He also garbed in caftans[24] in the Imperial presence those whom the sultan would thus honor. Another curious duty was the following: whenever the sultan had his head shaved, and the personal attendants stood in order before him; their hands crossed respectfully over their girdles, the khass‐oda‐bashi placed himself several steps from the sofa, on which the sultan sat, his right hand resting on a baton chased with gold and silver. The white eunuchs lodged behind the third gate of the palace, the Bab‐el‐saadet, or Gate of Felicity. D’Ohsson states:[25] “The seraglio is their prison and their tomb; they are never permitted to absent themselves. The white eunuchs have no other prospect than the post of Commandant of the school of pages at Galata.”
It would seem that Ibrahim must have been a eunuch. Daniele Barbarigo states it flatly[26] and the office of khass‐oda‐bashi, according to D’Ohsson, was held only by eunuchs. Furthermore Solakzadeh speaks of Ibrahim’s being called from the Imperial harem to the grand vizirate, and all the officials of the harem were necessarily eunuchs. But to Ibrahim the seraglio was neither a prison nor a tomb. He went freely about the city, and his rise was not at all impeded by what generally proved a fatal limitation. Other eunuchs have also overcome their limitations, for D’Ohsson mentions four eunuchs, kizlar aghas, who became grand vizirs. Another very distinguished eunuch, Ghazanber Agha, a Hungarian prisoner‐of‐war, in childhood was educated as a page in the serai, became a Mahommedan and, because Selim II, the son and successor of Suleiman the Magnificent, wanted him about his person, he voluntarily submitted to castration, in order to enter the corps of white eunuchs. His office was capou agha (captain of the gate) which he held for thirty years, and raised to a very great importance.
That Ibrahim married need not astonish us, for marriages arranged with eunuchs by fathers of many daughters were not uncommon. Sometimes a sultana was married to a eunuch for his fortune, in which case he generally died soon after his marriage; sometimes no other suitable husband being found for her, she was given to a eunuch of high rank. In stories we occasionally read of a father who marries his daughter to a eunuch as a punishment. Ibrahim probably married a sultana, which curiously enough would be a more natural marriage than with a woman of lower rank, for it has never been deemed advisable that the daughters of sultans should have male children, and if such were born, they were condemned to immediate death by the omission to knot the umbilical cord. This measure became a law in the reign of Ahmed I,[27] with the idea of saving the country from the civil war of rival princes of the blood, but was probably a custom long before it was legalized. Therefore Suleiman may have thought that the marriage of his relative to a man of Ibrahim’s position, fortune, and charm, was a happy fate for a princess who might not hope to be a mother.
We have seen that the fact that Ibrahim was a Greek, and a Christian by birth, was no barrier to his rise, so long as he adopted Islam. Many of the great officials of Turkey were of Christian extraction; as for instance, the two men who succeeded Ibrahim Pasha as Grand Vizirs, Rustem Pasha and Mehmet Sokolli, considered the greatest of Turkish vizirs and both Croats by birth. Furthermore his humble family was no obstacle, for in Turkey it has always been possible for a bootblack or a grocer to rise to the highest position, if good fortune or marked ability led him thither.
Ibrahim suffered from still another disability, as we in the Occident would consider it: he was a slave. How did that affect his advancement? To understand the position of a slave in Turkey in the fifteenth century we must recognize at the outset the fact that Turkish slavery was quite different from that of the Occident, and so approach the subject free from our natural prejudice.
The only slavery sanctioned by Islam is that imposed on infidels as a result of supposed inferiority of race and religion,[28] and has never in fact included the rayahs (Christian subjects) but only prisoners of war. The rayah might not be enslaved but neither might he hold slaves, except in very rare instances before 1759, and not at all after that date.[29]
There were two kinds of legal slaves, those made by capture in war, and those by birth. Slaves by purchase, taken from Africa and the Caucasus, were not recognized by law, but nevertheless such slavery existed.[30] Brigands also seized foreigners from time to time and sold them as slaves. Prisoners of war lost their civil liberty according to Islamic law. The Prophet repeatedly enjoins their destruction.[31] According to the Turkish code, the sovereign might perpetuate their captivity, or free them to pay tribute, or cause them to be slaughtered, if more expedient. The exceptions to this law were the cases of any orthodox Moslems who might fall into Turkish power, and the case of the Tatars of the Crimea, who were Shiites, or heretic Moslems, and who were enslaved.[32]
Prisoners of war formed two classes of slaves, prisoners of the state, and private slaves. To the first class belonged all soldiers and officers, and a fifth of the rest of the slaves, or their value. Of these some were exchanged or resold after the peace, others were employed in the Serai or given away. Some were handed over to public works, especially to the admiralty, where they were confounded with criminals and condemned to hard labor. To the second class belonged all the prisoners not given to the sultan, including those captured by the soldiers. These were generally sold. Merchants would purchase them in the camps, and sell them all over the Empire. These slaves taken in war were far the greater number of slaves in the Empire; many were enfranchised before they had children, and children of one free and one slave parent were themselves born free. The adoption of Islam after captivity did not free the slave.
The power of the master was absolute over the person, children and property of his slaves. He might sell, give, or bequeath them, but he might not kill them without some reason. As a corollary of this power, the master had full responsibility for his slave; he must support him, pay his debts, stand behind him in any civil affair, and give consent to his holding of property. A slave might not act as a witness nor as a guardian. He was entirely dependent on his master.
Thus far the theory is not unlike that of the West, but there were two facts which changed the entire situation. The first was the brevity of time of enslavement in most cases; the second was the absence of odium attached to the position of a slave. In regard to the first fact, it was not considered humane to keep persons long in slavery, and it was a general rule to enfranchise them either before their marriage or on their coming of age, or when they had served sufficiently long. Enfranchisement is a voluntary and private act by which the patron frees his slave from the bonds of servitude and puts him into the free class.[33] It is also considered by the Turk to be a noble action, one especially befitting a dying man, who often frees his slaves in his testament. The enfranchisement of slaves was regarded by the Moslem as the highest act of virtue.[34] A less disinterested form of enfranchisement has a pecuniary inducement, the slave buying his freedom from his master.[35]