The View from the Bridge - Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City - page 11

of the seventeenth century, 100 years after the death of Süleyman.
But by that time signs of decadence were already apparent in the
Empire. During the century after Süleyman the Ottoman armies and
navies sufered several defeats, and territory was lost in Transylvania,
Hungary and Persia. There were also symptoms of decay within the
Empire, whose subjects, both Muslims and Christians, were sufering
from the maladministration and corruption which had spread to all
levels of the government. One of the principal causes of this decay
was to be found in the Sultanate itself, for the successors of Süleyman
ceased to lead their armies in the field, preferring to spend their
time with their women in the Harem. By the end of the sixteenth
century the Empire was literally ruled by these women, the mothers
of the sultans or their favourite concubines, who ran the country to
satisfy their own personal ends, to its great detriment. The situation
seemed to improve for a time during the reign of Sultan Murat IV,
who ruled from 1623 till 1640. The young Sultan, who was only
14 when he ascended the throne, proved to be a strong and able
ruler and checked for a time the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
He was the first sultan since Süleyman to lead his army in battle
and was victorious in several campaigns, climaxed by the recapture of
Baghdad in 1638. But Murat's untimely death at the age of 30 ended
this brief revival of the old martial Ottoman spirit, and after his reign
the decay proceeded even more rapidly than before.
Nevertheless, the Ottoman Empire was still vast and prosperous
and some of its institutions remained basically sound, so that it held
together for centuries after it had passed its prime. And although
the Ottoman armies sufered one defeat after another in the Balkans,
Istanbul was little afected, for the frontiers were far away and wealth
continued to pour into the capital. Members of the royal family and
the great and wealthy men and women of the Empire continued to
adorn the city with splendid mosques and pious foundations, while
the Sultan continued to take his pleasure in the Harem.
But by the end of the eighteenth century the fortunes of the
Empire had declined to the point where its basic problems could
no longer be ignored, not even in the palace. The Empire gave up
large portions of its Balkan territories in humiliating peace treaties