MURAD HI. (1546-1595), Ottoman sultan, was the eldest son of Selim II., and succeeded his father in 1574. His accession marks the definite beginning of the decline of the Ottoman power, which had only been maintained under Selim II. by the genius of the all-powerful grand vizier Mahommed Sokolli. For, though Sokolli remained in office until his assassination in October 1578, his authority was undermined by the harem influences, which with Murad III. were supreme. Of these the most powerful was that of the sultan's chief wife, named Safie (the pure), a beautiful Venetian of the noble family of Baffo, whose father had been governor of Corfu, and who had been captured as a child by Turkish corsairs and sold into the harem. This lady ruled over him to the last.
His one attempt at reform, the order forbidding the sale of in toxicants to the janissaries, broke down on the opposition of the soldiery. He was the first sultan to profit by the corrupt sale of offices. This corruption was fatally apparent in the army, the feudal basis of which was sapped by the confiscation of fiefs for the benefit of nominees of favourites of the harem, and by the intrusion, through the same influences of foreigners and rayahs into the corps of janissaries, of which the discipline became more and more relaxed and the temper increasingly turbulent. In view of this general demoralization not even the victorious outcome of the campaigns in Georgia, the Crimea, Daghestan, Yemen and Persia (1578-159o) could prevent the decay of the Ottoman power; indeed, by weakening the Mussulman states, they hastened the process, since they facilitated the advance of Russia to the Black Sea and the Caspian.
Murad, who had welcomed the Persian War as a good oppor tunity for ridding himself of the presence of the janissaries, whom he dreaded, had soon cause to fear their triumphant return.
Incensed by the debasing of the coinage, which robbed them of part of their pay, they invaded the Divan clamouring for the heads of the sultan's favourite, the beylerbey of Rumelia, and of the defterdar (finance minister), which were thrown to them (April 3, 1589). This was the first time that the janissaries had invaded the palace: a precedent to be too often followed. The outbreak of another European war in 1592 gave the sultan an opportunity of ridding himself of their presence. Murad died in 1595, leaving to his successor a legacy of war and anarchy.
It was under Murad III. that England's relations with the Porte began. Negotiations were opened in 1579 with Queen Elizabeth through certain British merchants; in 158o the first capitulations with England were signed ; in 1583 William Hare bone, the first British ambassador to the Porte, arrived at Constantinople, and in 1593 commercial capitulations were signed with England. (See CAPITULATIONS.)