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Distinctive Facts About The Mighty Ottoman Empire

Khalid Elhassan August 13, 2020 35 min

Battle of Ankara - Timurid Empire — Tamerlane gloating over the captured Bayezid I. Wikimedia

18. The Ottoman Sultan Who Kicked Off His Reign by Executing His 19 Brothers

Sultan Mehmed III began his reign by killing his 19 brothers. The David Collection

Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II’s successors usually heeded his advice to maintain the stability of the realm by preemptively executing their brothers upon ascending the throne. It was a cruel expedient, but it worked: for the next two centuries, the Ottoman Empire was remarkably stable and free of infighting and civil wars when compared to its contemporaries. However, although the system worked, the consciences of many throughout the realm were bothered by the murder of innocent royal siblings at the start of each reign.

Tiny tombs in the Sultan Mausoleum of some young Ottoman, murdered when an older brother ascended the throne. Quora

Those misgivings reached a peak when Sultan Mehmed III (reigned 1595 – 1603) inaugurated his reign by ordering his 19 brothers, some of them mere infants, strangled to death. It was said that “the Empire wept” as a long line of child-sized coffins exited the palace in a grand procession the next day.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.