History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

I walked beside my grandmother, my arm linked through hers, as we navigated the uneven, crumbling pavements and broken kerbs of the Fatih district in the old city of Stamboul. It was the summer of 1985, and I was excited to be visiting her during the school holidays.

This was not the Istanbul of imperial mosques and magnificent palaces that visitors came to admire, but a raw, working quartier of workshops and dilapidated apartment buildings leaning into one another as though for support. Porters passed us in a slow, unbroken procession, bent almost double beneath unimaginably heavy loads. Thick ropes were slung across their foreheads, cutting into the skin as they bore the weight with admirable endurance. Nearby, a machine shuddered into motion, and the sharp sound of metal against metal rang out, echoing through the street.

Above it all, seagulls wheeled and cried, their high-pitched calls slicing through the summer air as they circled low over piles of rubbish scattered along the pavement. The smell of oil and coal smoke clung stubbornly to the salty breeze drifting in from the Marmara Sea. Sagging balconies overlooked the street, paint peeling from bowed wooden frames, laundry strung between them like faded bunting, stirring lazily in the heat.

I tilted my head back, my gaze drawn upwards to a rusting street sign screwed into the cracked façade of a building on the corner: Pierre Loti Caddesi. We were almost home.

I wondered whether the lift would be working, so that my grandmother would not have to struggle up the stairs. It rarely was. Whether there would be electricity, so that I could make her a glass of tea. Whether water would run from the taps so we could wash our hands, or if we would once again have to rely on the filled plastic containers lined neatly on the bathroom floor.

And then, as my eyes lingered on the sign, another question rose in my mind. Who was Pierre Loti and why did this street, tucked deep within the heart of Stamboul where my grandmother lived so modestly, bear his name?

The Naval Officer

Pierre Loti was born Louis Marie Julien Viaud, in 1850. He entered the French navy at a young age, and his career carried him across oceans and continents.

Among his fellow officers, he was given a nickname that would come to define him. ‘Le Loti’, after a delicate Indian flower said to blush as it blooms. It was a reference to his shy and reserved nature. Pierre Loti was not an extrovert, nor a man drawn to social interaction. He observed more than he participated, and listened more than he spoke. The name suited him perfectly so he later adopted it as his pseudonym.

His ship arrived in Istanbul in 1876, a year marked by political instability in the Ottoman Empire on account of the quick succession of three sultans. In the west, the Empire was frequently described as ‘The Sick Man of Europe’, a phrase that reflected the assumption of the time. Loti, however, experienced something different.

What he encountered was not a city in decline, but a city of extraordinary beauty. And he fell in love.

Not only with a woman named Aziyadé, who would become the central character of his most famous work, but with the world she inhabited.

The Writer

Pierre Loti expressed this love through words. Beneath his naval uniform was a writer of rare sensitivity and acute perception, drawn to atmosphere, emotion, and the small details of everyday life.

During his time in Istanbul, he kept a diary in which he recorded his impressions of the city and its people. Encouraged by friends, he later adapted these private reflections into a semi-autobiographical novel. The result was Aziyadé, published in 1879.

Part memoir, part fiction, Aziyadé tells the story of a young French officer in Istanbul who begins a secret love affair with a beautiful Circassian woman. Set against the backdrop of imperial Istanbul, the novel is as much about the city and its culture as it is about the doomed lovers.

The Ottomanist

Though romanticised, the work revealed something unusual for the time. What makes Loti remarkable, and why he is remembered in Türkiye, is not simply that he wrote about Istanbul but how he wrote about it.

At a period in history when the Ottoman Empire was increasingly portrayed in Western discourse as weak or in decline, Loti resisted this narrative. He challenged prevailing attitudes, criticised European arrogance, and wrote with a sensibility that was rare among his contemporaries.

He immersed himself in the life of the city: adopting local dress, frequenting traditional coffeehouses, and forming close friendships within the community. In doing so, he did not position himself as an outsider looking in, but as an active participant in the world he described.

It is for this reason that he was embraced in Türkiye in a way few European writers have been. And why his name has found an enduring place in the memory of the city he loved.

Eyüp

If you are in Istanbul, I invite you to take the cable car from Eyüp up to the summit of Pierre Loti Hill.

At the top, you will find the Pierre Loti Café, a quaint tea garden built on the site of an old coffeehouse once said to have been frequented by Pierre Loti himself. From its terrace, the view opens across the Golden Horn in a sweeping panorama of water, rooftops, and minarets. It is believed that Loti often sat here, writing about Aziyadé in his journal, sipping tea, and looking out over the city below.

And if you turn your gaze down towards the banks of the Golden Horn at the foot of the hill, you will see the mausoleum of Sultan Mehmed V Reşad. Within its quiet, tended gardens, my grandmother, Emine Mukbile Sultan, rests beside her beloved husband, Prince Ali Vâsıb Efendi. A woman who loved Istanbul, who left her soul in the city when she was forced into exile, and who only found peace once she was allowed to return. A woman born in the Dolmabahçe Palace, an imperial Ottoman princess, who never complained about her fate, and who spent her final years living in a tiny flat in Pierre Loti Caddesi in the Fatih district. She was simply happy to be home, in the city she loved.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

A lively melody filled the reception hall of the old Çırağan Palace. Crystal chandeliers shimmered overhead, their candlelight catching the Sultan’s diamond-encrusted orders pinned to a frock coat heavy with gold embroidery. The assembled guests sat mesmerised as the Hungarian virtuoso played, his long, elegant fingers dancing across the ivory keys.

No one listened more intently than Sultan Abdülmecid and his eldest son. The young Prince Murad, not yet seven years old, sat at his father’s side, his eyes fixed on the pianist, his body gently swaying in time with the music, his feet not quite touching the parquet floor.

The Sultan drew on his narguile. A soft, rhythmic bubbling threaded its way into the music, and a plume of perfumed smoke rose slowly into the air, drifting towards the piano.

For the briefest instant, the pianist faltered, striking a wrong note.

The unfamiliar sound, the sweet-smelling smoke, the honour of the occasion, they had all conspired to break his concentration. Most did not notice, but the Sultan did. The corner of his mouth lifted slightly beneath his neatly trimmed moustache. Had he known it was his own narguile that had caused the distraction, he would have been mortified.

The music continued, regaining its momentum, building towards its close. Murad leant forward, willing the performance to last just a little longer, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. When the final note was played, there was a moment of silence – and then Sultan Abdülmecid rose, leading the rapturous applause.

Franz Liszt, already the toast of Europe’s royal salons, had found acclaim at the Imperial Ottoman Court.

And for one young prince in particular, it was a performance he would never forget.

The Virtuoso in Istanbul

Liszt arrived by ship in Istanbul on 8^th June 1847 at the height of his fame. He was personally greeted by Giuseppe Donizetti Pasha, the Sultan’s Master of Music, who had arranged the visit. Donizetti Pasha had modernised the Ottoman military bands under Sultan Mahmud II and played a pivotal role in introducing European-style music to the Imperial Court.

Soon after his arrival, Liszt was granted an audience with Sultan Abdülmecid. “I was greatly surprised that His Majesty was so aware of my fame,” he later wrote. The Sultan presented him with the Order of Glory (Nişân-ı İftihâr), along with a jewelled snuffbox as a mark of his esteem.

Liszt performed twice at the Çırağan Palace. Aware of Abdülmecid’s fondness for Italian opera, he chose his programme with care, including the Andante from Lucia di Lammermoor by Gaetano Donizetti, the brother of the Sultan’s Master of Music, Casta Diva from Bellini’s opera Norma, and concluding with Rossini’s rousing William Tell Overture. The selection was both diplomatic and dazzling.

During his five-week stay in Istanbul, he also performed at the Russian Embassy in Pera, at the Hotel d’Europe, and at the Franchini mansion in Büyükdere. Tickets were priced at 100 kuruş, and, in keeping with his reputation, the proceeds were given to charitable causes.

In addition to performing in the imperial capital, Liszt worked on a variation of the Mecidiye March, composed by Donizetti Pasha. He entitled the piece Grande Paraphrase de la Marche de Giuseppe Donizetti, and played it at his second concert before the Sultan. Offered as a tribute, it was received with great appreciation.

The Piano

In the winter of 1846, Sultan Abdülmecid commissioned a piano from the Parisian maker Érard, one of the most celebrated manufacturers of the time. The arrangements were overseen by Donizetti Pasha, who conducted a detailed correspondence with the workshop regarding the instrument’s design. One of these letters, now preserved in the Topkapı Palace Museum archives, records that it was purchased for 4,000 French francs.

By the time Liszt arrived in Istanbul, the piano had been installed at the Çırağan Palace, where it would be used for his performances before the Sultan. Writing on August 5^th 1847, Liszt thanked Pierre Érard for the instrument, describing it as “truly powerful and exceptional.”

Unusually, soon after the concerts at the Çırağan Palace, the piano was sold to a young Ottoman man as a gift for his fiancée, for the sum of 160 Turkish lira. Liszt reflected on its fate as “a truly romantic destiny,” one he added, that “it richly deserves it for its classical qualities.”

Father and Son

Sultan Abdülmecid was, in many ways, the embodiment of a changing empire. Continuing the reforms of his father, Sultan Mahmud II, he presided over a period of profound transformation known as the Tanzimat – a programme of westernisation that sought to bring the Ottoman state into closer alignment with Europe. This spirit of reform extended beyond law and administration into culture, taste, and daily life. The embrace of Western music at Court was not incidental, but part of a broader vision of modernisation.

For his eldest son, Prince Murad, the visit of Franz Liszt to Istanbul would prove life-altering. Listening to the Hungarian virtuoso that night became the catalyst for a lifelong devotion to music. And since Liszt had performed on an Érard piano, Murad dreamt of playing one himself. Recognising his son’s passion, Abdülmecid ordered a piano from the Parisian maker a few years later. It arrived in Istanbul in the spring of 1861. By then, the Sultan’s health was failing. Rather than wait to present it on Murad’s twenty-first birthday, as he had intended, he chose to give it to him at once.

Murad was overwhelmed. It would be the last gift he received from his father. Within months, Abdülmecid was dead.

Murad would go on to become a gifted composer and pianist, recognised today for the sensitivity and sophistication of his music. The origins of that talent lay in a concert held at the Çırağan Palace, and in a father who understood what it had awakened in his son.

Traces of Music

During his visit to Istanbul, Franz Liszt stayed at the home of the piano maker, Alexander Kommendinger in Pera. The house is no longer there, but on what was then called Polonya Sokak, now Nur-u Ziya Sokak, close to the former residence of the French ambassador, a plaque marks the spot where it once stood, reminding passers-by of the time when Franz Liszt came to Istanbul.

The old Çırağan Palace is also long gone, but in its place stands the present-day Çırağan Palace, where Sultan Murad V languished for twenty-eight years in enforced confinement. It is now a luxury hotel, but as you gaze up at its stone façade, you can almost imagine the deposed sultan seated at his Érard piano, music drifting out of the windows and across the Bosphorus.

