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The Sibling Rivalry That Wrecked an Empire, and Other Self-Destructive Royal Family Episodes

Khalid Elhassan January 5, 2020 33 min

Wars of the Roses - Battle of Bosworth Field — The Wars of the Roses, during which the Plantagenet Dynasty destroyed itself. Encyclopedia Britannica

The execution of an Ottoman prince by strangulation. Quora

36. The Ottomans’ Ruthless Solution to Avoiding Sibling Rivalry

As seen above, royal sibling rivalries could wreck a realm. The Ottoman Turks came up with a ruthless solution for that problem: no siblings, no rivalry. As soon as a new Ottoman Sultan ascended the throne, he immediately executed all his brothers. The chances of deadly rivalries and civil wars were thus eliminated by eliminating all potential claimants to the throne.

Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror (1432 – 1481) is credited with coming up with that solution. He enacted a Law of Governance that stated 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“.

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.