18. Early Warning Signs
Ibrahim remained in the Cage until he was suddenly dragged out to ascend the throne after his brother’s death in 1640. He refused at first, and rushed back into the Cage to barricade himself inside, suspecting it was a cruel trick to entrap him into saying something that his fratricidal brother would take as treasonous. Only after his brother’s dead body was brought to the door for him to examine, and the intercession of his mother “who had to coax him out like a kitten with food“, was Ibrahim convinced to accept the throne.
By then, the years of isolation and the constant terror that he might get executed at any moment, had unhinged Ibrahim and left him unfit to rule. Already unstable, his condition was worsened by depression over the death of his brother the Sultan, whom he apparently loved in a Stockholm Syndrome type of way.