That piano still survives. Its voice, softened by time, has not been silenced. It remains in the private collection of the descendants of Sultan Murad V. And perhaps, one day, Grande Paraphrase de la Marche de Giuseppe Donizetti by Franz Liszt will be played upon its keys.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

In the gardens of Defterdarburnu Palace, the warm breeze carried the scent of lilac, acacia, and roses. Somewhere below, from the waterfront pavilions, the low sound of ney flutes drifted across the Bosphorus, its surface catching the light like burnished silver. Paths led into a maze laid out in the European style, and at its centre, on a marble bench, Hadice Sultan sat with a letter in her hands.

She recognised the handwriting at once. The words were Turkish, yet formed in Latin letters, carefully spelt out phonetically. He had never mastered the Arabic script. She breathed in the perfumed air and sighed.

This garden was his as much as it was hers. It was he who designed every path, every flowerbed, every view, creating a secluded paradise on the Bosphorus where she found peace. For years he had worked here under her patronage, rising to the position of Imperial Architect to her brother, Sultan Selim III, until he fell from favour, and was forbidden a place in her world.

Hadice unfolded the letter from Antoine Melling and began to read it.

The Artist

Antoine Ignace Melling arrived in Istanbul in 1784, trained in architecture and mathematics, and having served his apprenticeship under his uncle, a former court painter to the Margrave of Baden. Over the next two decades, he would become one of the most remarkable visual chroniclers of the Imperial Ottoman capital, producing drawings, engravings, and paintings that preserve a world now long vanished.

He began modestly, as an art tutor to the children of European diplomats living in Pera, while also accepting private commissions. Among his earliest patrons was the Danish ambassador, Baron Frederik von Hübsch, for whom he designed the gardens of his official residence.

It was here that his work first came to the attention of Hadice Sultan, the cultured and intellectually curious half-sister of Sultan Selim III. Encountering his designs, she was immediately struck by their refinement, and by the mind that conceived them.

The Princess

Hadice was no ordinary Ottoman princess. The beloved sister and close confidante of Sultan Selim III, she shared many of his ideas. Her brother, the reformist sultan, was cautiously opening windows towards the West, introducing military reforms, encouraging European artistic influences, and cultivating intellectual exchange. His court became a place where music, architecture, and art flourished. It was precisely the kind of environment in which a young man like Melling could thrive.

Hadice was an avid collector of porcelain from France, Austria, and Saxony, and experimented with Western decorative fashions, transforming her palaces into elegant fusions of Ottoman tradition and European neoclassical design. Her patronage was discerning, guided by an instinct for beauty, harmony, and innovation.

In Melling, she recognised something rare. Not simply a skilled artist, but a kindred spirit. It was a recognition that would draw them unexpectedly together.

An Unlikely Friendship

From the moment Melling entered her orbit, his role extended far beyond that of a conventional architect. Under Hadice’s patronage, he became what the art historian Elisabeth A. Fraser describes in Mediterranean Encounters: Artists Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire 1774-1839 as a ‘kind of artistic director in residence.’ He designed the layout and gardens of Defterdarburnu Palace and advised on the furnishings and interior decoration of all the princess’ residences, overseeing details as minute as pearls sewn into embroidered napkins.

Hadice’s patronage also brought him close to Sultan Selim III, who recognised both his technical skill and his rare ability to observe the Ottoman world without caricature or exoticism. Melling was commissioned to renovate the Sultan’s summer palace in Beşiktaş, and produced panoramic drawings and luminous, naturalistic watercolours that captured the rhythms of daily life – outings in the parks, elegant women travelling by caïque, wedding processions winding through the streets, and waterfront palaces shimmering along the Bosphorus.

Unlike many Western Orientalist painters, he came to understand Ottoman customs and traditions and was consequently granted unprecedented access to the most private areas of the imperial court. The result was extraordinary: a body of work that includes rare and sensitive depictions of the imperial harem, unmatched in their detail. As the novelist Orhan Pamuk observed, Melling “saw his city like an Istanbulite but painted it like a clear-eyed Westerner.”

All of it unfolded under Hadice’s discerning eye. She even had an apartment built for Melling within her palace complex, an arrangement that did not pass without comment. And all the while, she did something almost unthinkable for an Ottoman princess of her time. She corresponded directly with him.

Many of their surviving letters have since been published. Their contents are practical rather than intimate, filled with discussions of furnishings and design ideas. Yet even so, rumours inevitably followed. Whispers circulated, suggesting a closeness that extended beyond the boundaries of patronage – and propriety.

A Final Letter

Melling fell out of favour. Sultan Selim was angered by his sister’s inappropriate friendship with him, while Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt inflamed anti-French sentiment amongst the Ottoman elite. His stipend stopped and Hadice was told to sever all contact.

Melling wrote a final letter to his former patron, a letter the princess might have read in the maze he had designed in the gardens of Defterdarburnu Palace.

‘Your Highness, on Saturday, I, your humble servant, sent my manservant to collect my monthly stipend. They told him it has been stopped... After seeing so much kindness from Your Highness, I could not believe this order came from you… Winter is coming… The landlord wants the rent… I entreat you, I have been left without a coin to my name… Your Highness, I implore you not to abandon me.’

She never replied.

Melling left Istanbul and settled in Paris. There, he published his monumental Voyage pittoresque de Constantinople et des rives du Bosphore, a lavish collection of engravings documenting the breathtaking beauty of Istanbul. At a time when fascination with all things Ottoman, known as Turquerie, had become fashionable, the work caused a sensation, attracting many admirers, including the newly crowned Empress Josephine.

An Enduring Legacy

Today, much of the Istanbul that Melling painted has vanished. Fires, demolition, and the relentless reinvention of the city have erased many of the wooden palaces, gardens, and panoramas he once knew. Yet, his engravings and paintings remain among the most important records of Istanbul during the time of Sultan Selim III and his beloved sister, Hadice Sultan.

Today, when we walk along the Bosphorus, it is easy to admire its unique beauty without pausing to consider how much has been lost. But to truly appreciate the city Melling loved, I invite you to visit the shores of Ortaköy and Kuruçeşme at sunset. The palaces, gardens, and caiques may be gone, but the curve of the Bosphorus remains unchanged. Stand by the water as evening falls and it becomes easier to imagine Hadice Sultan once wandering through the maze designed by a young French architect, unaware that their story would endure long after the garden itself had disappeared.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

Beneath the domed ceiling of a chamber in the Second Courtyard of the Topkapi Palace, sunlight filtered through pierced wooden screens, casting its glow across the walls adorned with exquisite Iznik tiles.

Each panel gleamed with cobalt blue as deep as the Bosphorus at dusk, turquoise as bright as spring water, threaded with serrated saz leaves and unfurling tulips the colour of fresh blood. The chamber itself was magnificent, yet its splendor bowed to the importance of what would be decided here.

At a low table inlaid with mother-of-pearl, set upon layered carpets, sat Sultan Suleiman I, also known as Kanuni Sultan Suleyman in Turkish. Scrolls of parchment were spread before him, each one awaiting his approval. He had come directly from an audience with a European ambassador, still wearing a ceremonial kaftan of cream Italian silk embroidered with crimson tulips.

Beautiful and elegant, it draped around him, a luxury unfamiliar after months in chainmail on campaign. He straightened his shoulders, easing the stiffness that had settled into his body from too long spent in the saddle, and picked up one of the draft edicts.

Suleyman’s brow furrowed as he read. He altered some wording, refined the phrasing. His scribes captured each amendment, their reed quills flowing across the pages.

He had conquered cities with cannon and courage, fortresses with diplomacy and strategy; now he sought to conquer disorder and injustice with codified law.

He would be remembered by his subjects not for his magnificence, but as Kanuni. The Lawgiver.

The Lawgiver

This epithet is derived from “kanun,” meaning statute or regulation–law issued by the sultan to govern matters not explicitly covered by Islamic jurisprudence. By the time Sultan Suleyman ascended the throne in 1520, the empire he inherited from his great-grandfather Fatih Sultan Mehmed II and his father Yavuz Sultan Selim I stretched across Anatolia, the Balkans, Egypt and the Levant. Each newly conquered territory brought its own fiscal customs, land tenure systems, taxation practices, and legal traditions. Ottoman governance rested on Islamic law, specifically the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, yet sharia did not regulate every aspect of administration, taxation, criminal penalties, or land tenure issues. These fell within the domain of kanun, sultanic legislation.

Earlier sultans had issued decrees case by case. With his Grand Vizier Lutfi Pasha, Suleyman undertook the task of consolidating and standardising these regulations into comprehensive kanunnames–law codes organized by province and subject.

Fines were regularized. Regional variations in punishment were moderated. Fiscal obligations were clarified, limiting the ability of local officials to arbitrarily overburden the population. What had once depended on precedent or personal interpretation was now written, copied, and circulated across the empire.

Islamic law remained supreme, and the sultan himself was bound by sharia. Yet interpretation had long varied among judges. To address this, Suleyman appointed the distinguished jurist Ebussuud Efendi as the Sheikh ul-Islam. Working closely with the palace, he helped harmonize sultanic legislation with Hanafi jurisprudence, aligning imperial regulations with Islamic doctrine.

The result was stability–a binding legal framework that endured for centuries. To his subjects, that guarantee of justice and order brought peace. That is why they called him Kanuni.

The Magnificent

In Europe, Sultan Suleyman I was known as The Magnificent–not only for the vast territories he ruled, but for the scale, splendor and reach of his power. His reign marked the apex of Ottoman political, cultural and military influence, a period often referred to as the Ottoman Golden Age.

By the mid-16th century, Suleyman had expanded the empire in multiple directions. Belgrade and Rhodes were conquered, and large parts of Hungary fell under Ottoman control following the Battle of Mohacs. His forces even reached the gates of Vienna. Ottoman naval strength dominated the Mediterranean, and cities from Tripoli to Algeria acknowledged the sultan’s sovereignty, extending Ottoman influence far beyond its borders.

Yet it was not only military might that inspired admiration. Wealth flowed into the imperial treasury, funding monumental building projects that reshaped the empire’s landscape. Most majestic of these was the Suleymaniye Mosque complex in Istanbul, designed by Mimar Sinan, a masterpiece of Ottoman architecture. Suleyman’s Court became a center for poets, artists, calligraphers, and craftsmen, whose work flourished under the aegis of the sultan, blending Ottoman, Persian, and European styles into a remarkable display of refinement and taste.

It was this combination of military prowess, cultural achievement and imperial grandeur that led Western chroniclers to call him The Magnificent. A title by which he is still remembered.

In the Sultan’s Shadow

Sultan Suleyman’s presence can still be felt across Istanbul, the city he loved.

Next time you visit the Topkapi Palace and enter a domed chamber in the Second Courtyard lined with shimmering Iznik tiles, imagine him seated at a mother-of-pearl inlaid table, poring over scrolls of law. As you gaze upon the imperial firmans issued in his name, consider the time and attention he dedicated to consolidating the laws of his empire. And as you admire his kaftans, think of the awe and respect he evoked in foreign ambassadors and all who visited his court.

And try to go to the magnificent Suleymaniye Mosque, which commands a proud view over the Golden Horn, to feel where devotion and faith, ambition and vision, splendor and magnificence converge. To stand here is to encounter Suleyman himself, in all his glory.

