Kafka2
Whale-raping abomination
- Joined
- Oct 30, 2001
- Messages
- 1,204
Popular culture has painted a cruel and demeaning picture of the middle-east's history. The great empires of the Ottoman and Mughals tend to get depicted as decadent and hedonistic places and two distinct stereotypes tend to emerge.
The first is the Sultan. We all know what he's like, don't we? He's bearded and turbanned, and a bit roly-poly. He's lolling on cushions and idly running his chubby and sweaty fingers over the flanks of a scantily-clad harem lovely. His every need is catered for and, he's pampered half to death- blessed with a seraglio containing hundreds of nubile young women it's doubtful that his tackle has dried off since his 14th birthday. Naturally this has all left the Sultan spectacularly jaded and he's only distracted from his increasingly half-hearted fornication by the prospect of having young children skinned alive, or feasting on the eyeballs of hamsters.
The second lurks somewhat in the shadows. It's the sinister and boney figure of the Grand Vizier- a man seemingly made purely of shins and knuckles. He's tall and lean, and sports one of those moustaches that looks like two elvers attempting to abseil from his upper lip. Manipulative and scheming, he is the evil power behind the throne, and he just lives for the day when the Sultan is bustled into an early grave, leaving the vizier free to slip a cold hand inside the silks of the harem women as he laugh, and laughs, and laughs......
An enduring image, isn't it? It's a vile slur on the proud history of the Asian empires, an example of ignorant western bigotry at it's very worse. It's also completely and categorically false.
Or is it?
Remember, the motto of every single gimp researcher in the Historical Filth team is "Where there's smoke, there's fire". Starting with those two stereotypes, the mission was to discover just how accurate they they. The amnazing examples that follow were just some of the wonderful extremes of human excess that turned up. Let's go....
Ibrahim Pasa (Ottoman Empire 1493- 1536)
Ibrahim Pasa was very much your classic power-hungry and scheming Grand Vizier. Vested in position in 1533, following a sucessful career of kicking the crap out of Egyptians and Austrians, he quickly became the true master of the Empire and tended to "replace" the Sultan Suleyman I. Ibrahim was certainly a brilliant military mind, and he had major successes in Asia Minor and Iran. Unfortunately he was a little too blatantly fond of making Imperial decisions without consulting the Sultan and this gave Suleyman the willies. The result was predictable- Suleyman's head and shoulders parted company in Constantinople, 1536.
Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasa (Ottoman Empire 1634- 1683)
Vizier to Mehmed IV (see below), and just as scheming as any vizier in those most decadent days of the decaying Ottoman Empire. Rather than sticking to murder or petty evils, he decided to go for the big picture and started picking fights with other nations. Unfortunately he proved pretty useless at it. The Russians gave him a kicking. The Poles just pointed and laughed, before casually kicking the invaders out.
Sensing that his time was running out, he made one last shot at glory by invading Austria and laying siege to Vienna, but was soundly thrashed by an Austrian/Polish army. Mehmed IV rewarded him by presenting himat his next feast. On a silver tray. From the neck up.
Mehmed IV Avci (1642- 1693)
Replaced his father Ibrahim (who once stabbed young Mehmed in the face for making a bad joke) at the age of six, and proved to be a real chip off the old lunatic. Couldn't be bothered being Sultan. Preferred hunting deer instead. Actually his favourite little hobby was to practice archery on live prisoners. . Turned his Grand Vizier into a sort of human hors d'oeuvres. An evil little ****, on the whole. Deposed in 1687.
Imad ul-Mulk Ghazi-ud-Din (Mughal Empire c 1710)
Regrettably, the details of this remarkable man's life are sketchy (the Mughals weren't the greatest of historians). This is a great loss, because Imad ul-Mulk was clearly the creme de la creme of ruthless and scheming viziers. He already wielded great power when he was the prime mover in the deposition, imprisonment and blinding of Emperor Ahmad Shah (see below). Imad installed the 13 year-old Alamgir II as a puppet Emperor, keeping him a virtual prisoner while he effectively ruled Mughal India for 48 years. Finally, when an Afghan invasion threatened, Imad had Alamgir II murdered to prevent anyone else gaining control of him.
