Seytan Murad Pasha Explained

Murad Pasha
Office1:Beylerbey of Damascus
Term Start1:1568
Term End1:1570
Predecessor1:Lala Mustafa Pasha
Successor1:Ali Pasha Lankun
Death Date:1570
Death Place:Damascus, Ottoman Empire
Burial Place:Murat Pasha Mosque and Mausoleum, Damascus
Nationality:Ottoman

Şeytan Murad Pasha (Arabic romanization Murad Pasha al-Shaytan), also known as Kara Murad Pasha, was an Ottoman statesman. After serving stints as beylerbey (provincial governor) of Lahsa, Basra and Shahrizor, he served as governor of Damascus in 1568–1570. He may have been the Murad ibn Abdullah, sanjak-bey (district governor) of Pasin or Kayseri during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, credited by an inscription and the renovated the Haji Bektash Veli Complex.[1]

Murad Pasha was called Kara (Black) by the near contemporary historian İbrahim Peçevi, Şeytan (Devil) by the Ottoman historian Mehmed Sureyya and was known as "the great benefactor" by the 18th-century Damascene chronicler Ibn Jum'a. The contemporary historian Mustafa Âlî met Murad Pasha in Damascus and noted that he was mad and had become the object of ridicule of the Damascenes for keeping dolls representing certain viziers.

During his governorship of Damascus he built a mosque, which was also used a convent for the Naqshbandiyya, a Sufi order. It was situated at the square of Damascus where pilgrims assembled before embarking on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Murad Pasha died in Damascus in 1570 and was buried in a mausoleum building on the mosque's eastern side. The rooms surrounding the courtyard of the mosque were designated for housing the poor. It is called the Murad Pasha Mosque after him.

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Notes and References

  1. https://books.google.com/books?id=n7G_7Vbm6NkC&dq=%22Murad+the+Devil%22&pg=PT201 Architecture and Hagiography in the Ottoman Empire: The Politics of Bektashi Shrines in the Classical Age