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Thank you for accompanying me through this chapter of our imperial past. I hope you leave with a deeper curiosity about the Ottoman sultans who inspired such enduring and memorable epithets and feel a little closer to their lost world. And as the echoes of their reigns linger, may you listen a little closer, as history whispers its secrets.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

It was the morning of Jan. 22, 1517. The sun rose over the plains east of Cairo, gilding the desert haze with pale gold. A cool wind swept across the Ridaniye Plain, swirling dust into the air and carrying the murmur of prayers and the whinnying of horses. Between the trembling horizon and the disciplined Ottoman ranks, the Mamluk army waited, its black and green banners fluttering and its lances glinting like a forest of steel.

At the center of the Ottoman line, Sultan Selim I sat astride his warhorse, a powerful white stallion flecked with foam at the bit. He narrowed his eyes against the rising sun and studied the enemy.

The Mamluk cavalry was legendary, masters of the charge. Their mounted archers stood poised to unleash a storm of arrows. Their ranks undulated across the plain like a dark reef in a restless sea.

Selim did not fear them. He watched with the stillness of a hawk, analyzing their numbers, the distance and terrain. Around him, his generals offered counsel, cannons moved into position, and the janissaries advanced in formation.

Selim drew his sword. The steel flashed in the sunlight. He lifted his arm in a slow, deliberate signal. The drums beat. A moment later, the first Ottoman cannon roared, its thunder cracking across the plain as though the earth itself had split open. Smoke rolled forward in heavy clouds. Horses reared, and the Mamluk lines shuddered.

Selim remained still. Dust struck his face. The winter wind bit at his cheek. Beneath him, his stallion’s flanks heaved. His gaze was fixed on the weakness forming in the enemy line. He issued orders calmly, clearly, committing reserves only when the moment demanded it.As the sun climbed higher, the sands of Ridaniye settled over the fallen, and with them settled the fate of a dynasty. Egypt, Syria, and the Hejaz would pass into Ottoman hands. So too would the custodianship of the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, and the sacred relics would journey to Istanbul.

Selim would return not merely as the conqueror of lands, but as the ruler who assumed the title of Caliph. Such unwavering purpose earned him the epithet by which he is remembered.

Yavuz. The Resolute.

The Resolute Sultan

The epithet Yavuz carries deep respect in Ottoman Turkish. Often translated as “Resolute” or “Grim,” it described a man of unbending will. One who did not hesitate once a course was chosen, endured hardship without complaint, faced danger without fear, and commanded with firm authority.

It was a title that implied decisiveness, severity, even a certain hardness of character. Yet such traits were necessary virtues in a ruler determined to expand his empire, protect his subjects, and defend the faithful.

It was his unfaltering steadfastness, strategic resolve, and unyielding determination that earned him the honor of being called Yavuz.

The Mud-splattered Kaftan

The march home to Istanbul from the campaigns in Egypt and the Hejaz was long and gruelling. Winter rains had turned the roads into rivers of mud, and supplies ran perilously low.

For much of the journey, Selim rode beside Kemalpasazade, known also as Ibn Kemal, the eminent scholar. Celebrated for his “Tevarih-i Al-i Osman, the Chronicles of the House of Osman,” a monumental history that remains one of the most important contemporary sources for the reigns he witnessed, he was also a poet, philosopher, and author of numerous treatises on hadiths and Islamic jurisprudence.

As they spoke of theology and history, the scholar’s horse stumbled on the uneven ground, sending a splash of mud onto the sultan’s kaftan. Ibn Kemal froze, mortified. Selim simply smiled.

“The mud that leaps from the hooves of a scholar’s horse is a blessing and an honor,” he declared to his attendants. “Bring me another robe. And when I die, cover my coffin with this one.”This moment reveals much about Selim’s character. Stern, disciplined, and unyielding in war and statecraft, he was equally steadfast in his reverence for learning and the authority of the ulema. This was Yavuz: formidable in battle, uncompromising in conviction, and resolute in his humility before knowledge.

In the Presence of Yavuz

To stand in the presence of history is to touch the past, and in Istanbul, Yavuz Selim can be felt in many places.

In the Hisart Museum, his sword rests on display, perhaps the very blade that flashed across the Ridaniye Plain, striking fear into the Mamluk army. In the Military Museum, a painting captures him in the heat of battle, mounted on his majestic white stallion, sword raised, the pyramids rising behind him, an image of resolute power.

The sacred relics he carried from the Hejaz are preserved in the Topkapi Palace, their presence hallowed by the ceaseless, melodious recitation of the Quran, just as he ordained. They testify to his devotion, his role as protector of the Holy Cities and defender of Islam, and the weight of responsibility he bore with unflinching resolve.

And in his turbe, as was his wish, the mud-splattered kaftan is suspended over his sarcophagus, a silent testament to a sultan who revered knowledge and scholarship. Like a canopy, it shelters him as he rests for eternity, a man of unbending will. Yavuz. The Resolute.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon.

For those of you looking for a summer read, my new book, Palace in the Mist, will be released on 3rd July.

It is now available for pre-order, and as an independent, self-published author, pre-orders really do make a huge difference.

So, if you would like to ‘meet’ my family and journey to Imperial Istanbul this summer, you can pre-order your copy on Amazon.

Thank you so much for being part of this wonderful community, and for joining me on this writing journey.

"Palace in the Mist is both a riveting story of political upheaval and a compelling portrait of a now-vanished world. A triumph and an essential read for anyone interested in Ottoman history." - Imran Mulla, author of The Indian Caliphate: Exiled Ottomans and the Billionaire Prince

Power in the Ottoman world was not only measured by conquest, but by conscience. Before ascending the throne, Prince Bayezid withdrew into a spiritual retreat in Amasya, shaping a vision of rulership grounded in humility, justice and compassion. These qualities would later define his reign, earning him the title “veli,” also known as “wali,” the saintly sultan.

Dawn was breaking over Amasya. The Yesilirmak River wound slowly through the valley, cradled by rugged mountains rising above the Black Sea. In a dervish lodge, far from the palace and its courtly intrigue, a young Ottoman prince sat alone in his cell.

For 40 days, he remained withdrawn from the world, fasting and praying, meditating on the divine, and wrestling with his own soul. Forty–the sacred number: the days Prophet Musa (pbuh) spent on Mount Sinai, the years the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) waited before he received the first revelation. This was not the usual training of a future sultan. It was “çile,” a trial of self-discipline, designed to subdue pride, cultivate humility and purify the soul. Only by governing himself could he hope to rule others with justice, mercy and compassion.

Inside the modest lodge, Prince Bayezid’s days passed in silent reflection. The gentle murmur of a nearby spring mingled with the cooing of doves resting along the eaves, the cool stone floor pressing against his knees as he studied the Quran. Under the guidance of the Halveti sheikh, he learnt to listen. Not just with his ears, but with his heart.

It was said he was gifted with “karamats,” quiet, supernatural graces manifesting as wisdom, righteousness and an instinctive inclination to do good. Those who met him glimpsed something rare: a ruler in whom justice and piety were inseparable, a prince tempered by discipline and compassion, destined to earn the epithet, Veli.

The Saintly Sultan

In Islamic tradition, a veli is a “Friend of Allah,” a person marked by spiritual closeness to Him. Such men inspired awe and devotion, their presence and deeds seemingly guided by something higher.

Sultan Bayezid II was one such man. His devotion was not merely contemplative. It infused every decision he made. He understood that with immense power came immense responsibility. Chroniclers praised him as merciful, loyal and generous; his charity alone was said to lift the poor from poverty.

He was a sultan who listened with his conscience, and it was this rare combination of piety and compassion that would determine his response when cries for help reached the Ottoman Court, and the fate of thousands rested in his hands.

A Cry from Spain

In 1492, the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada fell to the joint forces of Ferdinand and Isabella. Seven centuries of Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula came to an end, and the Muslim and Jewish populations were confronted with a brutal choice: forced conversion, expulsion, or death at the hands of the merciless Spanish inquisition.

Word of their suffering reached Sultan Bayezid, and he did not hesitate. To him, power was not a privilege to be enjoyed, but a sacred trust to be upheld, a responsibility to defend the oppressed. He ordered the Ottoman fleet, under the command of Kemal Reis, to sail west. Muslims were evacuated to safety, and tens of thousands of Sephardic Jews were offered refuge in Ottoman lands.

They arrived with little more than what they could carry: sacred books, keys from homes they would never see again, their customs and traditions. Most settled in Istanbul, Izmir and Salonica, where they rebuilt their lives and communities. For generations thereafter, Sephardic Jews would pray for the soul of Bayezid Veli, blessing the “Friend of Allah,” the saintly sultan whose compassion transcended politics, religion, and saved their lives.

In an age defined by religious intolerance, when no other great power would open its doors, Bayezid chose mercy. He offered sanctuary where others offered persecution. He allowed families to recover, communities to flourish, and faith to be practised freely. His actions remind us that the true measure of a ruler, and indeed of any human being, is not wealth or power, but the capacity to extend kindness and empathy to those in need.

Memories may fade, but such acts of humanity must not be forgotten. Once received, they carry an obligation: to show the same compassion to others. Remember this when wandering the narrow streets of Istanbul’s Jewish quarter in Balat, or walking along the bustling port of Salonica, where Ladino songs once echoed through windows and synagogues.

Sainthood Embedded in Stone

Bayezid Veli’s piety and conscience were not only evident in moments of crisis. They were woven into the streets, inscribed upon the skyline, and built into the daily lives of his people. He was a sultan who understood that power without nurture and provision for his subjects was meaningless.

In Edirne, the Bayezid II Complex stood as one of the most enlightened institutions of its age. It comprised a mosque, medrese, soup kitchen, lodgings, food warehouses and a hospital. Within its walls, the poor were fed, travellers sheltered, students educated, and the sick were treated with dignity and care. The hospital was particularly remarkable. Those suffering from mental illness were soothed with music, flowing water and gentle birdsong, at a time when in much of Europe such people were condemned as possessed and burnt at the stake.

In Istanbul, the Bayezid Mosque Complex crowns one of the old city’s seven hills. Alongside the mosque is a medrese, library and soup kitchen, another embodiment of Bayezid’s conviction that spiritual life and social welfare must exist together. He also endowed weekly public lessons in Quranic interpretation, open to all and funded in perpetuity, believing that knowledge, like charity, should never be the preserve of the privileged.

Walking through these complexes today, one can almost hear the echoes of his vision. Stone and marble, domes and courtyards, speak of a sultan who saw his duty not in conquest but in conscience. Every brick was laid in the service of others. As with the Muslims and Jews rescued from Spain, these works protected ordinary lives, nurturing them.

An Enduring Legacy

Bayezid II lived between the giants of Ottoman history. His father, Fatih Sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople; his son, Yavuz Sultan Selim I, conqueror of the Holy Cities of Islam; and his grandson, Kanuni Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, who would rule at the empire’s zenith.

Yet history is not shaped by conquest alone. It is shaped by those who decide what kind of world those conquests will create. By rulers who quietly, patiently and deliberately lay the foundations of a stable, tolerant, and peaceful society.

