Hezarpare Ahmed Pasha

This is an Ottoman Turkish style name. Ahmet is the given name, the title is Pasha, and there is no family name.
Tezkereci • Hezarpare (posthumously)
Ahmed
Pasha
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office
21 September 1647 – 8 August 1648
Monarch Ibrahim
Preceded by Kara Musa Pasha
Succeeded by Sofu Mehmed Pasha
Defterdar
In office
1646–1647
Preceded by Nevesinli Salih Pasha
Succeeded by Halıcızade Mehmed Pasha
Personal details
Died 8 August 1648
Istanbul, Turkey
Nationality Ottoman
Religion Sunni Islam

Tezkereci Ahmed Pasha (died 8 August 1648), better known as Hezarpare Ahmed Pasha after his death, was an Ottoman grand vizier and defterdar (finance minister).

Early life

Ahmed was a son of a professional soldier of probable Greek origin. Instead of following his father's footsteps into the military, he chose to go into bureaucracy. He was appointed to several posts, one of which was the personal secretary (tezkereci) of the grand vizier Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha, gaining the epithet tezkereci after this appointment. In 1646, two years after Mustafa Pasha's execution, he was appointed as the defterdar, and in 1647, he was promoted to the rank of grand vizier, the highest post in Ottoman bureaucracy [1]

Grand Vizierate

Sultan Ibrahim (sometimes called Ibrahim the Mad) was a rather unbalanced sultan. He was a connoisseur of sable skin coats and forced his grand vizier to buy huge quantities of sable skin for his palaces. Because of this, Ahmed Pasha was required to concentrate more of his time on the sable trade rather than on state affairs. During his term, the Venetian navy blocked the strait of Çanakkale (Dardanelles), and Venice also seized control of the important fort of Klis (in modern Croatia; see Cretan War (1645-1669). Moreover, large scale sable skin purchases caused an extra deficit in a budget that was already under the pressure of the war.[2]

Death

In 1648, Ahmed Pasha levied a heavy tax to meet the heavy expenditures of the budget. However, this step caused anger and rebellion among the populace of the Ottoman Empire. He was lynched on 8 August 1648, and his body was cut into many pieces by the angry mob. The epithet Hezarpare is a Persian epithet he gained after his death, meaning "thousand pieces," referring to the fate of his corpse after his lynching. A few days after Ahmed Pasha's murder, the sultan Ibrahim was also killed.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Ayhan Buz: Osmanlı Sadrazamları, Neden Kitap, İstanbul, 2009,ISBN 978-975-254-278-5 p. 101-103
  2. ↑ Prof. Yaşar Yüce-Prof. Ali Sevim: Türkiye tarihi Cilt III, AKDTYKTTK Yayınları, İstanbul, 1991 pp. 96-97
Political offices
Preceded by
Nevesinli Salih Pasha		 Defterdar
1646–1647 		Succeeded by
Halıcızade Mehmed Pasha
Preceded by
Kara Musa Pasha		 Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
21 September 1647 – 7 August 1648 		Succeeded by
Sofu Mehmed Pasha
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/4/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.