Mustafa III

Ottoman sultan (r. 1757-1774)

• Born: January 28, 1717
• Birthplace: Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now Istanbul, Turkey)
• Died: January 21, 1774
• Place of death: Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (now in Istanbul, Turkey)

Mustafa III, who became sultan of the Ottoman Empire when it was declining precipitously, attempted to strengthen the empire, whose treasury was drained and whose administration was virtually out of control. A long war with Russia, however, thwarted his attempts. The Ottoman Empire finally disintegrated following his death.

Early Life

Mustafa (moos-tah-FAH) III, son of Sultan Ahmed III and Mikharimah Sultana, was a true intellectual and a visionary. He dreamed of massive projects such as building a canal across the Isthmus of Suez to link the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, so that ships could sail between the Middle East and Europe without making the arduous trip around the southern tip of Africa. Although he was unable to bring this project to fruition, the fact that he considered it suggests the scope of his imagination.

Mustafa was physically strong, of medium height but with a substantial body and an impressive face whose most notable feature was its large nose. His eyes were bright and expressive. His native curiosity made him an excellent student, quite receptive to the outstanding education available to him in his early years. Well trained in mathematics and science, he also studied literature, medicine, and astronomy, which fascinated him.

Devoutly religious, Mustafa studied Islamic and Ottoman history extensively and had a comprehensive knowledge of the Qur՚ān, the holy book of Islam. A persevering scholar, he systematically studied the broad range of subjects that intrigued him. Despite the breadth of his interests, he was not a dilettante. Prior to becoming sultan, Mustafa led a reclusive life, a life that encouraged contemplation and introspection.

Writing under the pseudonym Djikhangir, Mustafa produced a body of poetry. He used poetry as a vehicle for expressing his deepest concerns about his country and its future. In one oft-quoted poem, commenting on how badly the sultanate had been run, he called everyone in the Imperial Palace false and base. He sought Allah’s help to resolve the desperate situation of the Ottoman Empire.

Mustafa’s reputation for being kindly and merciful both as sultan and in his early youth can be verified by numerous examples. On one occasion, when an earthquake devastated Constantinople, Mustafa drew heavily upon his personal resources to help those who had lost everything in the disaster and contributed generously to rebuilding Constantinople. He clearly had a love for his country and a genuine concern for his subjects.

Life’s Work

On October 30, 1757, the day on which his cousin, Sultan Osman III died, Mustafa replaced him as sultan. Mustafa was ten months beyond his fortieth birthday, and he served for seventeen years, until his death on January 21, 1774. The empire Mustafa inherited was plagued with a panoply of looming problems. Earlier administrations had drained the Ottoman treasury. The provincial leaders (āyāns), who were supposed to turn over to the central government much of the money they received through taxation, repeatedly reneged on that responsibility and became difficult to control.

Moreover, the ultraconservative views of the empire’s religious leaders (imams) and the Janissaries held considerable sway and made progressive leadership extremely difficult. The imams, staunch fundamentalists who insisted on literal interpretations of the Qur՚ān, imposed their repressive views upon the community at large and were resistant to change. The Janissaries, formed in the fourteenth century as an elite palace guard, had originally been a celibate corps. During the reign of Murad III (r. 1574-1595), the relaxation of the rule that forbade Janissaries to marry resulted in several problems. As married men with children, the Janissaries undertook greater financial responsibilities, causing most of them to take part-time jobs in their communities to support their families.

The Janissaries became increasingly reluctant to leave their families to serve in the distant parts of the empire, where they were frequently needed. Numerous Janissary revolts weakened the sultancy, as did the spread of nepotism within the ranks as Janissary fathers used their influence to have their often unqualified sons admitted to the corps. The financially strained empire found it difficult to support the Janissary corps.