That is the enduring legacy of Bayezid Veli. And it lives on, not only in stone and memory, but in the descendants alive today of those whose lives he saved.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

In the forested hills behind the walled Genoese colony of Galata, the night sky twinkled not only with stars, but with the restless flicker of torchlight. Ottoman war galleys lurched forward in the darkness, their great hulls groaning like angry beasts. These ships were not riding the waves of the Bosphorus. They were sailing over land, hauled across a sea of greased timbers to outflank the wrought-iron chain that sealed the entrance to the Golden Horn.

The great chain. The city’s maritime defence system. The barrier guarding the lightly defended sea walls of Constantinople’s natural harbour.

“Heave!” shouted the young Sultan as he rode amongst his men. His boots were caked with mud, his robes spattered with dirt, and his voice hoarse from issuing commands. Oxen strained against their harnesses. Coarse ropes snapped taut, biting into men’s shoulders as they slipped and staggered through ground slick with tallow.

“Heave!”

Again, and again the order rang out. Mehmed leant forward in the saddle, urging them on. The first ship crested the ridge, hesitated for a moment, then slid onto the oiled logs below, gliding down into the still waters of the Golden Horn.

No loud splash betrayed it. No ripple carried a warning.

As ship followed ship into the harbour behind the chain, Ottoman guns slowly turned to face the walls of Constantinople. Sultan Mehmed II was poised to fulfil the prophecy.

The Conqueror

The appearance of the Ottoman fleet within the Golden Horn dispelled any lingering illusion that Constantinople would not fall. Panic spread quickly through the city as its overstretched garrison scrambled to defend a shoreline previously guarded by little more than faith and the wrought-iron chain. Bells rang in alarm and lament. Men were hastily deployed, thinning defences elsewhere and leaving these sections of the walls weaker, more exposed, and dangerously vulnerable. After fifty-three days, the siege was entering its final phase.

For weeks, Mehmed’s colossal cannon had pounded the Theodosian Walls, hurling vast stone shots that shattered masonry once believed impregnable. The assaults were relentless. Each breach was repaired, each attack repelled by defenders fighting with remarkable bravery. Yet Mehmed persisted. He had patience, and a plan. With his fleet now inside the Golden Horn, Constantinople was encircled.

In the early hours of May 29, 1453, Mehmed ordered the final assault. Wave upon wave of Ottoman troops surged towards the walls. The Sultan held back his elite Janissary Corps until the moment was right. As dawn broke and the first light touched the city’s battered walls, the kettledrums sounded. The Janissaries advanced. Near the Gate of Saint Romanus, they overpowered the defenders, and the last Roman emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, died fighting alongside his men.

Later that day, Sultan Mehmed made his triumphant entry through a different gate, the Gate of Charisius, near the highest point of the city.

Rome had fallen.

Constantinople had been conquered by a twenty-one-year-old sultan who succeeded where generations before him had failed. The Red Apple, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople – it was his.

From that day forward, Sultan Mehmed II would be known as Fatih – the Conqueror.

The Prophecy

For Mehmed, the conquest of Constantinople was more than a glorious military triumph. It was the fulfilment of a prophecy.

“Verily, you shall conquer Constantinople. What a blessed army will that army be, and what a blessed commander will that conqueror be.”

This hadith, attributed to the Prophet Muhammed, transformed the conquest of Constantinople into a sacred cause. It inspired Muslim rulers, from the Umayyad Caliphs to the Ottoman Sultans, to capture the city. Each attempt ended in retreat, defeat, or death, strengthening the belief that when Constantinople finally fell, it would do so under the leadership of an extraordinary man.

Mehmed was taught the significance of this prophecy. He studied theology with the same intensity that he devoted to military strategy, statecraft, languages, history, and mathematics. To him, the conquest of Constantinople was not merely the capture of a city, but the transfer of sovereignty from one civilisation to another. To take Constantinople was to inherit Rome itself.

Seen in this light, the wrought-iron chain across the Golden Horn becomes more than a defensive weapon. It was a symbol of resistance, of a world refusing to yield. By hauling his fleet over land, Mehmed not only outmanoeuvred his enemy. He demonstrated ingenuity, tenacity, and faith. In doing so, he proved himself worthy of the title foretold in the Conquest Hadith: the blessed conqueror.

For this reason, history remembers Fatih Sultan Mehmed not simply as the conqueror of Constantinople, but as the man who fulfilled the Prophet Muhammed’s prophecy.

The Chain

Today, fragments of that formidable defensive chain still survive. No longer barring the entrance to the Golden Horn, floating on wooden booms, tethered to the old city walls on one side and to Galata on the other, its heavy wrought-iron links now lie scattered across Istanbul’s museums, with the largest surviving section housed in the Military Museum.

In Ottoman times, the chain was stored in the Military Warehouse at Hagia Irene, reduced to a relic of a defeated empire. The iron is heavy and cold. Rust has crept in its joints. Perhaps traces of sea salt still cling to its surface, remnants of the waters it once protected. Stand before it and you can almost sense what it witnessed: Torches flickering against the night sky, men stumbling in the mud as they dragged ships over land, and a young sultan poised to conquer the greatest city on earth.

The chain rests now, silent and at peace. It did not fail its empire because it broke, but because Fatih Mehmed refused to bow before it. Ottoman sultans bowed only to Allah. No chain could bind them or stand in the path of destiny.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

Sultan Mehmed I lay confined to his bedchamber in the palace at Edirne. His strength was ebbing away, yet his mind remained focused on the state he had spent his life rebuilding.

Beyond the palace walls, the city was calm. The gates stood open. There were no enemy banners on the hillsides or plains, no messengers arriving with news of revolt or invasion. The roads were safe again. The bazaars were full of merchants and traders from across the region. Taxes were paid to a single authority. Coins bore one name.

This order had been hard won. After his father’s defeat at Ankara, more than a decade of civil war drove the Ottoman state to the brink of collapse. In the end, Mehmed seized power. As sultan, he worked patiently to steady what had been shaken–restoring Ottoman authority in Anatolia and Wallachia, and securing peace within and beyond his borders.

From his deathbed, he summoned his heir. “Bring my son, Prince Murad, immediately,” he gasped. “The state must not be allowed to descend into chaos again.”

It was how Mehmed had always ruled; it was how he was trained to govern Amasya as a young prince during his father’s reign: with educated foresight, courteous restraint and gentle nobility.

That is why he was called Çelebi.

Gentleman Sultan

The epithet Çelebi was used in the early Ottoman period to denote a man of refinement, someone well-educated, well-mannered and of cultivated bearing. It was a term applied to princes, scholars and men of standing whose conduct distinguished them from others. To be called “Çelebi” was not to be praised for the power one wielded, but for how one behaved toward others.

Mehmed carried this name before he became sultan, and it followed him naturally onto the throne. In an age shaped by ambition and violence, he ruled differently. Where others relied on fear and intimidation, he preferred diplomacy and restraint; where rivals pursued domination, he practised moderation. His objective was not expansion for its own sake, but the restoration and consolidation of authority, grounded in law, legitimacy, and stability.

In this way, Mehmed sought to place the Ottoman state back on firm foundations, after the interregnum had brought it perilously close to destruction.

Warring Brothers

At just 16, Mehmed fought beside his brothers and his father, Yıldırım Bayezid, at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. The Ottoman army was defeated by Timur, Sultan Bayezid was taken captive and the future of the Ottomans hung in the balance. Mehmed was wounded, but he did not seek martyrdom or vengeance. Instead, he gathered what remained of his forces and withdrew to Amasya.

From here, he attempted to rescue his father. The plan failed, but it revealed something essential about his character. In the face of catastrophe, Mehmed acted with caution, loyalty, and a deep sense of duty.

Bayezid’s death a few months later plunged the dynasty into civil war. With no established laws of succession, the Ottoman state fractured into four parts. Suleyman proclaimed himself sultan in Edirne, ruling Rumelia from the capital. Isa established himself in Bursa, the former capital, while Musa did the same in Kutahya. Meanwhile, Mehmed claimed the sultanate from Amasya, quietly gathering support and biding his time.

For nearly 11 years, brother fought brother. Alliances were formed and broken, armies clashed, and the state teetered on the edge of dissolution. That it survived at all owed much to Mehmed. When he finally emerged as sole ruler in 1413, he did so not as a conqueror intoxicated by victory, but as a man determined to rebuild what had almost been lost. We can only imagine how different history might have been, had the fledgling Ottoman state collapsed during the interregnum.

This achievement earned Mehmed a second, lasting epithet: the Restorer, the second founder of the Ottoman state.

Restorer at Rest

Mehmed’s eyes kept drifting toward the door. For days he lingered between levels of consciousness, clinging to life with the same determination he had shown in restoring the state. He was waiting for his son.

Prince Murad did not arrive in time to say farewell. Yet even in his final hours, Mehmed Çelebi thought not of himself, but of the state. He left precise instructions, carried out faithfully by his devoted servants: his death was to be concealed until Murad reached Edirne and the smooth transition of power could be secured. For 41 days, the sultan’s death was kept secret. Order, once restored, would not be allowed to dissolve again.

Mehmed was laid to rest in Bursa, in an exquisite tomb: the Yeşil Turbe, the Green Tomb. Rising above the city in luminous turquoise tiles, it is one of the most distinctive monuments of early Ottoman architecture. Its unique colour sets it apart from other imperial tombs, much like the man who lies within is distinguished from others.

Nearby rest his half-brothers, Süleyman, Isa and Musa, buried with due honour and respect. Once children who played happily together, they became rivals when fate decreed that only one could sit upon the Ottoman throne. Their struggle nearly destroyed the dynasty, and the state itself. Yet in the Ottoman world, the state came before all else, and each made the ultimate sacrifice for it.

I invite you to visit the historic city of Bursa and to stand before the Yeşil Turbe. Look up at its magnificent tiled walls; trace your fingers over the smooth turquoise surface. Perhaps you will feel moved to offer a prayer for the soul of Sultan Mehmed I, the sovereign who saved the Ottoman state when it faced near extinction. Or perhaps you will reflect on how different world history might have been, had this well-educated, well-mannered and cultivated gentleman sultan not ascended the throne.

A Çelebi to the very end.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon …

It was with great reluctance that Sultan Bayezid I broke camp beneath the walls of Constantinople, withdrew his army, and turned east. He yearned to taste the sweetness of the Red Apple, the Ottoman symbol of the ultimate conquest, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, yet for now it remained just beyond reach.

Following his father’s victory at the Battle of Kosovo, the Balkans were subdued, and most of the Anatolian beyliks were forced into submission. Bayezid now dreamt of fulfilling the Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) prophecy and being the commander to conquer Constantinople, but that moment would have to wait. He could not allow his nemesis, Emir Timur, the feared warlord of the east, to attack and plunder the Anatolian heartland.

It was the height of summer, yet the army marched toward Ankara at a punishing pace. Day after day, the land rolled away behind the advancing column, throats burned, dust rose in choking clouds, and the sun bore down without mercy as Bayezid drove his men onward. Sweat beaded on the sultan’s brow beneath his steel helmet, sunlight glinting off the gilded motifs and Quranic verses that adorned it. The weight of the iron chainmail and breastplate pressed upon him as he shifted in the saddle, no longer as strong and agile as he had once been.

