Ishak Pasha

In this Ottoman Turkish style name, the given name is Ishak, the title is Pasha, and there is no family name.

Ishak Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: إسحق پاشا, Turkish: İshak Paşa; fl. 1444 – died 30 January 1487) was an Ottoman general, statesman, and later Grand Vizier of Albanian or Greek origins.^[1]

Ishak Pasha
15th Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office 1469–1472
Monarch	Mehmed II
Preceded by	Rum Mehmed Pasha
Succeeded by	Mahmud Pasha Angelovic
In office 1481–1482
Monarch	Bayezid II
Preceded by	Karamanlı Mehmet Pasha
Succeeded by	Koca Davud Pasha
Personal details
Died	30 January 1487 Thessaloniki, Ottoman Empire
Nationality	Ottoman
Spouse	Hatice Hatun
Military service
Allegiance	Ottoman Empire

Origin

Turkish orientalist Halil Inalcik believed that the figure of Ishak Pasha stemmed from confusion among several Ottoman Ishak Pashas (particularly Ishak bin Abdullah and Ishak bin Ibrahim) and Ishak Bey, but according to him, Ishak Pasha was Greek or of Croatian origins.^[2] According to German orientalist Franz Babinger (1891–1967) he was a convert of Orthodox Albanian or Greek origin.^[3] Jean-Claude Faveyrial stata that Ishak Pasha was Albanian.^[4]

Career

Сirca 1451, Ishak Pasha was appointed as the beylerbey (provincial governor) of Anatolia; the same year, the newly ascended Sultan Mehmed II forced him to marry Hatice Hatun, one of his father Sultan Murad II's widowed consorts. They had eight children, five sons named Halil Bey, Şadi Bey, Mustafa Çelebi, Piri Çelebi and Ibrahim Bey, and three daughters named Hafsa Hatun, Fahrünnisa Hatun and Şahzade Hatun.^[5][6][7][8]

His first term as a Grand Vizier was during the reign of Mehmed II. During this term, he transferred Oghuz Turk people from their Anatolian city of Aksaray to newly conquered Constantinople in order to populate the city, which had lost a portion of its former population prior to the 1453 conquest. The quarter of the city where the migrants were settled is now called Aksaray.^[9]

His second term was during the reign of Sultan Bayezid II. He died on 30 January 1487 in Thessaloniki.^[8]

In popular culture

• Alev Elmas played Ishak Pasha in the 1951 film, İstanbul'un Fethi.^[10]
• Ishak Pasha is referenced in the 2011 video game Assassin's Creed: Revelations, as the former Mentor of the Assassin Brotherhood in the Ottoman Empire, in which his armor was hidden underneath the Hagia Sophia, and is later recovered by the protagonist Ezio Auditore da Firenze by collecting his Memoir Pages scattered around Constantinople.^[11][12] Assassin's Creed Rebellion, a free-to-play mobile game, further details his story during the Spanish Inquisition as he and his apprentice Yusuf Tazim search for Niccolo Polo's journal in 1495 (which contradicts historical records of Ishak Pasha's death in 1487).
• Yılmaz Babatürk portrayed Ishak Pasha in the 2012 film, Fetih 1453.

See also

• Ishak Pasha Palace
• List of Ottoman grand viziers

References

1. Radushev, Evg (2003). Ivanova, Svetlana; Kovachev, Rumen (eds.). Inventory of Ottoman Turkish documents about Waqf preserved in the Oriental Department at the St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library. Narodna biblioteka "Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodiĭ". p. 228. ISBN 9789545230721.
2. Stavrides, Théoharis (2001). The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović (1453-1474). Brill Publishers. p. 64. ISBN 978-90-04-12106-5. There is considerable confusion regarding Ishak Pasha [...] Ishak Pasha was of Greek or Croatian origins
3. Babinger, Franz (1992) [1978]. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Bollingen Series 96. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. Edited, with a preface, by William C. Hickman. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 14. ISBN 0-691-09900-6. OCLC 716361786.
4. Faveyrial, Jean-Claude (1888). Elsie, Robert (ed.). Histoire de l'Albanie (PDF) (in French). House of the Lazarite Missionaries in Paris. p. 215. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2015.
5. Freely, John (February 28, 2009). The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople, Master of an Empire and Lord of Two Seas. I.B.Tauris. p. 288. ISBN 978-0-857-73022-0.
6. Thatcher, Bruce D. (25 June 2011). Adamant Aggressors: How to Recognize and Deal with Them. Xlibris Corporation. p. 353. ISBN 978-1-462-89195-5.
7. Babinger, Franz (1992) [1978]. Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Bollingen Series 96. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim. Edited, with a preface, by William C. Hickman. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. p. 549. ISBN 0-691-09900-6. OCLC 716361786.
8. "İSHAK PAŞA KÜLLİYESİ: İnegöl'de XV. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında inşa edilen bir külliye". İslam Ansiklopedisi. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
9. Buz, Ayhan (2009). Osmanlı Sadrazamları. İstanbul: Neden Kitap. p. 22. ISBN 978-975-254-278-5.
10. Yüksel, Ahmet (2009). "Türk Sinemasında Tarihsel Filmler ve Bir Şair, İki Yönetmen" (PDF). In Tanyer, Turan (ed.). İnsan Bilimleri İçin Kaynak Araştırmaları Dergisi (PDF). pp. 251–290. ISSN 1300-2864. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
11. Reparaz, Mikel (12 April 2017). "Assassin's Creed Revelations Data Fragments and Ishak Pasha's Memoir Pages guide". Games Radar. Future Publishing Limited Quay House. Retrieved 27 April 2018.
12. "Ishak Pasha's Memoir Pages". IGN. Ziff Davis, LLC. 28 February 2012. Retrieved 27 April 2018.

Further reading

• Danişmend, İsmail Hâmi (1961), Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı, İstanbul:Türkiye Yayınevi.
• Tektaş, Nazım (2002), Sadrazamlar-Osmanlı'da İkinci Adam Saltanatı, İstanbul:Çatı Kitapları.

Political offices
Preceded by Rum Mehmed Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 1469–1472	Succeeded by Mahmud Pasha Angelovic
Preceded by Karamanlı Mehmet Pasha	Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire 1481–1482	Succeeded by Koca Davud Pasha