Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha

Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pascha (today in Turkish also Cağaloğlu Yusuf Sinan Paşa) (* 1545 in Messina ; † 1605 ) was an Ottoman civil servant, general and admiral.

Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha

He was born in Messina around 1545 as Scipione Cicala, son of a Genoese Viscontes who was a privateer in the Spanish service. Father and son were captured by the Ottomans during or after the naval battle of Djerba in 1560 or 1561 and first held in Tripoli and then in Istanbul . The father was ransomed and died in Messina in 1564. The son, not worth a ransom to anyone, converted to Islam, trained at the Sultan's court school, and quickly climbed the higher ranks of the administrative career. In 1573 he married first one and then a second great-granddaughter of Suleyman I in 1576 .

1575–1578 he was Aga of the Janissaries . He then served in various positions during the Turkish-Persian War from 1578 to 1590. In 1583 he became Beylerbey of Van and shortly thereafter commander of the great fortress of Yerevan . In the same year he was appointed vizier . In 1585 he was again Beylerbey von Van. In 1586 he became Beylerbey of Bayazıt and fought successfully against the Persians, from whom he snatched Nehawend and Hamadan . After the peace treaty of 1590 he became Beylerbey of Erzurum . In 1591 he was appointed Kapudan Pasha (Commander in Chief of the Navy); he held this office until 1595.

During the third term of Grand Vizier Koca Sinan Pasha he became fourth and soon afterwards third vizier. In the Hungarian campaign of 1596 he accompanied Sultan Mehmet III. , and while he could not prevent the fall of Hatvan in September, he then earned great services in the conquest of Eger ( Eger ) and in the battle of Mezőkeresztes in October 1596. For this he was appointed grand vizier, but has already lost this office after 40 days due to court intrigues and his clumsy intervention in the affairs of the Crimean Tatars .

From December 1597 to January 1598 he was Beylerbey of Damascus . In May 1599 he became Kapudan Pasha for the second time. In 1604 he received the supreme command of the Turkish Eastern Front in the renewed war with Persia . After a failed attack on Tabriz in 1605, he had to retreat to Eastern Anatolia, but died during this retreat in December 1605.

literature

• VJ Parry: Čig̲h̲āla-Zāde (d̲j̲ig̲h̲āla-zāde) Yūsuf Sinān Pās̲h̲ā. In: Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition . Volume 2 (1965), pp. 33-34 ( online ).
• Gino Benzoni:  Cicala, Scipione (Čigala-Zade Yūsuf Sinān). In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 25:  Chinzer – Cirni. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1981, pp. 320-340.

predecessor	Office	successor
Damat İbrahim Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire October 27, 1596–5. December 1596	Damat İbrahim Pasha