Speed had always been his greatest weapon. He moved faster than his enemies could gather, struck before alliances could form, and overwhelmed resistance with swift efficiency. It was this quality—decisive, impulsive, and instinctive—that had earned him the epithet Yıldırım.

The Thunderbolt.

The Spark

To the steady drum of hooves and the tramp of marching feet, Bayezid’s thoughts drifted back to another campaign, one fought many summers earlier alongside his father, Sultan Murad Hüdavendigâr. They had ridden against his sister’s ambitious husband, the Bey of Karaman, to the plains outside Konya.

That day, Bayezid fought with fierce, instinctive brilliance. He surged forward relentlessly, pressed hard, and then … crack … descended upon the enemy like lightning ripping through the sky—sudden, flashing, and impossible to parry. His actions were daring, even reckless to some, yet devastatingly effective, breaking through the enemy lines in a single violent manoeuvre. Murad watched as his son seized fleeting opportunities on the battlefield that others hesitated to take, striking swiftly, decisively and always to his advantage.

What impressed the sultan most was not his son’s courage, but the lightning speed with which the young prince acted. And according to sources, when victory was his, Murad bestowed upon Bayezid the name that would follow him into history.

Yıldırım.

The Thunderbolt Strikes

From that moment on, Bayezid dominated the battlefield as quickly and impetuously as he rode towards it.

On the field of Kosovo, the instant news reached him of his father’s assassination, he acted. Bayezid seized the throne and ordered the execution of his younger brother, Yakub, who had commanded the left flank of the Ottoman army during the battle. It was a brutal but decisive act, one that secured his position.

With his authority established, his reputation spread as fast as his armies marched, and the name Yıldırım ceased to be an epithet and became an omen.

In 1396, he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Crusader army at Nicopolis, consolidating Ottoman dominance in Rumelia. No European army now dared raise arms against the Ottomans. In Anatolia, Bayezid moved just as adeptly, subduing the fractious Turkic beyliks, and bringing their lands, including those of Karaman, under Ottoman sovereignty. Constantinople was besieged repeatedly, its fall imminent, and the longed for prophecy close to fulfilment.

Then came reports from the east. In 1400, Timur had invaded Sivas and sacked the city.

Characteristically, Bayezid reacted immediately. He suspended the siege of Constantinople and marched to confront his enemy. He trusted his instincts. They had never failed him before.

End of the Storm

Bayezid would never return from Ankara. His fate was not to fulfil the Prophet Muhammad’s Conquest hadith, “Constantinople will surely be conquered. What a wonderful commander will that commander be, and what a wonderful army will that army be,” and conquer Constantinople.

His decisiveness, his impulsiveness, the very instincts that had earned him the epithet Yıldırım, betrayed him at the last. At Cubuk Plain, on July 28, 1402, his exhausted army faced a rested enemy. The thunderbolt was brought to ground. The storm was over.

Bayezid would die in captivity, a prisoner of Timur. Yet he is not remembered as a passing storm, but as a powerful force of nature. During his short reign, the territory of the Ottoman state almost doubled in size, much of Turkic Anatolia was united, Ottoman power in Rumelia was consolidated, and the foundations were laid to ensure the conquest of Constantinople.

If you would like to encounter Yıldırım Bayezid for yourself, to gain a sense of the impetuous warrior sultan he was, you might like to visit the Hisart Living History and Diorama Museum in Istanbul.

In one of the exhibition halls dedicated to Ottoman armoury, in a brightly lit display cabinet, lies a breastplate and arm guard that once belonged to Sultan Bayezid. The worked steel has darkened with time, the gilded decoration and sacred verses no longer glint in the sun as they once did when Bayezid wore them, but they still whisper their secrets.

Stand here for a moment, and the man begins to emerge. This armour was functional, made for speed—for a sultan who led from the saddle and struck before his enemies could react. In its dented steel lies the trace of a soul as blinding and untamed as a “Thunderbolt,” and through these artefacts, the story of a life lived at full charge is told.

Perhaps that is why they still hum, charged with electricity, centuries later.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon …

History has a way of whispering its secrets—if you listen closely…

Night settled over the Kosovo plain. Beyond the ring of watch fires and fluttering banners, the land lay still beneath a vault of stars, its silence broken only by the restless snorts of horses and the footsteps of sentries on patrol. Within the Ottoman camp, on the eve of what would become one of the most consequential battles in Ottoman history, the army slept—dreaming of victory, of martyrdom.

At the heart of the encampment, in a tent pitched upon the open field, Sultan Murad I did not sleep. Instead, he spent the night in devotion. Raising his hands in supplication, he offered a prayer.

“Oh Allah! Sacrifice me for the sake of Islam; so long as my army is not defeated and destroyed at the hands of the enemy!”

It was not the prayer of a conqueror intoxicated by power, but of a ruler who believed that sovereignty carried obligation and that victory, if granted, must come at a price he himself was willing to pay.

By sunset, the Kosovo plain would be soaked in blood. The battle would be won, the Balkan coalition broken, and Ottoman sovereignty in Rumelia secured. But the Ottoman Sultan who prayed for martyrdom would be dead.

He would be remembered as Hüdavendigâr Murad.

Sovereign Favoured by Allah

Hüdavendigâr is derived from the Persian “khudawandgar,” a word that carried profound meaning in the language of the medieval Islamic world. It is formed from two elements—Hüda”, meaning Allah, God; and “vendigâr,” meaning possessor, master, or one who holds authority. Together, they create a title that does not merely denote power, but more specifically, power exercised under divine sanction.

It was reserved for rulers who embodied the ideal of kingship, who stood as Allah’s deputy on earth, entrusted with the protection of his people and the preservation of order. To be called hudavendigar was to be recognized as a ruler who governed not only by the sword, but by law, piety and moral authority.

As Murad expanded his territories into Rumelia, as Edirne was established as the new capital, and as Ottoman dominance in the Balkans was consolidated and Balkan rulers came under the sultan’s vassalage, Ottoman chroniclers increasingly used the epithet of hudavendigar to encompass both the extent of Murad’s power and the manner in which it was exercised.

A manner that would find its final expression on the field of Kosovo.

Martyrdom on Field of Kosovo

The precise circumstances of Sultan Murad I’s death have long been debated. What is beyond dispute, however, is that on June 15, 1389, Murad became the only Ottoman sultan to lose his life on the battlefield, and that his death occurred on the very day Ottoman victory in the Balkans was confirmed.

According to one tradition, following the battle Sultan Murad rode onto the field of Kosovo to survey the fallen. As he moved among the dead and wounded, some sources say offering water to those in need, a Christian knight rose from among the corpses and fatally stabbed him.

A second account states that the assassination happened inside the Ottoman camp. In this version, a defeated knight requested an audience with the sultan. Murad consented, and as he received him, the man pulled out a concealed dagger and killed him, in an act that violated the codes of honor and chivalry by which warfare was followed in the 14th century.

In both versions, the assassin is most commonly identified as Milos Obilic, a Serbian noble who would enter Serbian folklore as a heroic figure. Ottoman chroniclers, meanwhile, ensured the legend of Sultan Murad would endure. He had prayed to die as a martyr if victory was granted. They recorded his end as divine acceptance of a righteous ruler’s plea.

And so the epithet hardened. Murad was no longer simply Hudavendigar by virtue of his life, but by the manner of his death.

Where the Hüdavendigâr Rests

The legend of Hüdavendigâr Murad is most keenly felt in two places.

On the field of Kosovo, where Murad’s life ended and his prayer was answered, a modest turbe marks the site where his internal organs were buried— sanctifying the ground on which Ottoman sovereignty in the Balkans was won, a presence that would last for centuries. The plain is quiet now, open to the sky, surrounded by lush, verdant fields. Within the grounds of the tomb, a building erected during the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid II to accommodate pilgrims to the site has been converted into a small museum. It tells the story of the Battle of Kosovo and contains artifacts dating to the period of Sultan Murad I, inviting visitors to pause and reflect.

Far away, on another continent, Murad’s body rests in a tomb within the Hüdavendigâr Mosque complex, which he built in Bursa—the city conquered by his father, Orhan Gazi. This early example of Ottoman architecture also includes a medrese, a soup kitchen, a public bath, and a dervish lodge. It stands as a monument to a form of sovereignty that demanded accountability before Allah. As the soft light filters through its arched windows, one senses the early Ottoman vision of a state rooted in faith, benevolence, tempered ambition, and sacrifice. Here, as the call to prayer embraces you, the meaning of hudavendigar becomes clear, a reminder of what a ruler should be.

Some epithets are exaggerations. Some are aspirations. But every now and then, as with Sultan Murad I, they become the truest way history can honour a life.

In this series, I invite you to join me in discovering other Ottoman sultans through the epithets history chose to remember them by.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

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History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

Light flickered across the empty corridors of the Yıldız Palace as soldiers of the Macedonian Action Army pried open safes, cabinets and velvet-lined jewellery boxes. Diamond tiaras, emerald necklaces, and strings of pearls were placed into wooden crates alongside priceless earrings, bracelets, brooches, rings, jewel-encrusted boxes, and gold clocks. When no one was watching, pieces quietly vanished – slipped into the pockets of officers, pushed down the boots of sergeants, and tucked beneath the tunics of privates. And in this way, the Star Palace that once shimmered with imperial courtly splendour stood stripped, its silence heavier than the plundered treasure itself.

The Fall of Abdülhamid II

The ransacking of the Yıldız Palace was not the consequence of a natural disaster or the opportunism of an angry mob. It was the calculated spoils of victory after the deposition of Sultan Abdülhamid II in April 1909. For over three decades, Abdülhamid ruled the Ottoman Empire from behind the high walls of his fortress-like palace overlooking the Bosphorus. The palace was the heart of his power, and the symbol the Young Turks sought to dismantle.

Following the counter revolution of the 31^st March Incident, the Army of the Committee of Union and Progress marched into Istanbul to restore order and force the sultan’s removal. Abdülhamid was deposed on 27^th April and sent into exile in Salonica with his family, leaving behind his home, its treasures abandoned to fate.

What followed was a spree of sanctioned plunder. Soldiers, emboldened by new authority and a long-standing resentment towards the old regime, stormed through the palace with a revolutionary zeal that veered into vengeance. Carpets were rolled up and carried away. Clocks, china, silverware, gifts from foreign sovereigns, and intimate possessions of the harem were tossed into piles. Photographs show soldiers posing on furniture, relaxing on the lawns, even clambering over the ornate marble fountain in crude triumph.

Every palace has experienced transition… but few have been stripped with such malicious intent and disrespect.

Confiscation of Dynastic Property

Among the seized items was an extraordinary collection of pieces that had passed from sultan to sultan: diamonds once belonging to Sultan Mahmud II, pearls worn by the daughters and consorts of Sultan Abdülmecid and Sultan Abdülaziz, emeralds inherited by Sultan Murad V, and the jewels Sultan Abdülhamid II had amassed during his reign.

