Ishak Pasha


Ishak Pasha was an Ottoman general, statesman, and later Ottoman Empire|grand vizier].

Origin

Turkish orientalist Halil Inalcik believed that the figure of Ishak Pasha stemmed from confusion among several Ottoman Ishak Pashas and Ishak Beys. Theoharis Stavrides concluded that there are indications that the Grand Visier was Ishak bin Ibrahim, who was of Anatolian Turkish origin. According to German orientalist Franz Babinger he probably was a convert of Orthodox Greek origin. Jean-Claude Faveyrial states that Ishak Pasha was Albanian. Some claimed he may have been of Croatian origin

Career

Сirca 1451, Ishak Pasha was appointed as the beylerbey 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.
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.
His second term was during the reign of Sultan Bayezid II. He died on 30 January 1487 in Thessaloniki.

In popular culture