Honored by the Glory of Islam. Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe

inauspicious enthronement 27

the redress of grievances, and the spot where the heads of decapitated rebels

were displayed. Unstopped by guards, they continued through the second

gate, the Gate of Greeting, or Middle Gate, usually accessible only to offi cials,

palace pages, foreign ambassadors, or those with legitimate business at the

palace. They rushed past a parade ground for elite military units, the imperial

treasury, and the Divan (Imperial Council Hall), with its imposing Tower of

Justice, where an assembly of offi cials, including the grand vizier, controllers

of fi nance, chief secretary, chief justices of Anatolia and Rumelia, and chancel-

lor, met. Finally, they stopped before the third gate, the Gate of Felicity, before

which occurred enthronements of sultans, presenting the oath of allegiance to

the sultan, funerals, and the raising of Muhammad’s banner before campaigns.

Only pages and royal family members usually had access to the Throne Room,

the Chamber of Petitions and Audience Hall, and the private quarters of the

sultan and his household (the harem) located beyond the gate. Fully cognizant

of Ottoman tradition, they stood before the place reserved for the loosening and

fastening of the reigns of power and demanded the enthronement of Prince

Mehmed. It was Judgment Day for Ibrahim.^4

At this critical juncture, Ibrahim’s sole support was his mother. At the

anteroom to the third gate, the valide sultan rebuked the men before her for

their hypocrisy for consenting to whatever her son Ibrahim desired, neither

admonishing nor hindering him: “Now you want to replace him with a small

child. What an evil plan this is. This crime of sedition is your doing.”^5 She

asked how it was possible to enthrone a seven-year-old. They responded that

legal opinions ( fatwa) had been issued that it was impermissible for a fool to

rule; when an unreasonable man is on the throne, he cannot be reasoned with

and causes much harm, whereas when a child is on the throne viziers carry

out governance.^6 They disputed for a couple of hours, and she met with the

sheikhulislam and grand vizier. It may have seemed that there was nothing to

quarrel about. After all, an elderly woman facing a mob of armed men allied

with magistrates and pillars of state would appear to have little power. But she

was the representative of the dynasty, the power broker for the leading Islamic

empire in the world. As Leslie Peirce notes, the valide sultan provided “sanc-

tion for the rejection of the individual sultan, thus allowing dynastic legitimacy

to be preserved.”^7 More important, she controlled access to the present and

future sultans. Her body stood in the way of the fulfi lling of their demands.

Until the end she resisted, even though she understood that in order to quell

the uprising, she had to put the young prince on the throne.^8 As Sheikhulislam

Karaçelebizade notes in his history, written just under a decade later, addi-

tional soldiers had arrived, and “little time remained before the tide would rise

drowning all in the great fl ood of calamity.” The valide sultan asked whether