Hathaway | 229More outlandish is the treatise of the late seventeenth-century author Der-
vish Abdullah Efendi, a former scribe for the corps of Teberdars, or axe-men, at-
tached to Istanbul’s Old Palace, who devotes his entire work to an “exposé” of the
African eunuchs, who were closely affiliated with the Teberdars. Dervish Abdul-
lah goes so far as to blame virtually all misfortunes in world history, even before
the advent of Islam, on African eunuchs, including some historical and Koranic
figures who are incorrectly identified as such. Where the Ottoman Empire is con-
cerned, he attributes all military defeats, all unrest in Ottoman territories, and
all corruption and discord at the Ottoman court to the insidious influence of Af-
rican eunuchs. “Just as accursed Satan made Eve our mother dominant over the
Prophet Adam, peace be upon him,” he asserts, “so these black eunuchs make the
sultan’s mother and his favorite concubine dominant over our emperor. In their
hands, our emperor remains powerless and is resigned to doing whatever they
want.” Recounting the infamous episode in which Kösem Sultan, the mother of
Sultan Ibrahim (r. 1640–1648) and grandmother of Sultan Mehmed IV (r. 1648–
1687), was killed in 1651 by harem eunuchs at the instigation of Mehmed IV’s
mother, Turhan Sultan, he claims that the chief eunuch, Uzun (“Tall”) Süleyman
Agha, deliberately turned the two women against each other:
A black eunuch called Uzun Süleyman [said to Kösem], “My lady, the Junior
Mother [Turhan] covets your wealth. You should guard yourself well, because
she is determined to kill you one night. I have experienced your kindness
previously, and for this reason, I have told you,” and he began to cry. When
[Kösem] asked, “What is the remedy for this?” this black hypocrite answered,
“We have all agreed to depose Sultan Mehmed and enthrone Sultan Süleyman
[II]. They are both your sons [in fact, her grandsons]. This treachery must be
stopped immediately.”No sooner had he warned Kösem than he went to Turhan and, similarly weeping,
told her, “Soon they are going to kill all your black eunuchs and imprison you,
for I have learned that the Senior Mother’s eunuchs have agreed to depose Sultan
Mehmed and enthrone Sultan Süleyman.” As other historians recount, Turhan’s
eunuchs chased the sixty-two-year-old Kösem through the harem. She attempted
to hide in a cupboard, but the hem of her robe protruded, giving her away. The
eunuchs dragged her out and, by some accounts, strangled her with her own
braids; they then threw her naked, bleeding body before the Janissaries. Dervish
Abdullah does not supply these gruesome details. Instead, he emphasizes that as
a result of Uzun Süleyman’s treacherous hypocrisy, “those black infidel eunuchs
martyred the Senior Mother [Kösem], Mother of the Believers”—a term ordinar-
ily reserved for the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha—“and plundered
most of her jewels.”
In contrast to this blanket indictment of African eunuchs is Dispelling the
Darkness: The Merits of the Ethiopians by the early seventeenth-century Ottoman