37. Ottoman Sultans Routinely Murdered Their Siblings
Throughout history, many kingdoms collapsed into chaos, and many ruling dynasties vanished into the dustbin of history, because of infighting by royal siblings competing for the throne. The early Ottoman Turks tackled that problem head on, with one of the most ruthless solutions possible: as soon as a new Ottoman Sultan ascended the throne, he immediately executed all his brothers. The prospects of deadly rivalries and civil wars were thus eliminated by the simple expedient of eliminating all potential male claimants to the throne.
The early Ottomans had no clear-cut rules of succession. When princes reached puberty, their father the Sultan usually sent them out to govern a province, where they often built up a power base of ambitious followers, eager to prosper by urging their royal governor to make a bid for the throne upon his father’s death. Thus, the death of a Sultan was often followed by a bout of civil war between his sons, and the early reign of a new Sultan was often marked by the revolts of envious brothers seeking to replace him on the throne. Eventually, Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror enacted a Law of Governance, stating in relevant part: “Any of my sons who ascends the throne, it is acceptable for him to kill his brothers for the common benefit of the people. The majority of the ulema [Muslim scholars] approve this; let action be taken accordingly“.
