Mad Sultans of Turkey, and some Bad-Ass Cossacks

Crazy Turkish Sultans are the best.

quote:

... Sometimes Murad disguised himself and, accompanied by his executioner, he wandered the streets incognito, personally carrying out inspections. When he came across some "troublemaker", Murad would turn to the executioner and select the tool he thought most suited to the job. Thus Murad had many people mercilessly executed and corpses hung at every street corner. In the early years of his reign, his executions had been justified by unquestionable guilt, but later he was killing out off ill humour or a whim. Once, he forced one of his doctors to swallow an overdose of his own opium. He impaled a courier for informing him mistakenly that he had become father of a boy, whereas in fact it was a daughter. Murad's cruelty became legendary and his approach created a terrified silence everywhere. He cut off the head of every man who came under the slightest suspicion; in 5 years time he executed some 25,000 subjects. His musician, for example, was beheaded for playing a Persian melody. In 1633, coffee houses, wine shops and taverns were closed, because they were meeting places where people could spend their time criticising the government. Murad passed a law prohibiting smoking and the consumption of alcohol or coffee throughout the Ottoman Empire on pain of death. When he caught anyone with a pipe or a cup of coffee, Murad had the offender executed on the spot, although he himself indulged in both habits

Knowing the strife among the harem women, Sultana Kösem had tried to encourage her son to homosexual love, showing him only beautiful boys and keeping him away from girls. During the rest of his life Murad was to show both feelings of lust and hate for women. Once Murad encountered a group of women singing in a meadow and ordered all of them to be drowned for disturbing his peace. When a boat with ladies came too close to the harem walls, Murad ordered his gunners to open fire, sinking the boat and drowning them all. At other times, he forced his harem women to jump naked into a pool. He liked to fire harmless pellets at their bodies or fill the pool with so much water that they had to jump up and down to take a breath. Murad was also intensely jealous. A man who added a room to the top of his house was hanged, because Murad thought he had done it to peer over the palace walls into his harem.

During the last years of his life Murad became addicted to alcohol. It turned him into a homicidal maniac. Dimitrie Cantemir of Moldavia (1678-1723) wrote: "Very often at midnight he stole out of the women's quarters through the private gate of the palace with his drawn sword, and running through the streets barefooted with only a loose gown around him, like a madman, killed whoever came his way." He took particular pleasure in beheading men with fat necks. Murad practised his powers with the arquebus from the palace walls on passers by - in case they were intending to look into the harem. While riding out, armed with his bow, he used to practise his aim on any passing woman...

Or this fella,

quote:

Ibrahim was born on November 5, 1616, as a younger son of Sultan Ahmed I (1590-1617). As an infant he had been locked up in the "Cage", and ever since he had been living in fear of death. The Sultans Osman II (1604-1622) and Murad IV (1612-1640) had executed all their brothers - except Ibrahim. In 1640, Murad actually ordered Ibrahim's death on his deathbed, because he thought it better for the dynasty to end rather than continue with 'insane seed'. But their mother, Sultana Kösem, intervened.When he had finally left the "Cage", Ibrahim began dancing through the harem, while screaming: "The butcher of the Empire is dead!".

Seeking compensation for his lost years, 23-year-old Ibrahim indulged in an urge for debauchery. Sultana Kösem was happy to reign in her son's place, so she took care of an endless supply of virgins and fat women for his pleasure. Ibrahim was frequently impotent so his mother supplied him with aphrodisiacs, too. Ibrahim preferred women he could not have and found it difficult to make love to slave-girls, who were not in a position to refuse him anything. Dimitri Cantemir of Moldavia wrote: "In the palace gardens he frequently assembled all the virgins, made them strip themselves naked, and neighing like a stallion ran amongst them and as it were ravished one or the other, kicking or struggling by his order". When Ibrahim met the beautiful daughter of the Grand Mufti, Turkey's highest religious leader, he asked him for her hand in marriage. The Mufti, aware of the debaucheries in the harem, advised his daughter to refuse the proposal. Ibrahim was enraged and had the girl followed and kidnapped. He ravaged her for a couple of days and then sent her back to her father. Another time Ibrahim treatened to stuff his Grand Vezir with straw unless he recovered presents given by previous Sultans to the shrine at Medina.

