MURAD IV. (1611-1640), Ottoman sultan, was the son of Sultan Ahmed I., and succeeded his uncle Mustafa I. in 1623. For the first nine years of his reign his youth prevented him from taking more than an observer's part in affairs. But the lessons thus learnt were sufficiently striking to mould his whole character and policy. In 1631 the spahis of Asia Minor rose in revolt, in protest against the deposition of the grand vizier Khosrev; their representatives crowded to Constantinople, stoned the new grand vizier, Hafiz, in the court of the palace, and pursued the sultan himself into the inner apartments, clamouring for seventeen heads of his advisers and favourites, on penalty of his own deposition. Hafiz was surrendered, a voluntary martyr ; other ministers were deposed; Mustafa Pasha, aga of the janissaries, was saved by his own troops. But Murad was now beginning to assert himself. Khosrev was executed in Asia Minor by his orders; a plot of the spahis to depose him was frustrated by the loyalty of Koes Mahommed, aga of the janissaries, and of the spahi Rum Mahommed (Mahommed the Greek) ; and on May 29. 1632, by a successful personal appeal to the loyalty of the janissaries, Murad crushed the rebels, whom he surrounded in the Hippodrome. At the age of twenty he found himself possessed of effective autocratic power.
His severity has remained legendary. Death was the penalty for the least offence, and no past services—as Koes Mahommed was to find to his cost—were admitted in extenuation. The use of tobacco, coffee, opium and wine were forbidden on pain of death ; eighteen persons are said to have been put to death in a single day for infringing this rule. The tale of his victims is said to have exceeded 1 oo,000.
Murad's great physical strength was maintained by constant physical exercises. He was also fond of hunting, and for this reason usually lived at Adrianople. He broke through the alleged tradition, bequeathed by Suleiman the Magnificent to his suc cessors, that the sultan should not command the troops in person, and took command in the Persian war which led to the capture of Baghdad (1638) and the conclusion of an honourable peace (May 7, 1639). Early in 1640 he died, barely twenty-nine years
of age. The cause of his death was acute gout brought on by ex cessive drinking. In spite of his drunkenness, however, Murad was a bigoted Sunni, and the main cause of his campaign against Persia was his desire to extirpate the Shia heresy. He amused his entourage by feats of strength, and by verses, some of which were published under the pseudonym of Muradi.
See, for details of the lives of the above, J. von Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des osrnanischen Reiches (Pest, 1840), where further authorities are cited.