 1625, "the Imperialists and Spaniards declared that the matter was progressing favourably, being actively assisted by the Sultan's mother." A year later, the Venetian ambassador reported that the sultan, "with a prudence beyond his years", was opposed to the truce, as were most leading statesmen except the admiral
Recep Pasha and
Bayram Pasha, governor of
Egypt. He noted that the Spanish "base their hopes on these two and the Sultan's mother and sister." The ambassador was probably aware of the fact that Recep Pasha was married to
Gevherhan Sultan and Bayram Pasha to
Hanzade Sultan, both of whom were Kösem's daughters. Hans Ludwig von Kuefstein (1582–1656), who led a grand embassy to the
Sublime Porte in the late 1620s, describes his negotiations with the
kaymakam (a high official of an Ottoman district) in reference to the vast influence of his wife and her mother: "With her and the mother anything can be done and arranged." Nevertheless, the treaty was recalled on the sultan's orders. Kösem is also known to have corresponded directly with
Nur Jahan, the chief wife of the
Mughal emperor
Jahangir. Imperial princesses were often involved in serial marriages during the century after
Suleiman the Magnificent, thereby allowing the Imperial family to establish a network of alliances with the most powerful pashas. Kösem, in particular, used her daughters to help keep her in power for nearly half a century. As she wrote to the Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha in 1626, a few months before he became her daughter
Ayşe Sultan's third husband: Rejecting an offer of marriage into the imperial family was tantamount to treason, so statesmen could hardly decline a proposed match. Kösem also paired off numerous other women in the Imperial household with men whose standing would be beneficial to her. She also allied herself strategically with the Janissaries. , 1627. A letter to the
Grand Vizier Damad Hilal Pasha, dated 1627, reveals Kösem's concern about two troublesome matters: the security of
Yemen, which would break free of Ottoman control in 1636, and the chronic problem of making salary payments, especially to the Janissaries, the frequently unruly Ottoman infantry. The letter also mentions her anxiety about Murad's health and her frustration over her lack of direct control over important decisions: Another letter expresses her wish that the young sultan should be advised and chastised by the
Grand Vizier Hüsrev Pasha, if not by Kösem herself. It also implies that Kösem was getting information about events outside the palace from Murad rather than directly: Enraged by his mother's excessive support for the governor of Egypt, Murad moved to break Kösem's ties with her son-in-law Admiral
Hüseyin Pasha, the husband of her daughter
Fatima, by forcing the dissolution of the marriage. Hüseyin Pasha had benefited from the protection of both the Chief Black Eunuch Mustafa Ağa and Kösem. Murad's move against him may have stemmed from a wish to break free from the influence of his inner palace advisers and exercise authority over the government's most influential officers. Kösem is said to have tried to satisfy her son with a gift of ornately dressed horses and a banquet of ten thousand aspers but
Murad was trying hard to keep his mother away from politics, and his actions suggest that he was disturbed by her great influence.
Post-regency of
Murad IV In May 1632, during an uprising in Constantinople, the Janissaries stormed the palace and killed the
Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha, among others. Perhaps in response to this, as well as fearing that he would suffer the same fate as his elder half-brother Osman II, Murad decided not to allow anyone else to interfere in his administration of the empire, and ordered his mother to sever her contacts with his statesmen, threatening her with exile from the capital if she did not comply. This brought Kösem's nine-year term of office as regent to an end. Having taken power for himself, he immediately sought to replace the men loyal to his mother. He then tried to put an end to the corruption that had grown during the reigns of previous sultans, and that had gone unchecked while his mother was ruling through proxy. Despite being removed from the seat of power, Kösem continued to run some governmental affairs on behalf of the sultan, since he trusted her to look after his interests during his absences from the capital. She also remained in direct correspondence with him and with
Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasha. In 1634, Murad's execution of the
kadi (judge) of
Iznik for a minor offence sparked outrage amongst Constantinople's religious hierarchy. When Kösem learned that the
Şeyhülislam Ahizade Hüseyin Efendi was allegedly plotting to overthrow the sultan, she sent word to Murad to return to the capital immediately. Ahizade Hüseyin Efendi was strangled before proof of his innocence could reach the sultan. It was the first time of a Şeyhülislam had been put to death in the history of the Ottoman state. By 1635, the
Anatolian countryside had been devastated by the
Abaza rebellion and state oppression, resulting in a mass influx of refugees to the capital. Murad responded by ordering the refugees to return to their destroyed homes or face execution, but eventually relented at the insistence of his mother. In 1638, following the
recapture of Baghdad from the Safavids, Kösem was a key figure in the celebrations surrounding her son Murad's triumphal return to Constantinople. Retracing her path after leaving Constantinople to welcome Murad in
İzmit, two days' journey from the city, she rode in a carriage draped with gold fabric, its wheels studded, and its spokes coated in gold, preceded by viziers and high-ranking religious authorities on gorgeously caparisoned horses. Twelve additional carriages followed her own, most likely transporting members of the
Imperial Harem. Kösem's principal effort in protecting the dynasty appears to have been dissuading the sultan from executing all his brothers toward the end of his reign. The princes
Bayezid (her stepson) and
Süleyman (her biological son) were executed during the celebrations over the victory at
Erivan (1635) and
Kasım, the heir apparent to the throne, was executed during the
Baghdad campaign in 1638. One source states that
Mustafa was also executed at Murad's command on 20 January 1639.
