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

inauspicious enthronement 35

grew. The gardens and vineyards of Hasköy were famous for their lemons and

Seville oranges, peaches, and pomegranates.

After the royal family disembarked at the royal pier in Eyüp, its members

soon arrived at the Grand Mosque. Located in the most holy Muslim district

of the city, it was a pilgrimage site. It was commonly believed that when Otto-

man forces took Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II’s spiritual advisor,

the dervish Akşemseddin, had located the tomb of Abu Ayyub, Muhammad’s

companion, who had been among the Arab Muslim armies attempting to con-

quer Byzantine Constantinople. This discovery gave the Ottomans further le-

gitimacy in the Islamic world. In this holy space of Muslim inspiration, a most

uninspiring little boy weighted down by large rubies and emeralds was girded

with the mighty sword, which was about as long as Mehmed was tall. Believed

to have been used by Muhammad, it was taken from Cairo in 1517, when the

Ottomans conquered the Mamluk Empire, previous possessors of the sacred

precincts of Mecca and Medina.

The leading members of the administration and dynasty took this journey

up the Golden Horn through their diverse city to complete the ceremonies

replacing Ibrahim with an undistinguished candidate, his young son, at that

time overshadowed by two women who competed for power. Nearby hovered

Mehmed’s elderly grandmother, Kösem Sultan, who considered herself Meh-

med’s guardian. She was a well-known fi gure in the palace, having long been a

signifi cant player in dynastic politics. She was the favorite concubine of Sultan

Ahmed I (reigned 1603–17), mother and regent of Sultan Murad IV (reigned

1623–40), who was twelve years old when he became sultan, and Ibrahim

(reigned 1640–48), who was at the time the only surviving male member of the

dynasty. During all of these reigns Kösem Sultan played a role in conducting

the administration and had much experience ruling in place of mad or child

sultans.^43 She was a religious woman, inclined to support Sufi s of the Mevlevi

order, which had long been associated with the Ottoman urban elite. The Mev-

levi Mehmed Pasha presided over Mehmed IV’s sword-girding ceremony at

the Grand Mosque.^44 Also present was the sultan’s twentysomething mother,

Hatice Turhan Sultan, a Russian taken captive when a girl by the Ottoman

ally, the Crimean Khan, brought to the Ottoman palace, and given as a gift to

the valide sultan Kösem Sultan. Later she would have her patron strangled.

Meanwhile, she would have to bide her time before becoming as infl uential as

the boy’s grandmother. Even after her son became sultan, Hatice Turhan was

young, not yet worldly wise, unable to handle affairs of state. For this reason,

Kösem Sultan could not be banished so easily to the Old Palace in Fatih at the

middle of the peninsula of Istanbul, as was customary for the mothers of former

sultans. This septuagenarian who had played a key role in Ottoman affairs for