These were part of the Hazine-i hassa, the private treasury of the sultan. According to custom and tradition, they should have passed to Sultan Mehmed V Reşad. Instead, the Young Turk leadership declared them State property. The Committee of Union and Progress framed the confiscation as a moral act – reclaiming wealth allegedly hoarded by an autocrat, and as a necessary step to ensure the survival of the nation. The Empire was in debt, its army in need of reform, and its navy almost obsolete. Selling the jewels, they argued, would fill the Treasury and help modernise the military.

Thus, pieces once worn by imperial princesses and consorts were catalogued, packed, and shipped away – not to the Imperial Treasury at Topkapı, not to Sultan Reşad at Dolmabahçe, but to an auction house in Paris.

Les Bijoux de Son Majesté le Sultan

In November 1911, the treasures of the Ottoman Sultanate arrived in Paris, an event that electrified the French capital. At the Galerie Georges Petit and the Hôtel Drouot, aristocrats, collectors, jewellers, reporters, and curious onlookers crowded into the salons, drawn by the prospect of seeing the jewels of the Ottoman Court. Glass vitrines glittered under the electric light, each one displaying wonders that seemed almost too spectacular to be real: diamond tiaras crowned with the Ottoman crescent moon; rivière necklaces made of stones as clear as ice; pearl corsage brooches shaped like stars and flowers; bracelets and earrings set with rubies the colour of pomegranate seeds.

The international press covered the event with fascination. Never before had the private collection of a reigning dynasty been sold so publicly. It was unprecedented. It was scandalous. It was sensational.

Some pieces were bought by European nobility, others sailed across the Atlantic to be worn by American heiresses. Many were purchased by jewellers who promptly dismantled them – exquisite examples of Ottoman craftsmanship broken apart for their stones, lost forever.

The revenue from the sale proved far below the Young Turks’ expectations. Yet the true cost is immeasurable: the dispersal and erasure of Ottoman cultural heritage.

The Lost Sparkle of the Ottoman Court

Today, as visitors walk through the restored buildings of the Yıldız Palace, recently reopened after a remarkable programme of renovation, they enter rooms that were once stripped bare by looting soldiers. The palace has regained its splendour, but when you visit the former home of Sultan Abdülhamid II, consider what is no longer there. The jewels that once glittered beneath these high ceilings are gone – scattered across continents, locked in foreign vaults, remounted in modern settings, or long since lost. How extraordinary it would have been to see them return, to restore the sparkle of the Imperial Ottoman Court.

As you wander through the gardens, linger a moment before the marble fountain where soldiers of the Action Army once posed for photographs. Stand in the corridors, close your eyes, and imagine wooden crates being hauled away, heavy with plunder. Picture diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires slipping into a soldier’s pocket, vanishing forever.

And ask yourself, what does it mean for a nation when its treasures, its symbols of continuity, legitimacy, and tradition, are scattered to the winds?

Sometimes, history does not just whisper its secrets. Sometimes, it mourns them.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

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History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

In the late afternoon of Thursday, 26^th September 1940, in a quiet room on the first floor of the Al-Manial Palace in Cairo, a beautiful Ottoman princess was crying.

“Come now, darling,” her mother whispered, wiping away her daughter’s tears. “Your guests are waiting.”

Everything had happened so quickly, and only a week had passed since her engagement. Yet it was not only the haste that overwhelmed her. Her youngest sister had been forbidden to attend, as Prince Mohammed Ali, the host of the celebration, insisted no children be present. This devastated the princess, who was exceptionally close to both her sisters. It made an already emotional day almost unbearably so. She stepped reluctantly into her wedding dress, the same one her mother had worn, its style altered with additional silk and lace to suit a modern bride.

As she stood before the mirror, sunlight filtered through the shutters and birdsong drifted over the Nile and through the windows. Behind her, her mother opened a velvet-lined box, lifted out the necklace, and fastened the clasp at the nape of her daughter’s neck. The diamond clusters and large rose-cut stones sparkled with a brilliance that made them both gasp.

From Empress Catherine I to Sultan Ahmed III

The tale of this necklace begins on another riverbank, far from Cairo, on the scorched banks of the Pruth River in July 1711.

Tsar Peter the Great had invaded the Ottoman vassal Principality of Moldavia after the Sultan refused to surrender King Charles XII of Sweden, who had taken refuge in Ottoman territory during the Great Northern War. Now the Russians were surrounded, weakened by exhaustion and dwindling supplies, facing the might of the Ottoman Army and the certainty of defeat.

Were it not for the quick-witted intervention of the future Empress Catherine I, history might have unfolded very differently, and Russia might never have risen as an imperial power.

While Peter rested before battle, Catherine reconvened the War Council and urged the generals to reassess their strategy. Convinced that an attack would lead to their complete annihilation, she went to beg her husband to sue for peace instead. Then, acting in secret, she gathered her most precious jewels and sent them with a personal plea to the Grand Vizier, Baltacı Mehmed Pasha, commander of the Ottoman Army. It was an audacious act of both diplomacy and desperation. It succeeded.

The Ottomans granted the Russians unexpectedly merciful terms, allowing their retreat and securing safe passage back to Sweden for Charles XII. Catherine’s priceless collection of coloured diamonds was accepted as tribute and presented to Sultan Ahmed III, where it entered the Imperial Treasury.

From the Ottoman Sultan to the Khedive of Egypt

For the next one hundred and fifty years, nothing is known of these diamonds. We can only imagine which imperial princesses, wives and favourites may have worn them.

However, we do know that by the early 1870s, the stones had been fashioned into an exquisite parure – a magnificent suite of jewels comprising a necklace, earrings, ring, and brooch, all set with old mine-cut diamonds in shades of rose pink, forget-me-not blue, daffodil yellow, and warm amber.

Sultan Abdülaziz presented this parure to his cousin, Khedive Ismail Pasha. It was likely a wedding gift sent in 1873 for the marriage of the Khedive’s son and heir, Prince Tewfik, to Princess Emine Ilhami, though some suggest it was given the following year to mark the birth of the couple’s first child, Prince Abbas Hilmi, who was destined to be the last Khedive.

Whatever the occasion, the diamonds that had once saved Peter the Great and his army passed from the Ottoman Imperial Treasury into the possession of Princess Emine Ilhami, a woman celebrated for her beauty, refinement, and intellect at the Khedival Court.

From an Egyptian Princess to an Ottoman Princess

On her death in 1931, the parure was inherited by her eldest surviving daughter, Princess Khadija. And when her nephew, Prince Abdel Moneim, became engaged to the beautiful Ottoman princess, Fatma Neslishah Sultan, Khadija knew exactly what gift to bestow.

Princess Neslishah was the granddaughter of the last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI Vahideddin, and of the last Caliph, Abdülmecid Efendi. Born in Istanbul in 1921, her entry in the palace birth register of Ottoman dynasty members was the last to be recorded before the abolition of the Sultanate and exile of the imperial family. Her childhood was spent in France before the family moved to Egypt just before the outbreak of World War II. Strikingly elegant, strong-willed and fiercely patriotic, she embodied the nobility of her ancestry.

Neslishah wore the necklace and brooch on her wedding day and continued to wear the necklace often, sometimes as a tiara. When the tears of that September afternoon had dried, she greeted her guests with the same poised smile she had practised before the mirror – a composure that would serve her well in the turbulent years ahead.

Following the 1952 military coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser that deposed King Farouk, her husband was appointed Regent for the infant King Fuad II. During this brief interlude before the monarchy’s final abolition, Neslishah served as Egypt’s First Lady of the Court, carrying out her duties with dignity and grace.

When the monarchy fell, the couple sent their two children to Europe but remained in Egypt under increasingly hostile conditions. The new regime confiscated all the royal family’s property, but Neslishah managed to hide the parure. She concealed the jewels in her riding clothes and, during her customary morning ride, entrusted them to a friend. By 1957, she and her husband were placed under house arrest, accused of conspiring against the government. The charges were dropped two years later, and they were allowed to leave Egypt. And so, for the second time in her life, Neslishah went into exile, where she was reunited with her children and the Ottoman diamond parure.

Unfortunately, circumstances forced its sale. The parure, minus the ring, appeared at Christie’s in 1963, and resurfaced at Sotheby’s in 2011 and again in 2016. The ring remained in the family until more recently, when it too was sold. As for who now wears the dazzling diamonds that travelled from Romanov Russia to the Ottoman Empire and then Khedival Egypt – that remains known only to a privileged few.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

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History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

Everyone was enraptured by the beauty of the French Empress during the glittering reception at the Dolmabahçe Palace, none more so than the Sultan. To the side of the hall, half-hidden behind a marble column, stood a man deep in concentration. In one hand he held a pencil, in the other a leather-bound notebook, sketching frantically as he observed the Empress. His attention was not drawn to her captivating smile or elegant swan-like neck but was fixed on the dazzling diamond bow belt buckle that cinched her slender waist. The jewel twinkled in the candlelight as his pencil flitted across the page.

An Audacious Heist

A century and a half later, news broke of an audacious theft: priceless pieces from the French Crown Jewels, stolen from the Louvre Museum.

My heart sank when I saw the inventory. Empress Eugénie’s diamond bow belt buckle was listed among the stolen items. This exquisite piece has a story that travels from the salons of Napoleon III’s Paris to the Court of Sultan Abdülaziz in Imperial Istanbul and finally, into the wedding trousseau of a beautiful young Ottoman princess, destined to marry the son of the Nizam of Hyderabad.

A Sultan in Paris

The story begins in 1867, when Sultan Abdülaziz, accompanied by his son Prince Yusuf Izzeddin and his nephews Crown Prince Murad and Prince Abdülhamid, made a grand state visit to France to attend the Paris Exposition at the invitation of Napoleon III.

It was here that the Sultan first laid eyes upon Empress Eugénie. It is said he was instantly spellbound by her, and she found herself drawn to him. Rumours swirled of a mutual infatuation, an attraction that danced dangerously along the edge of propriety.

Their connection led to Empress Eugénie’s reciprocal visit, a slight detour while on her way to attend the inauguration of the Suez Canal.

An Empress in Istanbul

She steamed into Istanbul aboard the imperial yacht L’Aigle on 13^th October 1869, her trunks brimming with silks, furs, and priceless jewels – among them a diamond bow belt buckle.

Empress Eugénie was welcomed in a spectacle of Ottoman hospitality. She stayed in a sumptuous suite in the Beylerbeyi Palace, her every desire anticipated by eunuchs dressed in ceremonial livery. She toured the Topkapı Palace, where she gasped at the jewels of the Imperial Treasury. She marvelled at Hagia Sophia’s sacred grandeur and Stamboul’s imperial mosques. Küçüksu Pavilion took her breath away, and the festivities and military parades held in her honour at Beykoz Meadow, which she viewed from a specially constructed pavilion, astonished even an empress accustomed to such pageantry.

In between all the excursions, banquets, and receptions, Abdülaziz took Eugénie to see his newest jewel on the Bosphorus – the Çırağan Palace.

Construction was not yet complete, but he was eager to show her the finished hammam. Her delight was obvious. It seemed Istanbul had stolen her heart. Some whispered the Sultan had too.