Reign of Ibrahim Of Kösem's last surviving sons, the mentally unstable
Ibrahim, lived in fear of being the next of his brothers to be executed by Murad. On his deathbed in 1640, Murad told his mother of his disdain for his brother Ibrahim, saying that it would be better for the dynasty to end rather than continue with an heir who was insane. Ibrahim's life was only saved by the intercession of his mother Kösem, who argued that he was 'too mad to be a threat'. She thereby saved the
Ottoman dynasty from probable annihilation. With the accession of Ibrahim, Kösem once again became politically active as his principal advisor. However, she enjoyed a less compatible relationship with the Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha than she had with the grand viziers of Murad's early reign. Now entering her fourth decade of political involvement, Kösem was a shrewd and experienced politician. The competition between them was reported by the Venetian ambassador Alvise Contarini: the Mad, who reigned from 1640 until his deposition in 1648 Ibrahim's sexual impotency was assessed psychologically, and his mother summoned a number of
hodjas to treat him, but all of whom were unsuccessful. In a desperate attempt, Kösem then invited the alleged sorcerer
Cinci Hoca (Jinji Hojā) to the palace, after informing her that he had inherited certain 'magic formulas.' After supposedly curing Ibrahim's impotency by offering him a cocktail of
aphrodisiacs, pornography and seductive females, the sultan rewarded the
hoca with a chief justiceship, the second highest
ulama position, an appointment which was one of numerous examples of the overturning of authority and procedure at court. Kösem tried to remedy the situation by encouraging Ibrahim to distract himself with beautiful concubines supplied to her from the slave market by a confidant named
Pezevenk, or the Pimp. This allowed her to gain power and rule in his name as well as to ensure the dynasty's survival.
Bobovi, a royal page from
Poland who served in the palace from 1638 until 1657, wrote, "It is almost always from among the Sultan Valide's slaves that the sultan chooses his mistresses. For it is only she who has the interest of the loves of her son at her heart. She always searches for beautiful girls to be presented to him."
Cretan War The Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha and Kösem continued to direct the affairs of government throughout the first four years of Ibrahim's reign. Despite his best efforts, however, the grand vizier could not silence and neutralize Kösem, who used his unpopular financial reforms to instigate a rebellion against him. When attempts to dislodge the grand vizier by organizing provincial revolts failed, Kösem allied herself with
Cinci Hoca, and together, they persuaded Ibrahim to have the grand vizier executed in 1644. During this time, Kösem managed to significantly increase the pay of the Janissaries, who in return gave her their allegiance. The treasury, however, had run out of money in 1645 when it came time to pay the Janissaries. Kösem tried to get financial assistance from Cinci Hoca, the sultan's chief treasurer, but he declined. She later explained this situation to the Janissaries, writing to them: "I want to distribute your service pay but Cinci Hoca does not allow me", causing the Janissaries to consider Cinci Hoca as an enemy and eventually murdering him. Due to the shortfall in the Imperial funds, Kösem and her allies urged Ibrahim to launch a naval assault on the Venetian-controlled
island of Crete,
Venice's largest and wealthiest
overseas possession. The campaign was largely unsuccessful, and the venture further drained the treasury.