Imad wasn't finished there, however. He installed another puppet Emperor, Shah Jahan III, driving the real heir (Shah Alam II) out of the country.
There the trail goes cold. Shah Alam returned to his throne within a year, suggesting a sudden power vacuum had emerged. Dear reader, I would love to have recounted a fittingly grisly end for this vicious old tosspot, but I've a distinct suspicion that he just popped his clogs in his own bed from old age. There's no justice.
Ahmad Shah (Mughal Empire 1725- 1775)
Oh dear. Ahmad Shah tends to get described as a "good-natured imbecile", who was dominated by his mother and chief eunuch, Javid Khan. On witnessing a (fairly peaceful) demonstration by Marathas in Sinanderabad he was panic-striken and did a runner, leaving the women of his family in captivity.
Not being the brightest of deposed Emperors, he was quickly captured, and spent the last 21 years of his life blinded and imprisoned. Poor bugger.
Aurangzeb (Mughal Empire 1618- 1707)
The Mughal Emperors were an amazing array of nutters. Aurangzeb is often picked out as an exception in that he wasn't permanently pissed out of his skull on anything fermentable, and showed some restraint in his sexual excesses. This, along with considerable military successes has left him described as "the last great Mughal Emperor".
So if he didn't spend every waking hour drinking and rutting, how the hell did the Emperor amuse himself? Well he imprisoned his father, executed two of his brothers and caused the death of a third, also executed one of his sons and one of his nephews. He also ruthlessly suppressed the Hindu people of India, starting a major jihad and destroying many temples. He would have been a much nicer person had he just spent more time drinking.
Ay (Egypt 14th Century BC)
OK- he's a little out of place historically and geographically, but I couldn't resist putting him in. Ay was rumoured to be the true father of Queen Nefertiti, and rose to prominence as a powerful courtier of Emperor Akhenaten. On Akhenaten's death he became Tutankhamen's vizier and closest advisor. This made Ay a powerful man, but he had bigger ambitions. It's thought that he helped bring about Tutankhamen's death, and he certainly made his move after the young king had bought the farm. Tut's widow, Ankhesenamen was planning to marry a young Hittite prince and make him king, but Ay had the young prince murdered and promptly married Ankhesenamen himself, despite the fact that he was probably her Grandfather-in-law. It's unlikely the young Queen had much choice in the matter. The ambitious old goat died as Emperor four years later.
Talat Pasa (Ottoman Empure 1874- 1921)
A modern day bastard of a Grand Vizier- Talat was quite the subversive in his younger days, but went on to become a genocidal git. He is as much to blame as anyone for the massacres of Armenians during the 1914- 1918 war, which cost between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Armenian lives (the vast majority of which were civilians), the first bout of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Some think he was a role model for Hitler. He resigned in 1918, and was murdered three year later in Germany. By an Armenian, in a display of poetic justice.
Nadir Shah (Persia 1688- 1747)
Accusing monarchs of being ruthless bastards is like accusing dogs of breaking wind and licking their genitals in public. Some are particularly vicious, though, and the aptly named Nadir Shah is a damned good example. Nadir had humble origins- he was the leader of a rather nasty bunch of bandits, but he rose to prominence after raising an army of thieves, murderers and rapists in suppport of Tahmasp II, whom he helped restore to the throne. Tahmasp then started a war against the Turks, presumably because they spilled his pint, or something. After embarrassing setbacks, Tahmasp was deposed by the enraged Nadir who replaced him with his infant son Abbas III. Soon after, he usurped the throne.
Nadir had major military successes- he gave the Mughal Empire in India a hearty kicking, and stole both the Peacock Throne and the Koh-I-Noor. He also had his own eldest son blinded, did a spot of ethnic cleansing against the Shi'ites, and destroyed Iran's economy through massively rapacious taxation. Growing increasingly cruel (amazingly, considering he was a total bastard to start with) he tortured and murder his citizens on a massive scale as they continually revolted. Eventually, and predicatably, he was assassinated. His best quote? On being told there was no warfare in paradise, he replied "How can there be any delights there?". What a git.
