28 honored by the glory of islam
they could disperse the rebels saying they would “renounce those acts which
go against the dignity of the sultanate and will have benefi ted from counsel.”^9
According to Karaçelebizade’s contemporary, the fi nancial clerk and author
of over twenty books on history, geography, and bibliography, Katip Çelebi
(“çelebi” is a title given to litterateurs), the rebels threatened “If you do not
give us the prince we will enter the palace and use force to take him.”^10 Having
given permission to take out the emerald throne and set it before the Gate of
Felicity according to custom, “she tucked up her skirts in fury” and went inside
to get the prince.^11
According to the Ottoman historian Mehmed Hemdani Solakzade, likeKaraçelebizade and Katip Çelebi writing just under a decade after the events
he describes and a main source for the oft-quoted eighteenth-century offi cial
historian Naima, the assembled, “looking with the eye of hope,” were “waiting
expectantly for the rising of the world-illuminating sun of the noble hearted
prince.” For this reason, the author relates the chronogram for his enthrone-
ment as “the sun rising to a favorable position in the sky.”^12 Immediately,
the valide sultan, who feared becoming the discarded former mother of the
sultan once her son was no longer the ruler, “displayed the light of the eye
of mankind” and said, “Is this what you want? Here is the prince,” with “ap-
parent distress and hatred in her face.” While the prince “gazed all around,”
Karaçelebizade took the little boy by the right arm as another took his left and
set him upon the throne. Karaçelebizade compares his gaze to the sun: “Like
the glowing sun, rays were scattered” throughout the courtyard. Mehmed IV’s
sultanate begins when his eyes fi x upon his servants, who, waiting to catch
the “felicitous gaze of the beautiful eye of the happy sovereign,” greet him
with “May God’s assistance be upon you” and commence the enthronement
ceremony.^13 Karaçelebizade thus introduces the boy king as an omniscient
leader.
The chronogram composed for this moment by Cevri Çelebi, a well-knownpoet and dervish of the Mevlevi order, stated optimistically, “The enthrone-
ment of Mehmed Khan made the world tranquil.”^14 The poet’s words were
ironic because Mehmed IV’s enthronement was greeted with bloodshed. “The
Battle of the Hippodrome” raged in the main plaza of the city, whose gates
and markets had been closed while terrified inhabitants hid indoors. Janis-
saries, responsible in the end for deposing Ibrahim, and sipahis, their archrivals
for power and the supporters of Ibrahim, battled each other on the Hippo-
drome, a site of ritualized violence for over a thousand years, beginning with
the chariot races between the blues and greens in Byzantine times. The si-
pahis had rebelled to avenge the dethroning of Ibrahim; after a fatwa was is-
sued sanctioning the spilling of their blood, Janissaries were sent after them to