Palace feud Şivekar Sultan, a former slave of Kösem, was an Armenian woman from the Bosphorus village of
Arnavutkoy, who is said to have weighed nearly 330 pounds. According to
Rycaut, Ibrahim became so infatuated with her that he was unable to deny her anything, which led to her downfall because she incurred the wrath of Kösem: "By these particulars the Queen Mother becoming jealous, one day inviting her to Dinner, caused her to be Strangled, and persuaded Ibrahim that she died suddenly of a violent Sickness, at which the poor Man was greatly afflicted.' She then informed the distraught Ibrahim that Şivekar Sultan 'had died suddenly of a powerful illness." However, other sources suggest that Şivekar Sultan was exiled to
Egypt or
Chios after Ibrahim's death in 1648. Her fall was a clear sign that Kösem, like others, despised Ibrahim's concubines' excessive influence over political matters. Kösem is also known to have had a strict policy for the eunuchs in the harem, which denied them any influence in the running of the state. Moreover, she quickly got rid of the female lovers of these eunuchs; some of whom were manumitted while others were sent to be sold in the slave market. Ibrahim also allegedly tried to rape a concubine who spurned him and threatened to stab him with a dagger if he persisted. Their struggle was overheard by Kösem, who reprimanded Ibrahim and allowed the woman to escape the harem. Meanwhile, Ibrahim's favourites had grown envious of Kösem, encouraging her son to rebel against her. Thus, Ibrahim rejected his mother's authority, urging Kösem to withdraw from the harem to live in a summer house outside
Topkapı Palace and then in a house in an Imperial garden in
Eyüp. Made aware of the attempt to topple him, Ibrahim had the Grand Vizier Salih Pasha executed. Initially, Ibrahim planned to have his mother, whom he suspected of being part of the conspiracy, exiled to the
island of Rhodes, However, such indignity was resisted by one of his
hasekis In 1648, when the Janissaries and
ulama rebelled against Ibrahim, he lost his temper and fled into the arms of his mother, whom he had unwillingly permitted back into the harem in exchange for his protection. The rebels demanded the dethronement of Ibrahim and the enthronement of his eldest son,
Mehmed. The
Agha of the Janissaries, who were also going to demand the resignation of the unpopular
Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha, warned her to take great care to safeguard the princes. The chronicler
Kâtip Çelebi reports that Kösem attended a conference with leading viziers, clergy and others about the impending action. At the anteroom of the third gate, she was draped from head to toe in black silk, while a black eunuch waved a large fan beside her. The
Agha of the Janissaries addressed her: Kösem tried to blame the viziers and clergy for leading Ibrahim astray throughout his eight-year reign. She also upbraided the rebels for agreeing to whatever Ibrahim had desired, stating: Emphasising the need for dynastic allegiance, she went on to ask the clergy: "Wasn't every single one of you raised up through the benevolence of the Ottoman dynasty?" They replied with an imperative drawn from holy law (
sharia): "a mentally ill person cannot lead the
ummah (the community of Muslim believers.)" At one point the
ulama addressed Kösem as ''umm al-mu'minin'', "mother of the [Muslim] believers." This honorific title, given to the wives of
Muhammad by Qur'anic revelation, allowed her to extend her maternal function as guardian beyond her son and the dynasty to the Ottoman Empire as a whole. Hanifezade, an Ottoman judge, appealed to her not as a mother but as a stateswoman: In one last effort, Kösem said, "All this is the doing of wicked ministers. They shall be removed; and only good and wise men shall be set in their stead." "What will that avail?" replied Hanifezade, "Has not the Sultan put to death good and gallant men who served him, such as were Mustafa Pasha and
Yusuf Pasha, the conqueror of Canea?" "But how," urged Kösem, "is it possible to place a child of seven years upon the throne?" Hanefizade answered: "In the opinion of our wise men of the law, a madman ought not to reign, whatever be his age; but rather let a child, that is gifted with reason, be upon the throne. If the sovereign be a rational being, though an infant, a wise Vizier may restore order to the world; but a grown-up Sultan, who is without sense, ruins all things by murder, by abomination, by corruption, and prodigality." They debated for hours until the soldiers lost patience and demanded that if she did not surrender the prince they would storm the harem and forcibly take him. After assenting to their setting up the emerald throne before the gate, Kösem 'tucked up her skirts in fury' and went inside to get the prince. Some time later, with 'apparent distress and hatred in her face' she brought the boy out, who was dressed and prepared for his enthronement, asking, "Is this what you wanted? Here he is, see what you can do with him!" In exchange, the Janissaries promised not to murder Ibrahim, but merely return him to the confinement of the
Kafes. Kösem attempted to justify her decision by writing to the Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha: "In the end he will leave neither you nor me alive. We will lose control of the government. The whole society is in ruins. Have him removed from the throne immediately." On 8 August 1648, Ibrahim was dethroned and imprisoned in
Topkapı Palace. ==Büyük Valide Sultan==