Factions and Favorites at the Courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) and His Immediate Predecessors

This dissertation examines the changing dynamics of power and patronage relations at the Ottoman sultan’s court in Istanbul between the 1570s and the 1610s. This was a crucial period that many scholars today consider the beginning of a long era of “crisis and transformation” in the dynastic, political, socio-economic, military and administrative structures of the early modern Ottoman Empire. The present study focuses on the politics of factionalism and favoritism at the higher echelons of the Ottoman ruling elite who were situated in and around Topkapi Palace, which served as both the sultan’s royal residence and the seat of his imperial government. It is an effort to shed light on the political problems of this period through the prism of the paramount ruling figure, the sultan, by illustrating how the Ottoman rulers of this era, namely, Murad III (r. 1574-95), Mehmed III (r. 1595-1603) and Ahmed I (r. 1603-17), repositioned themselves in practical politics vis-a-vis alternative foci of power and networks of patronage, and how they projected power in the context of a factional politics that was intertwined with the exigencies of prolonged wars and incessant military rebellions. My main contention is that, under new political circumstances, these three sultans employed new ruling strategies in order to impose their sovereign authority on the business of rule, an end which they achieved, with varying degrees of success, mainly through the mediation of their royal favorites and the court factions led by them.