13. The One and Only
No crowned Sultan after was named Ibrahim again. Did his name become taboo for some reason?
12. I Leave in Peace
His successor and eldest son, Mehmed IV, would be forcefully deposed as well. Fortunately, Mehmed went in peace and did not meet the same violent end as his father.
11. Glass Houses
Ibrahim’s taste in décor left something to be desired. He reportedly liked his bedroom to be filled with mirrors. This made it both comfortable and easy to see himself “in action” at every angle.
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10. Freakonomics
Imagine if your shopping sprees wrecked a national economy? Some sources blame Ibrahim’s peculiar consumption tastes for driving up the price of key goods. For example, he loved to drink amber in coffee. As a result, the price of amber was said to have skyrocketed from royal demand.
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9. Fur Real Finances
To fund his love of furs, Ibrahim imposed special taxes upon Ottoman ministers and governors. The sound public policy basically ensured his future fate.
8. Buy Beware
Not all stories about Ibrahim frame him as a selfish ruler. Early in his reign, it was rumored he would disguise himself as a commoner and inspect the local affairs for himself. What did he see?
7. Make It Work
When you’re known as “the Mad,” you better embrace the aesthetic. Ibrahim was said to favor to flowers in his hair and jewels in his beard. He wasn’t good at ruling, but it sounds he would have made a great stylist.
6. Road Rage
In 1647, it’s said that Ibrahim executed a leading government official for blocking traffic. After a rough commute through Istanbul, the Grand Vizier had been ordered to ban carriages from the city. When the ban failed to ease traffic, the Sultan promptly fired and beheaded his statesman for the failure of his idea. In truth, the execution was probably for more complicated, boring reasons, but the story certainly reveals how the people viewed Ibrahim as dangerously petty.
5. Into the Cage you Go
Kösem did not mean to sacrifice her son completely. In 1648, the queen mother had surrendered Ibrahim on the condition that the Janissaries would simply imprison him and spare him from death. For a while, it looked liked Ibrahim would simply be re-condemned to the golden cage in which he grew up...
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4. End of an Erratic Era
No one wanted this Mad Dad to threaten the reign of his newly enthroned seven-year-old son, Mehmed IV. After 10 days of wailing in the kafes, Ibrahim was met with executioners. On August 18, 1648, he was strangled to death in the golden cage like his brothers before him.
3. Giddy Up
One of the more popular chronicles of Ibrahim’s tastes leaves little to the imagination: some say Ibrahim liked to chase naked woman around his garden. It’s not an unpopular male fantasy, until you get to the part where he did this while “neighing like a stallion.”
2. How Mad?
Ibrahim was certainly eccentric. But was he truly mad? One chronicler insisted that the Sultan was “by no means out of his mind,” and that rumors of evil and villainous “madness” where made up after to justify his violent deposition. Only those who knew him know the answer.
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1. Folie à Deux in Death
Ibrahim was buried at the Hagia Sophia Mosque next to his uncle, “Mad” Mustafa I.
