Ahmed ascended the throne after his father's death in 1603, at the age of thirteen, when his powerful grandmother
Safiye Sultan was still alive. With his accession to the throne, the power struggle in the harem flared up; between his mother
Handan Sultan and his grandmother Safiye Sultan, who in the previous reign had absolute power within the walls (behind the throne), in the end, with the support of Ahmed, the fight ended in favor of his mother. Ahmed broke with the traditional fratricide following previous enthronements and did not order the execution of his three year old half-brother
Mustafa, the second son of Halime Sultan. Instead, Mustafa was sent to live at the old palace at Bayezit along with his mother and their grandmother, Safiye Sultan. This was most likely due to Ahmed's young age - he had not yet demonstrated his ability to sire children, and Mustafa was then the only other candidate for the Ottoman throne. His brother's execution would have endangered the dynasty, and thus he was spared. His mother tried to interfere in his affairs and influence his decision, especially she wanted to control his communication and movements. In the earlier part of his reign, Ahmed I showed decision and vigor, which were belied by his subsequent conduct. The wars in
Hungary and
Persia, which attended his accession, terminated unfavourably for the empire. Its prestige was further tarnished in the
Treaty of Zsitvatorok, signed in 1606, whereby the annual tribute paid by
Austria was abolished. Following the crushing defeat in the
Ottoman–Safavid War (1603–1612) against the neighbouring rivals
Safavid Empire, led by Shah
Abbas the Great, Georgia, Azerbaijan and other vast territories in the Caucasus were ceded back to Persia per the
Treaty of Nasuh Pasha in 1612, territories that had been temporarily conquered in the
Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–90). The new borders were drawn per the same line as confirmed in the
Peace of Amasya of 1555.
Relations with Morocco During his reign the ruler of Morocco was
Mulay Zidan whose father and predecessor
Ahmad al-Mansur had paid a tribute of vassalage as a vassal of the Ottomans until his death. The Saadi civil wars had interrupted this tribute of vassalage, but Mulay Zidan proposed to submit to it in order to protect himself from
Algiers, and so he resumed paying the tribute to the Ottomans.
Ottoman-Safavid War: 1604–06 The
Ottoman–Safavid War had begun shortly before the death of Ahmed's father Mehmed III. Upon ascending the throne, Ahmed I appointed
Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha as the commander of the eastern army. The army marched from Constantinople on 15 June 1604, which was too late, and by the time it had arrived on the eastern front on 8 November 1604, the
Safavid army had captured
Yerevan and entered the
Kars Eyalet, and could only be stopped in
Akhaltsikhe. Despite the conditions being favourable, Sinan Pasha decided to stay for the winter in
Van, but then marched to
Erzurum to stop an incoming Safavid attack. This caused unrest within the army and the year was practically wasted for the Ottomans. In 1605, Sinan Pasha marched to take
Tabriz, but the army was undermined by
Köse Sefer Pasha, the
Beylerbey of Erzurum, marching independently from Sinan Pasha and consequently being taken prisoner by the Safavids. The Ottoman army was routed at
Urmia and had to flee firstly to Van and then to
Diyarbekir. Here, Sinan Pasha sparked a rebellion by executing the Beylerbey of
Aleppo,
Canbulatoğlu Hüseyin Pasha, who had come to provide help, upon the pretext that he had arrived too late. He soon died himself and the Safavid army was able to capture
Ganja,
Shirvan and
Shamakhi in Azerbaijan. The new Grand Vizier, Nasuh Pasha, did not want to fight with the Safavids. The Safavid Shah also sent a letter saying that he was willing to sign a peace treaty, with which he would have to send 200 loads of
silk every year to Constantinople. On 20 November 1612, the
Treaty of Nasuh Pasha was signed, which ceded all the lands the Ottoman Empire had gained in the war of 1578–90 back to Persia and reinstated the 1555 boundaries. However, the peace ended in 1615 when the Shah did not send the 200 loads of silk. On 22 May 1615, Grand Vizier
Öküz Mehmed Pasha was assigned to organize an attack on Persia. Mehmed Pasha delayed the attack till the next year, until when the Safavids made their preparations and attacked Ganja. In April 1616, Mehmed Pasha left Aleppo with a large army and marched to Yerevan, where he failed to take the city and withdrew to Erzurum. He was removed from his post and replaced by
Damat Halil Pasha. Halil Pasha went for the winter to Diyarbekir, while the Khan of Crimea,
Canibek Giray, attacked the areas of
Ganja,
Nakhichevan and
Julfa.
Capitulations and trade treaties Ahmed I renewed trade treaties with
England,
France and
Venice. In July 1612, the first ever trade treaty with the
Dutch Republic was signed. He expanded the
capitulations given to France, specifying that merchants from
Spain,
Ragusa,
Genoa,
Ancona and
Florence could trade under the French flag.
Architect and service to Islam Sultan Ahmed constructed the
Sultan Ahmed Mosque across from the
Hagia Sophia. The sultan attended the breaking of the ground with a golden pickaxe to begin the construction of the mosque complex. An incident nearly broke out after the sultan discovered that the Blue Mosque contained the same number of minarets as the
grand mosque of Mecca. Ahmed became furious at this fault and became remorseful until the
Shaykh al-Islām recommended that he should erect another minaret at the grand mosque of Mecca and the matter was solved. |left Ahmed became delightedly involved in the eleventh comprehensive renovations of the
Kaaba, which had just been damaged by flooding. He sent craftsmen from Constantinople, and the golden rain gutter that kept rain from collecting on the roof of the Ka’ba was successfully renewed. It was again during the era of Sultan Ahmed that an iron web was placed inside the
Zamzam Well in Mecca. The placement of this web about three feet below the water level was a response to lunatics who jumped into the well, imagining a promise of a heroic death. In Medina, the city of the Islamic prophet
Muhammad, a new pulpit made of white marble and shipped from Constantinople arrived in the mosque of Muhammad and substituted the old, worn-out pulpit. It is also known that Sultan Ahmed erected two more mosques in Uskudar on the Asian side of Istanbul; however, neither of them has survived. The sultan had a crest carved with the footprint of Muhammad that he would wear on Fridays and festive days and illustrated one of the most significant examples of affection to Muhammad in Ottoman history. Engraved inside the crest was a poem he composed: ==Character==