mehmed iv’s life and legacy, from ghazi to hunter 239
rows of deep lines or bags under his puffy, sorrowful eyes. He wears a brown
beard spotted with fl ecks of gray. His shoulders are slightly hunched forward.
Placed on the right side of the page, Mehmed IV stares dully ahead, facing his
successor’s portrait. Musavvir Hüseyin names several of Meh med IV’s pred-
ecessors as ghazis and depicts them as warriors. They include Osman Ghazi,
the eponymous thirteenth-century founder of the dynasty, who wields a sword
in his right hand; Ghazi Murad I; Sultan Mehmed Khan Ghazi the Conqueror;
Sultan Selim Shah Ghazi, who holds a scepter; and the sword-wielding Sultan
Murad IV Khan Ghazi. All wear high white turbans with red tips and two black
and red ghazi aigrettes, along with open cloaks revealing colorful garments
beneath their fur-lined cloaks. Mehmed IV, on the other hand, is not labeled a
ghazi, is painted with a humble turban and a single aigrette, and wears a cloak
completely buttoned up, adding to his tired, weary look.
Unlike Suleiman I, an avid hunter and ghazi who has a much better repu-tation, Mehmed IV did not have the fortune to die on the battlefi eld while called
“Sultan Ghazi Mehmed Khan,” nor while still on the throne. After leading or
sending thousands of ghazis to their deaths on the battlefront, he died a private
death of natural causes in 1 693, six years after being forced to abdicate the
throne, a year after his chronicler passed away in Crete. Only then was his body
allowed back into Istanbul. The dynasty that again made Istanbul its seat could
FIGURE 11.1. Mehmed IV at the end of his reign. Musavvir Hüseyin, Silsilenâme,
Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Bildarchiv, Handschriftensammlung A.F.
17, fol. 36a. Reproduced with permission.