Osman II

Osman II
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Caliph of Islam
16th Ottoman Sultan (Emperor)
Reign	26 February 1618 – 20 May 1622
Predecessor	Mustafa I
Successor	Mustafa I
Born	(1604-11-03)November 3, 1604 Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Died	Yedikule Fortress, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Consorts	Ayşe Sultan Akile Hatun Meylişah Hatun
Issue	Şehzade Ömer
Full name Osman bin Ahmed
Dynasty	House of Osman
Father	Ahmed I
Mother	Mahfiruz Hatun
Tughra

Osman II (Ottoman Turkish: عثمان ثانى‎ ‘Osmān-i sānī; November 3, 1604 – May 20, 1622), commonly known in Turkey as Genç Osman ("Osman the Young" in English), was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1618 until his death by regicide on 20 May 1622.

Early life

File:OttomanEmpire1622.png

The Ottoman Empire in 1622, the year of the regicide of Osman II.

Osman II was born at Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I (1603–17) and his first wife Mahfiruz Hatun, according to some sources either a Greek or Evdoksiya, a Serbian. According to later traditions, at a young age, his mother had paid a great deal of attention to Osman's education, as a result of which Osman II became a known poet and would have mastered many languages, including Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Italian; this has been refuted since.

Osman's failure to capture the throne at the death of his father Ahmed may have been caused by the absence of a mother to lobby in his favor,his own mother probably already dead or in exile.

Reign

He ascended the throne at the early age of 14 as the result of a coup d'état against his uncle Mustafa I "the Intestable" (1617–18, 1622–23). Despite his youth, Osman II soon sought to assert himself as a ruler, and after securing the empire's eastern border by signing a peace treaty (Treaty of Serav) with Safavid Persia, he personally led the Ottoman invasion of Poland during the Moldavian Magnate Wars. Forced to sign a peace treaty with the Poles after the Battle of Chotin (Chocim) (which was, in fact, a siege of Chotin defended by the Lithuanian–Polish hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz) in September–October, 1621, Osman II returned home to Constantinople in shame, blaming the cowardice of the Janissaries and the insufficiency of his statesmen for his humiliation.

The basic and exceptional weakness from which Osman II suffered was the conspious absence of a female power basis in the harem. From 1620 until Osman's death, a governess (daye hatun, lit. wet-nurse) was appointed as a stand-in valide, and she could not counterbalance the contriving of Mustafa I's mother in the Old Palace. Although he did have a loyal chief black eunuch at his side, this could not compensate for the absence of what in the politics of that period was a winning combination, valide sultan–chief black eunuch, especially in the case of a young and very ambitious ruler. According to Piterberg, Osman II did not have haseki sultan, opposite with Peirce who claim that Ayşe was Osman's haseki. But it is clear that Ayşe could not take valide's role during her spouse's reign.

Death

Sultan Osman the Young was strangled in Yedikule Zindans in 1622

Yedikule Fortress in 1685

One of the entrances of the Yedikule Fortress in Istanbul, where Osman II was strangled to death by revolting Janissaries

Yedikule Fortress in 1827

Seeking a counterweight to Janissary influence, Osman II closed their coffee shops (the gathering points for conspiracies against the throne) and started planning to create a new and more loyal army consisting of Anatolian sekbans. The result was a palace uprising by the Janissaries, who promptly imprisoned the young sultan in Yedikule Fortress in Istanbul, where Osman II was strangled to death.

Family

Consorts

• Ayşe Sultan (m. December 1619), his haseki, of unknown background;
• a woman said to be the daughter of an astrologer, and granddaughter of Pertev Mehmed Pasha;
• Akile Hatun (m. March 1622), daughter of Şeyhülislam Mehmed Esadullah Efendi;

Son

• Şehzade Ömer (died in infancy).

See also

• Transformation of the Ottoman Empire

External links

Media related to at Wikimedia Commons

Osman II House of Osman Born: November 3, 1604 Died: May 20, 1622
Regnal titles
Preceded by Mustafa I	Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Feb 26, 1618 – May 20, 1622	Succeeded by Mustafa I
Sunni Islam titles
Preceded by Mustafa I	Caliph of Islam Ottoman Caliph Feb 26, 1618 – May 20, 1622	Succeeded by Mustafa I