The French Original

At one such reception, Abdülaziz commanded his Court Jeweller to produce a replica of Eugénie’s diamond bow belt buckle. He wanted a jewel that embraced the Empress’ figure in a way he could not. So, as Eugénie circulated amongst the guests in the magnificent reception hall in the Dolmabahçe Palace, captivating them with her charm and beauty, the jeweller sketched in his leather-bound notebook, determined to please his sultan.

We can only wonder if Abdülaziz thought of the woman who had inspired the unique commission each time he wore the bejewelled belt buckle. Upon his death, it passed to his nephew, Sultan Murad V. He left it to his son, Prince Selahaddin Efendi, who in turn bequeathed it to his eldest son, Prince Ahmed Nihad Efendi – my great-grandfather.

Meanwhile, Eugénie had the original buckle remodelled into a corsage brooch, adding the detailing we recognise today. However, the Second French Empire collapsed within a year, and Napoleon III and his empress were exiled to England, abandoning many of their jewels. In May 1887, the diamond bow brooch appeared as Lot 5 in the French Crown Jewels’ dispersal sale at the Louvre. It was purchased by Caroline Astor, and many accounts suggest that it remained in the Astor family until it was acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 2008.

Other accounts suggest that the brooch was bought in 1902 by the Duke of Westminster as a wedding gift for his sister, Lady Lettice Grosvenor, and then came into the possession of her daughter-in-law, Mona, Countess Beauchamp, before crossing back across the Atlantic after being sold in 1980 and later acquired by the Musée du Louvre in 2008.

Since then, the brooch has been displayed at the museum so that all can admire its exquisite beauty – until it was so brazenly stolen…

But what of its twin?

The Ottoman Replica

Prince Ahmed Nihad Efendi took the belt buckle with him when exiled from his homeland in 1924. In 1931, he gave it to his sister, Princess Adile Sultan, to form part of the wedding trousseau for her beautiful daughter, Princess Nilüfer. She married Prince Moazzam Jah, son of the Nizam of Hyderabad, then the world’s richest man, and began a new life in India.

The diamond bow belt buckle was ill-suited to be worn with richly embroidered silk saris, and so, just as Empress Eugénie had done, Princess Nilüfer remodelled it into a brooch. However, her marriage proved unhappy, and after the divorce Princess Nilüfer moved to Paris – where this story began. She married an American named Edward Pope and died childless, leaving the diamond bow brooch to him. On his death, it was sold to a private collector.

And so, this diamond bow, a survivor of the fall of the Second French Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Princely State of Hyderabad, now rests quietly in a New York bank vault. Its fate is the inverse of its twin: unworn and unadmired, yet forever safe from brazen thieves with no respect for history.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

On 20^th May 1622, dusk descended over the Yedikule Fortress, cloaking its seven towers in a foreboding shroud of darkness. The last ember of sunlight slipped beneath the horizon across the Marmara Sea as the muezzin’s call to prayer drifted on the wind. Within the fortress walls, in a dank dungeon lit only by a flickering oil lamp, chains clinked faintly as a young man of seventeen, not yet old enough to grow a beard, knelt in silent prayer. Suddenly, the heavy iron door swung open, and he looked up.

The Captive

The young prisoner was Sultan Osman II, the elder half-brother of Sultan Ibrahim I, whose violent end we explored in the previous Sultan’s Salon.

Osman was a visionary – intelligent, ambitious, and idealistic, a young ruler determined to restore the Empire’s fading glory. Soon after ascending the throne, he led a campaign against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, eager to emulate the military triumphs of his ancestors. But his hopes were crushed. Poorly supplied and betrayed by disloyal troops, his army suffered humiliation at Khotyn. Osman returned to Istanbul defeated, yet his spirit remained unbroken.

With the piercing clarity of youth, he saw that corruption had seeped deep into the foundations of the Empire, shaking its very pillars. The bureaucracy had grown bloated and self-serving, while the Janissaries, the elite infantry corps, had become indolent and insubordinate. Once the scourge of Europe, they now lacked discipline on the battlefield and acted as a mutinous praetorian guard, meddling in state affairs.

Osman resolved upon radical reform. He would purge corruption, curb the power of the Janissaries, and raise a new army drawn from the loyal sons of Anatolia – an army that would answer to him alone.

It was a bold vision. And a fatal one.

The Corps

The Janissaries – Yeniçeri, literally meaning ‘New Troops’ – were once the pride of the Ottoman Empire. Founded in the fourteenth century by Sultan Murad I, they began as an elite corps drawn from the devşirme system: trained as soldiers, and forged into the most disciplined and feared fighting force of their age.

But power and privilege corrupt. By the seventeenth century, the Janissaries had become the Empire’s greatest internal threat, their ranks filled with idlers and profiteers who defied authority and resisted reform.

The Revolt

Rumours of Sultan Osman’s plans to disband the Janissaries and strip them of their privileges spread through their barracks like flames fanned by the Lodos wind. Anger flared, and resentment ignited into open rebellion.

The mutinous Janissaries gathered in the Atmeydanı – the ancient Byzantine Hippodrome in Stamboul. From there, they stormed the gates of the Topkapı Palace, demanding the head of the Grand Vizier and the dismissal of the Sultan’s teacher and most trusted advisers.

Osman refused to yield to their demands. Believing he could calm the unrest, he appeared before them, trusting that his presence would command loyalty. But he was mistaken.

The rebels killed the Grand Vizier and the Chief Eunuch, and overthrew the young Sultan. They dragged him from his throne, stripped him of his sword, knocked the turban from his head, and paraded him before the mob. On the orders of Kara Davud Pasha, Osman was taken to Yedikule, the Fortress of the Seven Towers, to await his fate.

The Fortress

Yedikule was built on the orders of Fatih Sultan Mehmed II soon after the conquest of Constantinople. Rising behind the monumental Golden Gate of the Theodosian Land Walls, its solemn towers dominate the skyline above the Sea of Marmara like sentinels of stone. Although sources differ, Sultan Osman was likely taken to a cell on the second floor of the south tower of the Golden Gate, known as the South Marble Tower.

A deposed Sultan, especially one as impressive and idealistic as Osman, posed a serious risk to the rebels, so Kara Davud Pasha ordered his execution. As dusk fell on that fateful day, the heavy iron door to Osman’s dungeon swung open, and the Pasha entered, accompanied by ten Janissaries. A violent struggle ensued. Osman fought for his life with such ferocity that the assassins struggled to overpower him. Eventually, the silk bowstring tightened around his throat, and the boy Sultan breathed his final breath within the cold stone walls of the Empire’s most infamous dungeon.

The Aftermath

The murder of Sultan Osman II sent shock waves through the Empire. It was the first regicide in Ottoman history – and it was brutal. The young Sultan was not only strangled but his body mutilated after death, his nose and ears reportedly severed and presented to the Valide Sultan as proof he no longer lived.

Vengeance, however, soon came. When Sultan Murad IV ascended the throne the following year, he ordered the execution of Kara Davud Pasha and the other ringleaders, and had their bodies displayed on the gates of Yedikule. For the next two centuries, the Empire would remain locked in a bitter struggle between reforming sultans and the reactionary Janissary Corps. This struggle only ended in 1826, with the Corps’ annihilation and dissolution in the Auspicious Incident.

Yedikule Fortress is currently undergoing a comprehensive restoration. Yet this important historical monument remains open to visitors, offering a fascinating glimpse into the past. Step beneath its vaulted gates, touch the rough limestone blocks, and gaze out over the Marmara where the sea meets the sky. Then listen to the Poyraz wind as it whistles through the South Marble Tower.

History still whispers there – of youthful defiance and the peril of dreaming too boldly.

And so concludes our exploration of the four acts of regicide in Ottoman history – the tragic fates of two brothers, Sultan Osman II and Sultan Ibrahim I, and of Sultan Selim III and Sultan Abdülaziz. Thank you for accompanying me through this chapter of our imperial past. I hope you leave with a keener curiosity and feel inspired to listen a little closer, as history whispers its secrets.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

The Ottomans rode through Anatolia, the Balkans, Mesopotamia, and the Holy Lands with a quiver of arrows at their waist and a bow curved like a crescent moon in their hands. These bows were more than weapons of war – they were symbols of power, the emblem of the Kayı tribe, of the Turkic warrior state… but, on rare occasions, they served a far darker, more chilling purpose. On 18^th August 1648, one such bow was unstrung, its silk cord removed and tightened around the neck of a sultan.

War and Famine

Discontent threatened the foundations of the Empire. Taxes soared. Food was scarce. The ongoing war in Crete drained the Imperial Treasury. The Venetian blockade of the Dardanelles drove the hungry to riot in Istanbul. The Janissaries were in a mutinous mood. The ulema shook their heads, weary of the Sultan’s increasingly erratic behaviour. Grand Viziers and pashas jostled like chess pieces across the chequered board of power. In the harem, Kösem, the Valide Sultan, plotted and schemed to reclaim influence.

At the centre of it all was Sultan Ibrahim I – a ruler whose eccentricities made him volatile, and whose life would soon hang by a silk thread.

Mad or Myth?

History has branded him Deli Ibrahim – Mad Ibrahim. The tales are lurid: a fetish for sable and other furs, a harem of supposed excess, whims and fancies spun into legend. Yet such stories obscure a more nuanced portrait.

His elder half-brother, Sultan Osman II, had been deposed and killed by the Janissaries – a story we will explore in the next Sultan’s Salon. His brother and predecessor, Sultan Murad IV, had executed their other brothers, leaving Ibrahim in constant fear for his own life. Years confined in the kafes, the gilded cage of imperial princes, honed a mind shaped by isolation and terror, making him ill-prepared for the burdens of rule.

The caricature of the ‘mad sultan’ painted by those who deposed and ultimately murdered him was intended to discredit him and justify their own treacherous actions. In truth, Sultan Ibrahim was generous towards the poor and did not neglect the affairs of state. He regularly attended the Divan, attempted to curb corruption, took an active interest in strengthening the navy, answered public petitions, and oversaw an impressive programme of building and renovation, including the breathtaking tiled Sunnet Odasi, the Circumcision Room, and the gilded copper Iftar Kiosk in the Topkapı Palace.

Yes, he was flawed. Like us all. Yes, he could be unstable – not surprising after living in the kafes for years, the constant threat of death looming over him, or, as some scholars suggest, it was a brain tumour that affected his health and temperament. But far from the one-dimensional Deli Ibrahim, he emerges as a tragic figure, a ruler trapped in the brutal circumstances of his life and times, who would ultimately succumb to the executioner’s silken noose.

The Last Bow

Sultan Ibrahim was deposed on 8^th August 1648 and declared mentally unfit to rule. He was succeeded by his six-year-old son, Sultan Mehmed IV, and returned to the seclusion of the kafes. Ten days after his deposition, betrayed even by his own mother acting as regent, the imperial guard dragged from his chambers. A fatwa sanctioning his execution had been obtained from the Sheikh ul-Islam on the false charge of inciting insurrection.

On that late summer day, Ibrahim’s cries for mercy were ignored.

