The “Golden Age” as a Political Agenda 189
done previously. Rumor had it that he intended to collect an army in the east-
ern territories of the empire and use it to suppress the unruly janissaries; the
şeyhülislam declared that the pilgrimage was not an obligation for a sultan,
but this was to no avail, and Osman insisted on carrying out his decision. This
resulted in the first major janissary revolt of the seventeenth century: the reb-
els captured and eventually executed Osman, reinstating his uncle Mustafa in
his place.3 This regicide, preceding that of the English king Charles I (1649) by
more than two decades, caused chaos, as Mustafa again showed his inability to
rule, some factions of the army demanded justice, and another provincial gov-
ernor, Abaza Mehmed Pasha, marched on Istanbul under the pretence that he
was seeking vengeance for the sultan’s blood. Soon after, in 1623, the fierce pro-
tests of various preachers and ulema led to the second deposition of Mustafa
by the şeyhülislam, viziers, and other officials.
The new sultan, Murad IV, was only twelve years old, and power was ef-
fectively in the hands of his mother, Kösem Sultan. During his minority, the
Ottoman armies managed to suppress various rebellions in the east and even
gain some victories over the Safavids. However, after the popular grand vizier
Hüsrev Pasha failed to recapture Baghdad in 1630, the sultan replaced him.
Soon, a series of rebellions by the janissary and sipahi cavalry plunged the
capital into chaos once more, as Murad twice had to concede to the rebels’ de-
mands. On a third occasion, however, in 1632, he did not succumb, and instead
managed to convene separate councils of the various military and administra-
tive bodies, making them swear an oath of allegiance. After suppressing the re-
volt with the help of his new grand vizier, Tabanıyassı Mehmed Pasha, Murad
declared his decision not to give the soldiers any more privileges than they
had had during Süleyman’s reign. Furthermore, he started a program of iron
discipline, often coupling it with the ideological project of Kadızade Mehmed
Efendi, a preacher who found his way into the sultan’s entourage and advocat-
ed a strict religious purification along the lines of Birgivi’s teachings (as shall
be seen in more detail in chapter 6). After a devastating fire in Istanbul in 1633,
Murad imposed a ban on both tobacco and coffeehouses (the latter due to the
role of these establishments in circulating rumors and instigating discontent)
and renewed prohibitions on the rights of non-Muslims, pitilessly executing
all law-breakers. On the military level, his harsh discipline had results: after
imposing a peace upon Poland, the Ottoman armies under Murad’s personal
guidance captured Erivan (Yerevan) in 1635 and Baghdad in 1638; the ensu-
ing peace of Kashr-i Shirin secured the new borders and put an end to almost
3 On Osman II’s highly interesting reign and fall see Piterberg 2003, esp. 16–29; Tezcan 2010a,
115–175.