Mustafa IV.

Mustafa IV.

Tughra of Mustafa IV.

Mustafa IV (born September 8, 1779 in Constantinople , today Istanbul ; † November 17, 1808 there ) was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1807 to 1808 . After the deposition of Selim III. he was raised to sultan in 1807 by opponents of his reform policy. Only a year later he was deposed and replaced by Mahmud II , who had him killed in the course of another uprising.

Life

Mustafa was the son of Abdülhamid I and the mother Ayse Sineperver Valide Sultan .

He supported the Janissaries in their revolt against the reform attempts of his cousin Selim III. who then installed him as sultan on May 29, 1807. Selim III. was imprisoned while his reforms were lifted. The army, which had been trained according to the Western pattern, was dismissed, and many supporters of the reform policy were killed. Some fled to Rustschuk , where the reformist Alemdar Mustafa Pascha granted them protection.

This development also took place against the background of the Russo-Turkish War that broke out in 1806 . The Ottomans were inferior to the Russians both on land and at sea. In 1808 an armistice was signed.

The armistice gave Alemdar Mustafa Pasha the opportunity to take action against Mustafa IV. He gathered an army of 40,000 men and marched on the capital in 1808 to reinstate Selim as sultan.

During the siege of the palace, Mustafa IV ordered the killing of Selim and his brother Mahmud . Besides himself, these were the only living male members of the Osman family. While Selim was killed, Mahmud escaped.

Mustafa IV. Was deposed by the ultimately victorious besiegers. Mustafa Pasha became Grand Vizier and established a dictatorial regime in the name of Mahmud II. He continued the reforms and tried to bring about an agreement between the central government and the rulers of the provinces.

Against the dictatorship there was a revolt of the Janissaries and the inhabitants of Istanbul in November 1808. In the course of the uprising, the palace was besieged again. In this situation Mahmud II had his predecessor Mustafa IV murdered. The Grand Vizier, locked in the Sublime Porte , found himself in a hopeless position and allowed himself to be blown up with his followers.

literature

• Hans-Jürgen Kornrumpf: Mustafa IV. In: Biographical Lexicon for the History of Southeast Europe . Volume 3. Munich 1979, p. 270
• Christoph K. Neumann: The Ottoman Empire in its existential crisis (1768-1826). In: Klaus Kreiser, Christoph K. Neumann: Little History of Turkey (= Federal Center for Political Education. Series of publications. Vol. 529). Federal Agency for Political Education, Bonn 2005 p. 295f.
• Selcuk Akşin Somel: Mustafa IV. In: Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Online (accessed July 30, 2013).

Web links

Commons : Mustafa IV.  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

predecessor	Office	successor
Selim III.	Sultan and Caliph of the Ottoman Empire 1807–1808	Mahmud II