Mahmud Pasha

Mahmud Pascha (also Mahmud Pascha Anđelović or Angelović , called Veli Mahmud Pascha , * in Novo Brdo in eastern Kosovo , according to other sources in Alaca Hisar, today Kruševac in Serbia ; † July 18, 1474 in Constantinople ) was in the years 1456–1468 and 1472–1474 Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.

Career

Mahmud was born to Christian parents. He came from a branch of the Byzantine noble family of the Angeloi , who fled to Serbia after the Ottoman conquest of Thessaly and held high offices there. Around 1427 he was brought to Edirne as part of a boy harvest and raised to be a Janissary . There he got the name Mahmud. After Laonikos Chalkokondyles he was kidnapped as a child by Ottoman horsemen when he was with his mother on the way from Novo Brdo to Smederevo , the then capital of the Serbian despotate . His brother Mihailo Anđelović was one of the last governors of the Serbian despotate before its conquest in 1459, which Mahmud Pasha himself directed, as well as the conquest of Bosnia in 1463.

He received his education in the palace in Edirne, where he began his political career after the enthronement of Mehmed II. With this he was involved as Agha of a Janissary corps in the conquest of Constantinople and was then appointed Grand Vizier in 1456 and a short time later Beylerbey . As Grand Vizier he was involved in the Sultan's campaigns, 1456–58 against Serbia, 1460/61 against Sinope and Trebizond . The conquest of the latter is considered his merit. In 1462 he was involved in the campaign against Vlad Dracul in Wallachia , as a naval commander he conquered Lesbos and drove the Venetians from the Isthmus of Corinth . When the ruler Ishak Bey escaped during the attack on the Karamanoğlu in 1462 , Mahmud Pasha was relieved of his office as grand vizier. After some time as governor of the Sanjak of Gallipoli , he became Grand Vizier again in 1472 to support the Sultan in the fight against Uzun Hasan , the ruler of the Turkmen Aq Qoyunlu . After the intrigues of the second vizier, Rum Mehmed Pasha , he was accused of a lack of zeal in the pursuit of refugees, whereupon he was released again in the same year. He retired near Edirne. When he returned to the capital for Prince Mustafa's funeral, he was arrested on slander, imprisoned in the Yedikule Fortress and executed in 1474.

Services

Mahmud Pasha is known today as the builder of the Mahmutpaşa Mosque in Istanbul, where he is also buried. A madrasah and a school were also built on his behalf, as was the covered bazaar Mahmut Paşa Bedesteni in Ankara , which today houses the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations . He emerged as a supporter of writers and scholars and was also active as a poet, although it is not clear whether the name ʿAdlī or ʿAdanī can be assigned to him.

literature

• CH Imber: Maḥmūd Pa sh a. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. 6, Brill, Leiden, pp. 69-72.
• Hans-Joachim Kißling: Mahmud Pascha, Velî , in: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Vol. 3. Munich 1979, p. 74 f.
• Théoharis Stavrides: The Sultan of Vezirs. The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453-1474). Brill, Leiden, Boston, Cologne 2001, ISBN 978-90-04-12106-5 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
• Şehabeddin Tekindağ: Mahmud Paşa. In: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm Ansiklopedisi. Vol. 27, TDV Yayını, Ankara 2003, p. 376.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In detail Théoharis Stavrides: The Sultan of Vezirs. The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453-1474). Brill, Leiden, Boston, Cologne 2001, ISBN 978-90-04-12106-5 , pp. 73 ff. With additional information
2. ↑ Théoharis Stavrides: The Sultan of Vezirs. The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453–1474) , p. 78

predecessor	Office	successor
Zagano's Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 1456–1466	Rum Mehmed Pasha
Ishak Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 1472–1474	Gedik Ahmed Pasha