the failed final jihad 223commanders engaging in prayer and being motivated by religious conviction,
which, according to his logic, should have resulted in God’s favor.
Trying to explain the cause of such disaster, and echoing earlier claims
about the causes of the greatest confl agration in Istanbul’s history, other com-
mentators repeated these sentiments. Nihadi claimed that rather than enjoin-
ing good and forbidding evil, the commanders permitted what is inappropriate,
the soldiers engaged in immoral acts disapproved of by God and excessive
amounts of various types of debauchery, and all armed forces were blinded by
vanity and their transgressions.^48 What began as a bad decision compoundedby poor planning, an insuffi cient numbers of troops, and the unfortunate ar-
rival of the defender’s allies was doomed by the morally corrupt actions of the
army itself. Eighteenth-century chroniclers stressed the immorality of the Otto-
man forces, but in greater detail: “When the Muslims found wine, even those
who had never drunk, drank it and engaged in vice and debauchery. Although
the siege occurred during the holy months of Rajab, Shaban, and Ramadan, not
fearing God, they did not give up fornicating and pederasty. They became so
accustomed to drinking and being constantly intoxicated they forgot to praise
and thank God for His blessing. Accordingly, they incurred God’s wrath.”^49
The debacle cost the grand vizier the sultan’s favor. Mehmed IV’s mother
had passed away during the campaign, but her ally, the chief harem eunuch,
still had infl uence. Yusuf Agha convinced the sultan that the grand vizier was
responsible for the defeat, again highlighting the divisions between those inter-
ests running the seventeenth-century dynastic household (the valide sultan and
harem eunuchs) and those responsible for the administration of empire (grand
viziers in general, and the Köprülü men who served as the last three viziers in
this period in particular).^50 After the sultan had the person who submitted the
report of the defeat killed for bearing bad tidings, he ordered that Kara Mustafa
Pasha be executed in Belgrade, the city for the second time host to a sultan
impatient to take the biggest immediate prize in the Christian world after Con-
stantinople, and that failed again to witness a triumphal sultanic departure.
The grand vizier is depicted as being resigned to and eager to meet his
fate. On Christmas Day, he was stripped of his imperial seal, the banner of
Muhammad, and keys to the ka‘aba which he hung around his neck, all signs
of his being the representative of the sultan and leader of jihad. When he was
told of his impending end while engaged in afternoon prayers, he declared that
what God wills happens. He fi nished his prayers and told his pages to leave
but not to forget him in their prayers. He took off his turban and ordered the
executioner to enter. To be considered a martyr, he had the rug removed so his
body would fall in the dust. The executioner raised the dismissed grand vizier’s
beard and passed the noose around his neck. The grand vizier admonished