Ibrahim (Ottoman Empire 1615-1648)
Ibrahim needs some historical background. Traditionally, on gaining the throne, the new Sultan would have all of his brothers killed. That's the sensible approach, isn't it? They'd only hang around causing trouble, after all. Ahmed I, however, on gaining the throne in 1603 decided to replace the "Right of Fratricide" with something a bit more groovy and PC. So he introduced the notion of "Kafes" (loosely translated as "cages").
Under Kafes, all potential heirs were inprisoned in palatial accommodation accompanied only by deaf-mute servants and hordes of nubile young women ready to serve their every whim. These women faced death by drowning if they became pregnant, so they took birth control incredibly seriously.
So, one day in 1640 Ibrahim suddenly gets dragged off of his ladies, out of his prison and dumped on the throne of one one the world's largest empires. Unfortunately, his rather restricted upbringing left him utterly incapable of handling affairs of state, or anything else that wasn't actually lying in front of him with it's legs spread open enticingly. Making up for the fact that he's spent his first 23 years locked up he went on a bender of mammoth proportions, but started to suffer from impotence with accessible women and could only be aroused by unavailable women, such as the wives and daughters of powerful muftis. He tended to solve this problem by kidnapping and raping them.
Ibrahim had a son, Mehmed, but didn't like him much and preferred other people's sons. He made an unsuccessful attempt to drown Mehmed when his son was just a baby, and while Mehmed was still a little boy Ibrahim stabbed him in the face with a dagger for making a poor joke. Amazingly Mehmed survived to succeed his father.
Faced with his increasingly frequent impotence, Ibrahim started looking for new pleasure. He became so enraptured with the appearance of a wild cow's genitals that he had them cast in gold and conducted a massive search for a woman possessing similar "lady bits". On finding her (the 150 kilo Sechir Para) he took her as his favourite. It was at Sechir Para's urging that he had his 280 harem women drowned in the Bosphorus.
Ibrahim was finally deposed by a Grand Mufti who objected to the fact that Ibrahim had raped his daughter. He was imprisoned, and strangled shortly after.
A charming bunch of people, I'm sure you'll agree. There'll be another Historical Filth session one day, those Chinese and Japanese emperors are looking a bit smug at having escaped so far....
The first is the Sultan. We all know what he's like, don't we? He's bearded and turbanned, and a bit roly-poly. He's lolling on cushions and idly running his chubby and sweaty fingers over the flanks of a scantily-clad harem lovely. His every need is catered for and, he's pampered half to death- blessed with a seraglio containing hundreds of nubile young women it's doubtful that his tackle has dried off since his 14th birthday. Naturally this has all left the Sultan spectacularly jaded and he's only distracted from his increasingly half-hearted fornication by the prospect of having young children skinned alive, or feasting on the eyeballs of hamsters.
The second lurks somewhat in the shadows. It's the sinister and boney figure of the Grand Vizier- a man seemingly made purely of shins and knuckles. He's tall and lean, and sports one of those moustaches that looks like two elvers attempting to abseil from his upper lip. Manipulative and scheming, he is the evil power behind the throne, and he just lives for the day when the Sultan is bustled into an early grave, leaving the vizier free to slip a cold hand inside the silks of the harem women as he laugh, and laughs, and laughs......
An enduring image, isn't it? It's a vile slur on the proud history of the Asian empires, an example of ignorant western bigotry at it's very worse. It's also completely and categorically false.
Or is it?
Remember, the motto of every single gimp researcher in the Historical Filth team is "Where there's smoke, there's fire". Starting with those two stereotypes, the mission was to discover just how accurate they they. The amnazing examples that follow were just some of the wonderful extremes of human excess that turned up. Let's go....
Ibrahim Pasa (Ottoman Empire 1493- 1536)
Ibrahim Pasa was very much your classic power-hungry and scheming Grand Vizier. Vested in position in 1533, following a sucessful career of kicking the crap out of Egyptians and Austrians, he quickly became the true master of the Empire and tended to "replace" the Sultan Suleyman I. Ibrahim was certainly a brilliant military mind, and he had major successes in Asia Minor and Iran. Unfortunately he was a little too blatantly fond of making Imperial decisions without consulting the Sultan and this gave Suleyman the willies. The result was predictable- Suleyman's head and shoulders parted company in Constantinople, 1536.
Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasa (Ottoman Empire 1634- 1683)
Vizier to Mehmed IV (see below), and just as scheming as any vizier in those most decadent days of the decaying Ottoman Empire. Rather than sticking to murder or petty evils, he decided to go for the big picture and started picking fights with other nations. Unfortunately he proved pretty useless at it. The Russians gave him a kicking. The Poles just pointed and laughed, before casually kicking the invaders out.
Sensing that his time was running out, he made one last shot at glory by invading Austria and laying siege to Vienna, but was soundly thrashed by an Austrian/Polish army. Mehmed IV rewarded him by presenting himat his next feast. On a silver tray. From the neck up.
Mehmed IV Avci (1642- 1693)
Replaced his father Ibrahim (who once stabbed young Mehmed in the face for making a bad joke) at the age of six, and proved to be a real chip off the old lunatic. Couldn't be bothered being Sultan. Preferred hunting deer instead. Actually his favourite little hobby was to practice archery on live prisoners. . Turned his Grand Vizier into a sort of human hors d'oeuvres. An evil little ****, on the whole. Deposed in 1687.
Imad ul-Mulk Ghazi-ud-Din (Mughal Empire c 1710)
Regrettably, the details of this remarkable man's life are sketchy (the Mughals weren't the greatest of historians). This is a great loss, because Imad ul-Mulk was clearly the creme de la creme of ruthless and scheming viziers. He already wielded great power when he was the prime mover in the deposition, imprisonment and blinding of Emperor Ahmad Shah (see below). Imad installed the 13 year-old Alamgir II as a puppet Emperor, keeping him a virtual prisoner while he effectively ruled Mughal India for 48 years. Finally, when an Afghan invasion threatened, Imad had Alamgir II murdered to prevent anyone else gaining control of him.
Imad wasn't finished there, however. He installed another puppet Emperor, Shah Jahan III, driving the real heir (Shah Alam II) out of the country.
There the trail goes cold. Shah Alam returned to his throne within a year, suggesting a sudden power vacuum had emerged. Dear reader, I would love to have recounted a fittingly grisly end for this vicious old tosspot, but I've a distinct suspicion that he just popped his clogs in his own bed from old age. There's no justice.
Ahmad Shah (Mughal Empire 1725- 1775)
Oh dear. Ahmad Shah tends to get described as a "good-natured imbecile", who was dominated by his mother and chief eunuch, Javid Khan. On witnessing a (fairly peaceful) demonstration by Marathas in Sinanderabad he was panic-striken and did a runner, leaving the women of his family in captivity.
Not being the brightest of deposed Emperors, he was quickly captured, and spent the last 21 years of his life blinded and imprisoned. Poor bugger.
Aurangzeb (Mughal Empire 1618- 1707)
The Mughal Emperors were an amazing array of nutters. Aurangzeb is often picked out as an exception in that he wasn't permanently pissed out of his skull on anything fermentable, and showed some restraint in his sexual excesses. This, along with considerable military successes has left him described as "the last great Mughal Emperor".
So if he didn't spend every waking hour drinking and rutting, how the hell did the Emperor amuse himself? Well he imprisoned his father, executed two of his brothers and caused the death of a third, also executed one of his sons and one of his nephews. He also ruthlessly suppressed the Hindu people of India, starting a major jihad and destroying many temples. He would have been a much nicer person had he just spent more time drinking.
Ay (Egypt 14th Century BC)
OK- he's a little out of place historically and geographically, but I couldn't resist putting him in. Ay was rumoured to be the true father of Queen Nefertiti, and rose to prominence as a powerful courtier of Emperor Akhenaten. On Akhenaten's death he became Tutankhamen's vizier and closest advisor. This made Ay a powerful man, but he had bigger ambitions. It's thought that he helped bring about Tutankhamen's death, and he certainly made his move after the young king had bought the farm. Tut's widow, Ankhesenamen was planning to marry a young Hittite prince and make him king, but Ay had the young prince murdered and promptly married Ankhesenamen himself, despite the fact that he was probably her Grandfather-in-law. It's unlikely the young Queen had much choice in the matter. The ambitious old goat died as Emperor four years later.