Silence of the Strings

Several ornate seventeenth-century Ottoman bows survive and are on display in the Imperial Treasury at the Topkapı Palace. They are made of wood, horn, and sinew, lacquered and inlaid with mother-of-pearl or tortoise shell, adorned with gilt and sacred inscriptions. Some were used in battle, others for hunting, each bearing the scars of use – a small nick here or a faint scratch there. Now they hang in glass cabinets, their silk bow-strings long since vanished into dust.

Look closely at these handcrafted bows next time you visit the Topkapı Palace. Close your eyes. Imagine one being unstrung, its silk cord removed. Picture two palace bostancıs, the Sultan’s own guards, holding either end of the silken thread, wrapping it tightly around Ibrahim’s throat, then drawing it taut in a single, decisive motion.

To spill imperial blood was forbidden. It was considered sacred, and shedding it would violate, desecrate, the House of Osman and undermine the divine authority of the dynasty. So the same silk bow-string used to propel arrows into flight became a weapon, ending the Sultan’s life while preserving the sanctity of the imperial bloodline.

Press your ear to the glass, and you may hear how the bow whispers of power and betrayal, ritual and regicide, and how the Ottoman Dynasty was preserved through sacrifice.

Before you leave Topkapı Palace, step into the Circumcision Room, linger by the Iftar Kiosk, and admire every exquisite tile, every gilded curve. These stand as a testament to a man far more complex than history’s caricature. Perhaps you will view Sultan Ibrahim differently then.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

History has a way of whispering its secrets – if you listen closely…

But on the night of 28^th July 1808, there were no whispers. Only screams shattered the stillness of Topkapı Palace’s inner courtyard. Torchlight flickered against the tiled walls as assassins moved through the corridors, intent on reaching the private chambers of a deposed sultan.

A Visionary

Sultan Selim III was a man of vision, an enlightened ruler inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution who wanted to embrace the innovations of the new century.

The Ottoman Empire was bruised following a string of military defeats. The Janissary Corps, once the Empire’s elite fighting force and scourge of Europe, had grown corrupt and hostile to change. Determined to restore Ottoman power and prestige, Selim launched the ‘New Order’: a sweeping programme of reform that created a modern, European-style army, restructured state finances, and introduced ambitious administrative and educational reforms. Bold? Yes. Popular? Absolutely not! Although he was loved and admired by progressives, he was loathed and feared by conservative elites, the ulema, and, most dangerously, the Janissaries.

In his quest to modernise the Empire, Selim made many enemies. Those enemies ensured his dreams cost him his throne, and ultimately, his life.

A Prisoner

After the Janissary revolt of 1807, Selim’s cousin, Mustafa IV, seized the throne. Selim was stripped of power and confined in the harem of Topkapı Palace. But he still had many supporters who wanted his restoration, men who believed the ‘New Order’ would revive and strengthen the state.

One such ally was Alemdar Mustafa, a powerful provincial notable. He had raised an army and was marching on the capital to reinstate Selim. Sultan Mustafa took fright. Believing it would guarantee his life, he ordered the Chief Black Eunuch, Nezir Ağa, to kill the only other claimants to the Ottoman throne – his half-brother, Mahmud, and his cousin, Selim.

Murder in the Seraglio

It was late. Some accounts say Selim was at prayer, others that he was asleep. Either way, his fate was sealed.

Nezir Ağa and his accomplices, including the Master of the Wardrobe, the Treasury Steward, and members of the Janissary Corps, burst into Selim’s chamber. Traditionally, imperial executions were carried out with a silken bowstring so that royal blood would not be spilt. But that night, tradition was abandoned. The assassins panicked and drew their swords.

A violent struggle ensued. Selim suffered multiple stab wounds. His consort, Refet Kadınefendi, tried to shield him but was dragged away screaming. Pakize Hanım, one of his favourites, threw herself between him and his attackers, sustaining a slash to her wrist in the attempt. The sultan fell, mortally wounded, and uttered his last words, “Allahu Akbar.” His body was bundled in a quilt and taken outside – proof to the Janissaries that the reforming sultan would reform no more.

Twist in the Tale

And what of Prince Mahmud, you ask? History loves a plot twist, and this one saved the Ottoman Dynasty from extinction. Miraculously, he escaped the assassin’s blade that night. But that is a story for another Sultan’s Salon…

Alemdar Mustafa marched triumphantly into the capital and proclaimed Mahmud the new sultan. Mustafa was executed not long after, leaving Sultan Mahmud II the sole surviving Ottoman prince of the House of Osman.

Mahmud ensured the survival of the dynasty by fathering two sons, the future Sultan Abdülmecid and Sultan Abdülaziz. He also implemented many of the reforms Selim had envisioned, carrying forward his cousin’s legacy. And in a final stroke of poetic justice, he abolished the rebellious and corrupt Janissary Corps that had murdered Selim.

A Portrait that Speaks

My inspiration for sharing this story is the magnificent portrait of Selim III by Konstantin Kapıdağlı, the Ottoman Greek Court painter, which hangs in the Hall of Sultan’s Portraits at the Topkapı Palace. Selim’s very essence is captured there in oils: a complex mix of tradition and modernity.

Selim sits in traditional robes on a low divan surrounded by embroidered cushions. An ermine-trimmed cape, signifying his imperial status, drapes over his shoulders, and an elaborate turban crowns his head. Jewelled swords hang on the wall while tucked into his sash, a diamond studded dagger glitters – reminders that power and peril went hand in hand. In a cupboard behind him, a clock ticks the relentless march of time; a globe represents his fascination with the wider world; two stacks of books reveal his hunger for knowledge; and a qalamdan, his scribe’s box, reflects his love of composing music and poetry.

And in his fingers, Selim holds a tespih, a symbol of his faith and spiritual devotion. These same exquisite pearl and emerald prayer beads still exist today, displayed in the Imperial Treasury at the Topkapı Palace.

If he was at prayer that fateful night, imagine them slipping from his grasp as the assassins struck. Can something so luminous, so dazzling, hold memory? Can they still carry the echo of a sultan’s last whispered supplication? I like to think they can.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon…

By Ayşe Osmanoğlu

September 02, 2025 02:51 PM GMT+03:00

Visit Türkiye Today to read the article there.

Sultan Abdulaziz at the center, with symbolic images of bloodied garments and Ottoman statesmen evoking the mystery of his death in 1876. (Photo collage by Türkiye Today team)

History has a way of whispering its secrets—if you listen closely.

The night was thick with whispers, slithering through palace corridors and settling in the hearts of those who dared to listen. On June 4, 1876, Sultan Abdulaziz, the former sovereign of the Ottoman Empire, was found in a room in the Feriye Palace on the Bosphorus, his wrists slashed, a pool of blood staining the chaise beneath him. The official story? Suicide. The truth? Perhaps something far more sinister.

Opening statement

The Ottoman Empire in 1876 remained a formidable power. Its dominion stretched over 12 million square kilometres, across what are now 35 countries. Its capital, Istanbul, was the fifth-largest city in the world. The empire had a population of 64 million, commanding the world’s fourth-largest army and the third-largest navy.

Sultan Abdulaziz was a strong ruler, fiercely resistant to foreign encroachment, dismissing ministers he suspected of harboring Western sympathies. Yet while the empire projected strength under his rule, there were those in Europe who saw advantage in curbing Ottoman power—and disaffected men at court who sought the sultan’s removal.

Indictment

Only days before his death, Sultan Abdulaziz was deposed in a coup led by Midhat Pasha, the reformist grand vizier, and Huseyin Avni Pasha, the chief of staff. He was replaced by his nephew, Crown Prince Murad, a liberal prince the conspirators believed they could control. Sultan Abdulaziz, stripped of power, was confined under guard at the Feriye Palace. On the morning of his death, he performed his ablutions, prayed, and afterward requested a pair of scissors to trim his beard.

His mother, Pertevniyal Valide Sultan—the queen mother—sent him her embroidery scissors and a small hand mirror. Hours later, when no one had seen him and his door remained locked, alarm spread through the palace. The valide sultan ordered it broken down. Inside, Abdulaziz lay on his side, clothes drenched in blood. The women of the harem wailed, their cries echoing across the Bosphorus.

Spoliation of evidence

Huseyin Avni Pasha hurried to the scene. Abdulaziz was still alive, but barely—both wrists deeply slit, one side of his beard torn, his teeth broken, and a dark bruise marked his chest.

The pasha did not summon medical help. Instead, he ordered the sultan to be carried to the kitchen of the palace police station—a calculated delay to ensure Abdulaziz bled to death. To conceal the violence, curtains were torn down and wrapped around the body, leaving only the arms exposed.

The first doctors summoned refused to declare death by suicide. But others were persuaded.

Eyewitness testimony

The sultan’s daughter, Princess Nazime, claimed to have witnessed her father’s murder. Pertevniyal Valide Sultan never believed her son had committed suicide. She is said to have hidden his bloodied clothes in a chest, convinced he had been assassinated.

Her suspicions seemed confirmed in a chilling confession attributed to one of the alleged assailants:

“Fahri Bey … held back his arms. Haji Mehmet and Algerian Mustafa sat on their knees. And I cut his veins in his left arm as deep as I could with a pocketknife. I pierced his right arm in several places with the knife.”

Whether apocryphal or genuine, the words capture the horror of that day.

Judicial proceedings

Tragedy compounded. Sultan Abdulaziz’s third consort, Nederek Kadinefendi, died seven days later. Some accounts suggest childbirth, while others cite grief. Her brother, Captain Cerkes Hasan, sought vengeance. He stormed a cabinet meeting at Midhat Pasha’s house, killing Huseyin Avni Pasha and the Foreign Minister Mehmed Rashid Pasha, and wounding others, before being captured and executed.

For a time, Midhat Pasha prospered under Sultan Murad V and later Sultan Abdulhamid II. But in 1881, he was arrested for his role in Sultan Abdulaziz’s death. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he was exiled to Ta’if, Hejaz, where he was strangled in 1883.

Sultan Murad V was deeply traumatized by his uncle’s violent death and grew increasingly suspicious of Midhat Pasha. He suffered a nervous breakdown, and after just 93 days on the throne, his reign ended. Realizing he would never regain Murad’s trust, Midhat Pasha orchestrated another coup, deposing him in favor of his younger brother, Abdulhamid. Though Sultan Abdulhamid promised constitutional reform, within two years, he abolished the constitution and restored autocracy. Murad spent the rest of his life in confinement at the Ciragan Palace.

Evidence and verdict

Perhaps preserved in secret by the distraught valide sultan, they bore witness to violence. Experts concluded that the official verdict of suicide was improbable. Sultan Abdulaziz had almost certainly been murdered.

For more than a century, the circumstances of Sultan Abdulaziz’s death remained shrouded in mystery. Then in 2007, a discovery in the Topkapi Palace archives revived the debate. A bloodied nightshirt and undergarments, believed to belong to the slain sultan, were found.

Closing statement

What is your verdict on what happened on that fateful morning in June? Perhaps we will never know, but the truth of the case echoes through the corridors of the Feriye Palace, lingering on the blood-stained clothes kept hidden for so long.

Until we meet again in the next Sultan’s Salon.