Sultán Mustafa Khán Is Deposed
According to Hasan Beg Zádeh, the ághá of the royal house, Mustafa Aghá, who during the preceding reign had exercised absolute authority, began again, under the new emperor, to manifest a desire to exercise the same unlimited power. He wished to have all the nobles and grandees of the state obedient to his nod. The emperor, who was himself without any restraint, did not interfere; and, in short, seemed to give himself no concern about it whatever. This conduct excited much discussion. The ághá’s incapacity to govern became quite notorious, and therefore the necessity for deposing him became equally clear. It began to be openly spoken, that if he remained much longer at the head of the administration, he would, without doubt, waste and destroy the whole of the imperial treasures. Some of the great doctors and learned men who had been well acquainted with the affairs of the state, wrote to the queen-mother, pointing out to her the necessity there was for removing the above-mentioned ághá from the royal house. Overcome by the tears of the ághá, and the sweetness of his tongue, she, however, paid no regard to the communication sent her. In short, fraud and mismanagement arrived at such a pitch of notoriety, that the people began not only to look on the emperor with aversion, but to assemble for the purpose of actually deposing him. The aforesaid ághá wrote to the reverend mufti, to the rest of the learned men, and to the nobles, that all the princes of the blood were on the very eve of being murdered; and called on them to come forward and prevent the extinction of the Ottoman race. On their receiving this intelligence, they were roused to fury, and immediately agreed to the deposition of the emperor. In the beginning of Rabia I., under the pretence of distributing to the household troops their wages, they succeeded in getting them properly equipped, and arranged into proper order to answer their own purposes. They then barricaded the emperor’s apartment; and, by a postern door, brought forth the young Osmán, and placed him on the throne of Mustafa his uncle. The emperor’s friends about him no sooner perceived the soldiers than they immediately anticipated the deposition of their master, and began to regret, when too late, that the advice which had been given to the queen-mother had not been followed.
Hájí Khalífeh says, in his Fezlikeh, that this infamous emperor was, for some time, deprived of the use of his reason, and became quite remarkable for his strange gestures before people. He used to wander among the tombs, throw money into the sea to the fish, and scatter it on the roads; proofs sufficient of the derangement of his mind. This ághá too, he states further, in order to preserve the civil and religious institutions of the country free from confusion and outrage, wrote to the mufti, Isaád Effendí, and to the káímakám, Súfí Mohammed Páshá, with regard to the state of the emperor’s mind, assuring them that there remained no possible chance of ever bringing him again to his right senses. If prompt measures were not instantly taken, he maintained, the funds of the state would soon be totally annihilated. Accordingly, the household troops, under the pretence of paying them their wages, were collected and arranged in the manner before described; when Sultán Mustafa Khán, on the first of Rabia I., was deposed, as before observed, after a reign of only three months and ten days, and he retired into his former privacy.