In 1641, one of Ibrahim's concubines, Turhan Hadice (1627-1682), gave birth to his first son, Prince Mehmed (1642-1687). Shortly before the birth, Ibrahim (to the right) acquired a slave girl, who accidentally happened to be pregnant. After the birth she was employed as a wet nurse for the little Prince and so she moved into the Royal harem with her own son. The Sultan was so taken with the healthy and robust little boy - a contrast with his own fragile and sickly son - that he spent a lot of time with him. When Turhan Hadice complained, Ibrahim had one of his rages; he tore his son from his mother's arms and threw him into the pool. Luckily, Mehmed survived. Three months after Mehmed's birth another concubine gave birth to Ibrahim's second son, Süleyman (1642-1691). More sons soon followed. In 1645, Ibrahim betrothed his 3-year old daughter Fatima to Kapudan Yusuf Pasha*, but he had him executed within a year.

The shops of jewellers and European merchants were pillaged to satisfy Ibrahim's whims and tastes of the moment. Ibrahim used to drench his beard, clothes and room hangings with perfumes, especially the exotic ambergris. He had a fetish for furs: his clothes, curtains and walls were all decorated with fur. His pillows were stuffed with it and he had a preference for making love on sable skins. Ibrahim collected books expressing the various ways of coition and he was said to have invented some new and previously unknown positions himself. Once, Ibrahim happened to see the private parts of a wild young cow and according to Cantemir, "he sent the shape of them in gold all over the Empire with orders to make enquiries whether a woman made in just that manner could be found for his lust". A woman fitting the description was found in Armenia and she was received into the harem. Her name was Sechir Para ("Sugar Cube") and she weighed around 150 kilograms. Ibrahim became madly infatuated with her.

One day Sechir Para told Ibrahim about a rumour that one of his concubines was "compromised by an outsider", but she didn't know any details, like the girl's name. Ibrahim promptly raged for three days. When his son Mehmed made a joke that Ibrahim didn't like, he took his dagger and thrust it in his little son's face. Mehmed was to carry the resulting scar on his forehead until the end of his life. The chief black eunuch, the most powerful man after the Grand Vezir, tried to find the identity of the concubine by torturing some of the harem girls, but he was not provided with a name. Then Ibrahim decided to have his entire harem of 280 women thrown into the Bosporus, tied up in weighted sacks. Sechir Para and Turhan Hadice were spared. Only one other girl survived, because her sack had not been sufficiently tied up. She was dragged out of the water by the crew of a French ship. Eventually Sultana Kösem became jealous of Sechir Para's influence and one day she invited the woman to dinner and had her strangled. She told the inconsolable Ibrahim that the woman "had died suddenly of a powerful illness".

In the provinces the custodians of public property turned into feudal lords. Offices were sold to the highest bidder or given to favourites, taxes were increased and every resource possible was drained to supply the demands of the Sultan's excesses. Ibrahim was indifferent to the chaotic situation in his country and his insane behaviour alienated all political fractions. But the birth of his sons had made Ibrahim replaceable. In 1648, the Janissaries revolted because they were paid poorly or not at all. They cut up the body of the Grand Vezir and sold it in the street. Then the Grand Mufti decided to take revenge for the deflowering of his daughter by sanctioning a coup. When Ibrahim asked him: "Did I not appoint you to this high office?", he replied: "No, God appointed me." Thus Ibrahim was deposed and put back in the "Cage". Confined once again, he became a raving lunatic. Despite the thick walls, his cries could be heard day and night. A week after losing his throne, on August 18, the executioners entered the "Cage". With the Koran in his hand, Ibrahim cried out: "Behold! God's book! By what writ shall you murder me?" and "Is there no one among those who have eaten my bread who will take pity on me and protect me? These cruel men have come to kill me. Mercy! Mercy!" Nevertheless, he was strangled with a bowstring and buried in the Haghia Sophia Mosque beside Mad Mustafa.

And this exchange, true diplomacy,

quote:

The text of the Sultan's letter to the Cossacks:

As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians—I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks.

—Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV

quote:

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan!

Thou art a turkish imp, the damned devil's brother and friend, and a secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight art thou that cannot slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou a son of a bitch wilt not ever make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck thy mother.

Thou art the Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian villain, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, a fool before our God, a grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. Thou wilt not even be herding Christian pigs. Now we shall conclude, for we don't know the date and don't have a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

Koshovyi Otaman Ivan Sirko, with the whole Zaporozhian Host.

Someone did a great painting of the Cossacks as they were replying:

http://img.waffleimages.com/7c68faf751667c188cf3a3734a7ac4cba47053c4/Repin_Cossacks.jpg