On the ninth day, the eve of that on which the bride would be brought from the palace, Ayas Pasha and the other vizirs, and the defterdar, and the agha of the janissaries sought the bridegroom and led him through the streets of Stamboul in gorgeous procession. From the Bab‐i‐Humayoun (The Sublime Porte) to the Hippodrome the streets “were full of pleasure from end to end,” all hung with silks of Broussa and velvets of Damascus, through which passed the ranks of the janissaries and the vizir who thus honored Ibrahim Pasha.
Ibrahim was a lean, dark man, slight in stature and bearing himself gracefully in his cloth‐of‐gold robes.[61] He was escorted by brilliant officers on prancing steeds. There is no finer setting for a procession than the grey streets of Stamboul under the vivid Southern sky. When the procession approached the sultan’s throne, the dignitaries of the state and the nobles of the Empire, approaching on foot over the richly carpeted street, fell on their faces before his Majesty.
“This day they enjoyed riches and booty and sumptuousness without end”. “Especially were the people charmed with the sounds of rejoicing flutes and trumpets, whose music rose from earth to the first heaven”. The wise ulema and sheiks were present on this occasion, the sultan seating on his right the venerated Mufti Ali Djemali and on his left the great hodja (teacher) of the princes, while other learned doctors were arranged confronting the Imperial Majesty. The sultan presided over a learned discussion of the verse from the Koran, “O David, I will make thee Caliph in the world”, a sufficiently courtly text. The meaning was discussed and questions were propounded and answered. After this literary episode, knights‐at‐arms, wrestlers and other athletes displayed their skill. Then a rich feast was served and Mehmet Chelebi had the honor of presenting to the sultan sherbet in a priceless cup cut from a single turquoise, a souvenir of Persian victories, and the pride of the nation. Others drank their sherbet from goblets of china, then a rare and valuable ware. Food was served to the sultan and the ulema on silver trays,[62] and each of the guests took away with him a tray of sweetmeats. From evening to morning fireworks and illuminations lit up the city, and were reflected in the Bosphorus and Marmora. On his return to the palace Suleiman was informed of the birth of a son, who afterwards became Selim II.
The wedding was followed by several days of dancing, races, contests of wrestlers and archers, as well as poetic contests in honor of the newly‐wedded couple. Such was a public festival in the city of the sultan in the days of the magnificent Suleiman. It reminds us of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, whose splendor delighted the French and the English in this same quarter century, the most striking difference being the literary side which the Turkish festival possessed and the European lacked.
Solakzadeh tells an interesting anecdote in connection with another great feast, that of the circumcision of Suleiman’s three sons.[63] This was also a very splendid function and Suleiman is said to have asked Ibrahim in pride, whose feast had been the finer, Ibrahim’s or that of his sons. Ibrahim replied: “There has never been a feast equal to my wedding.” Suleiman, somewhat disconcerted, enquired how that was, to which Ibrahim gave the following courtly answer: “O my Padisha, my wedding was honored by the presence of Suleiman, Lord of the Age, firm Rampart of Islam, Possessor of Mecca and Medina, Lord of Damascus and Egypt, Caliph of the Lofty Threshold, and Lord of the Residence of the Pleiades: but to your festival, who was there of equally exalted rank who might come?” The padisha, greatly delighted, said, “A thousand bravas to thee, Ibrahim, who hast explained it so satisfactorily.”
Of Ibrahim’s relations to the sultan a good deal has been said. He was brought up in close contact with his master, eating and sleeping with him. They often changed garments and Ibrahim told an Austrian ambassador that the sultan never ordered garments for himself without ordering the same for his favorite. The Venetians spoke of seeing the two friends taking pleasure rides together in a cäique, and visiting what shores they pleased.
Ibrahim was said to exert such an influence on the sultan that the latter could deny him nothing, and from the time that he became grand vizir, he almost took over the sovereignty of the land: as von Hammer says, “from this time he divided the absolute power with Suleiman”. In becoming grand vizir and presiding over the divan, Ibrahim occupied the highest position open to any except a member of the imperial Ottoman family. Here the romantic story of his rise merges into the account of his public career, and this in its turn is a part of Turkish and South European history.