| also called GENĒ OSMAN ("Young Osman") (b. Nov. 15, 1603, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Tur.]--d. May 20, 1622, Constantinople), Ottoman sultan who came to the throne as an active and intelligent boy of 14 and who during his short rule (1618-22) understood the need for reform within the empire. |
Sultan Osman was born in Istanbul and was educated, very carefully, by his mother. He was intelligent and energetic. Osman had a handsome face but even by the time of his death he had not started to grow either a beard or moustache.
He became Sultan on February 26th, 1617 when his uncle, Mustapha, was dethroned. Although young, he had already planned great schemes for his country and, had he not been assassinated, historians say he would have been a second "Conqueror". He was a poet and calligrapher, one of his poems reading:
"My intention was to serve for the sake of my country.
Why do the malicious and envious work to defraud me?"
Ambitious and courageous, Osman undertook a military campaign against Poland, which had interfered in the Ottoman vassal principalities of Moldavia and Walachia. Realizing that his defeat at Chocim (Khotin, Ukraine) in 1621 largely stemmed from the lack of discipline and the degeneracy of the Janissary corps, he proceeded to discipline them by cutting their pay and closing their coffee shops. Then he announced a plan to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca, but his real purpose was to recruit a new army in Egypt and Syria to break the power of the Janissaries. Hearing of this scheme and already resentful because of Osman's previous policies, the Janissaries revolted, deposed Osman on May 19, 1622, put in prison at Yedikoule and strangled him the next day.
The year of his death, the Bosphorus froze and a solar eclipse occurred in the region. Osman was buried in the tomb of his father next to the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
Nefee, a famous poet, wrote of him:
"They killed the Sultan of the world for he was a glorious Emperor,
He was a brave overlord and all his descendants were sultans.
He was a gallant leader and they murdered him, the zealous Sultan,
- They slaughtered him, the Sultan of the world."
Osman had two sons, Omar and Moustapha, and one daughter called Sultana Zeineb.