For the first six years of Mustafa’s sultancy, much of the sultan’s decision making fell to the grand vizier, Koca Rāgib Pasha, who realized that the empire’s most pressing needs were to enact reforms that would help rebuild the treasury and to maintain peace with the empire’s neighbors, with which the financially strained government could not afford to engage in armed conflict. Mustafa strongly supported Koca Rāgib Pasha’s efforts for reform and his pacifist policies. Upon the grand vizier’s death in 1763, his successor, Muhsinzāde Mehmed Pasha, essentially continued to pursue the same protocols his predecessor had initiated, but now Mustafa became more directly involved in administering the government.

Realizing the need to strengthen his armed forces, Mustafa turned to Baron François de Tott, a renowned French artillery officer, to help him implement reforms within his own military corps. With Tott’s assistance, the Ottoman artillery was totally reorganized. An engineering school in Constantinople that had been closed by the Janissaries in 1747 was reopened. In 1773, shortly before his death, Mustafa established a school of mathematics for naval personnel.

In 1739, before Mustafa’s sultancy, the Treaty of Belgrade was enacted as a means of maintaining peace among the Ottomans and their neighbors. Even though the French and the Prussians tried to convince Mustafa to abrogate the treaty and enter into alliances with them, the sultan, keenly aware of the immediate benefits to be gained through neutrality, refused. He needed to buy time to replenish the Ottoman treasury and strengthen the military.

Finally, however, in 1768, Mustafa was forced to abandon his neutral stand, as Russia began to make significant incursions into both the Crimea and Poland. This aggression convinced Mustafa that he had to declare war on Russia. He felt confident that his armed forces, now reorganized and strengthened, could meet the demands this declaration entailed.

In the early phases of the war, the Ottomans scored some notable victories, but these successes were soon eclipsed by Russian victories in battles along the Danube River and in the Crimea. Mustafa’s forces suffered a devastating blow in 1770, when the Russians destroyed the Ottoman naval fleet during a battle in the Aegean Sea. The first phase of the Ottoman-Russian Wars continued until shortly after Mustafa succumbed to a heart attack on January 21, 1774.

Significance

When Mustafa III took titular command of the Ottoman Empire in 1757, it had already declined to such an extent that, despite his strenuous efforts, it could not be revived or returned to its past glory. Mustafa cannot be faulted for failing to prevail in what clearly was an impossible situation. It is remarkable that he was able to make as many beneficial changes as he did during his seventeen-year rule. Notable among his accomplishments were his reopening of the engineering school the Janissaries had closed and his founding of a school of mathematics for the Ottoman navy. He valued education and strove to encourage it. He insisted that those serving in his military forces continue to pursue their formal education even as they served.

Mustafa made strides toward reversing the economic plight of the empire, enacting reforms that made the provincial leaders more accountable to the central government than they had been. He encouraged the building of several new mosques in the empire, employing Mehmed Tāhir Aga as architect for these projects. Mehmed designed the Ayazma Mosque, begun in 1760, and the Iskele Mosque, built between 1759 and 1763. These mosques, still standing, are outstanding examples of Ottoman architecture.

On a practical level, Mustafa implemented the fixing of bayonets on the rifles of his artillery forces. He established maritime and artillery academies to train military personnel. Noted for both his energy and his superior intelligence, Mustafa worked assiduously to stem the decline of the empire over which he ruled, but the damage already done to it was so great that a successful outcome for this task was unachievable.

Bibliography

Barber, Noel. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000. An inside glimpse into the personal lives of the human beings who ruled the Ottoman Empire.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Sultans. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973. A detailed and intimate account of the lives of the Ottoman sultans. Well written and easily accessible to general readers.

Goodwin, Godfrey. The Janissaries. London: Saqi, 1997. Goodwin traces in detail the decline of the Janissaries and the effects of their conservatism on Ottoman politics, focusing particularly on the problem of nepotism after Janissaries were permitted to marry.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Ottoman Turkey. London: Scorpion, 1977. Among the best investigative accounts of politics in Ottoman Turkey.

Somel, Selcuk Aksin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2003. Somel offers a brief but useful overview of Mustafa III and his rule.