Talat Pasa (Ottoman Empure 1874- 1921)
A modern day bastard of a Grand Vizier- Talat was quite the subversive in his younger days, but went on to become a genocidal git. He is as much to blame as anyone for the massacres of Armenians during the 1914- 1918 war, which cost between 600,000 and 1,000,000 Armenian lives (the vast majority of which were civilians), the first bout of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the 20th century. Some think he was a role model for Hitler. He resigned in 1918, and was murdered three year later in Germany. By an Armenian, in a display of poetic justice.
Nadir Shah (Persia 1688- 1747)
Accusing monarchs of being ruthless bastards is like accusing dogs of breaking wind and licking their genitals in public. Some are particularly vicious, though, and the aptly named Nadir Shah is a damned good example. Nadir had humble origins- he was the leader of a rather nasty bunch of bandits, but he rose to prominence after raising an army of thieves, murderers and rapists in suppport of Tahmasp II, whom he helped restore to the throne. Tahmasp then started a war against the Turks, presumably because they spilled his pint, or something. After embarrassing setbacks, Tahmasp was deposed by the enraged Nadir who replaced him with his infant son Abbas III. Soon after, he usurped the throne.
Nadir had major military successes- he gave the Mughal Empire in India a hearty kicking, and stole both the Peacock Throne and the Koh-I-Noor. He also had his own eldest son blinded, did a spot of ethnic cleansing against the Shi'ites, and destroyed Iran's economy through massively rapacious taxation. Growing increasingly cruel (amazingly, considering he was a total bastard to start with) he tortured and murder his citizens on a massive scale as they continually revolted. Eventually, and predicatably, he was assassinated. His best quote? On being told there was no warfare in paradise, he replied "How can there be any delights there?". What a git.
Ibrahim (Ottoman Empire 1615-1648)
Ibrahim needs some historical background. Traditionally, on gaining the throne, the new Sultan would have all of his brothers killed. That's the sensible approach, isn't it? They'd only hang around causing trouble, after all. Ahmed I, however, on gaining the throne in 1603 decided to replace the "Right of Fratricide" with something a bit more groovy and PC. So he introduced the notion of "Kafes" (loosely translated as "cages").
Under Kafes, all potential heirs were inprisoned in palatial accommodation accompanied only by deaf-mute servants and hordes of nubile young women ready to serve their every whim. These women faced death by drowning if they became pregnant, so they took birth control incredibly seriously.
So, one day in 1640 Ibrahim suddenly gets dragged off of his ladies, out of his prison and dumped on the throne of one one the world's largest empires. Unfortunately, his rather restricted upbringing left him utterly incapable of handling affairs of state, or anything else that wasn't actually lying in front of him with it's legs spread open enticingly. Making up for the fact that he's spent his first 23 years locked up he went on a bender of mammoth proportions, but started to suffer from impotence with accessible women and could only be aroused by unavailable women, such as the wives and daughters of powerful muftis. He tended to solve this problem by kidnapping and raping them.
Ibrahim had a son, Mehmed, but didn't like him much and preferred other people's sons. He made an unsuccessful attempt to drown Mehmed when his son was just a baby, and while Mehmed was still a little boy Ibrahim stabbed him in the face with a dagger for making a poor joke. Amazingly Mehmed survived to succeed his father.
Faced with his increasingly frequent impotence, Ibrahim started looking for new pleasure. He became so enraptured with the appearance of a wild cow's genitals that he had them cast in gold and conducted a massive search for a woman possessing similar "lady bits". On finding her (the 150 kilo Sechir Para) he took her as his favourite. It was at Sechir Para's urging that he had his 280 harem women drowned in the Bosphorus.
Ibrahim was finally deposed by a Grand Mufti who objected to the fact that Ibrahim had raped his daughter. He was imprisoned, and strangled shortly after.
A charming bunch of people, I'm sure you'll agree. There'll be another Historical Filth session one day, those Chinese and Japanese emperors are looking a bit smug at having escaped so far....
