A Deeply Insane Ottoman That Wouldn’t Be Allowed On Tinder
Ibrahim I (1615 – 1648), or Ibrahim the Mad, reigned as sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648, and his upbringing seemingly predestined him end to become a weirdo. When Ibrahim was eight, his older brother became sultan Murad IV. One of the new sultan’s first edicts was to confine Ibrahim to the Kafes, or “Cage” – a secluded part of the royal Harem, where possible successors to the throne were kept. Ibrahim stayed in the Cage, quaking in fear, until Murad died in 1640 without issue. When taken out of the Cage and informed that he had inherited the throne as the last male Ottoman, Ibrahim declined. More accurately, he fled back to the Cage in terror, and barricaded himself inside.
An early worrying sign was that the new sultan fed fish in the palace pool with coins, instead of food. When it became clear that Ibrahim was unhinged, his mother acted as regent and ruled in his name. To keep Ibrahim busy, she encouraged him to spend as much time as possible in the Harem with his roughly 280 concubines. Ibrahim wasn’t just the fun and games type of crazy: Ibrahim also engaged in the dangerous kind of crazy that gets people banned from Tinder. One day, out of the blue, the Mad Sultan woke up and ordered his entire Harem of 280 women tied in weighted sacks, and drowned in the sea.
