Çelebi Ismail Pasha

{{Other people|Ismail Pasha|Ismail Pasha (disambiguation){{!}}Ismail Pasha}}

Çelebi Ismail Pasha (died November or December 1702) was an Ottoman statesman who held various administrative roles in his career as a high-level official in the Ottoman government.Süreyya, Bey Mehmet, Nuri Akbayar, and Seyit Ali. Kahraman. Sicill-i Osmanî. Beşiktaş, İstanbul: Kültür Bakanlığı Ile Türkiye Ekonomik Ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı'nın Ortak Yayınıdır, 1890. Print.{{cite book|author=Yılmaz Öztuna|title=Büyük Osmanlı Tarihi: Osmanlı Devleti'nin siyasî, medenî, kültür, teşkilât ve san'at tarihi|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pBGQMgAACAAJ|volume=10|year=1994|publisher=Ötüken Neşriyat A.S.|isbn=975-437-141-5|pages=412–416}}

He began his career as a soldier in the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army. He eventually became the agha (head) of the Janissaries in July or August 1692, holding the position until the end of that year or the next year (1693). He was described as "tall and handsome" and could not read or write.{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA58|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|pages=58–59}}

Ismail Pasha's was the Ottoman governor of:{{cite journal|last1=Holt|first1=P. M.|title=The beylicate in Ottoman Egypt during the seventeenth century|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies|volume=24|issue=2|year=2009|pages=227–229|issn=0041-977X|doi=10.1017/S0041977X00091424|s2cid=161154415 }}

Rumelia Eyalet (1685–?)
Sidon Eyalet (?–1689/90)
Karaman Eyalet (1689/90 – 1691/92)
Anatolia Eyalet (1691/92)
Damascus Eyalet (1692–1693)
Crete Eyalet (1693–1695)
Egypt Eyalet (Oct. 1695 – Sep. 1697)
Baghdad Eyalet (Oct./Nov. 1697 – 1699)
Van Eyalet (1699–1701)

As governor of Egypt

One of the first things that Ismail Pasha did after he was appointed the governor of Egypt and had arrived in Cairo in October 1695 was to reveal to the kaymakam (acting governor) Ibrahim Bey, who had occupied the position until Ismail Pasha's arrival in Egypt, that the sultan Mustafa II had ordered him to close the deficit in the Egypt provincial treasury by whatever means possible.{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA57|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|page=57}} He accomplished this by assigning a local Hasan Bey to do the job, who managed to break even and even create a surplus in the treasury.{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA61|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|page=61}} He also settled the accounts of his predecessor as governor, Hazinedar Moralı Ali Pasha, and after he had paid them, allowed him to return to Constantinople, the Ottoman capital.{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA68|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|page=68}}

Ismail Pasha had a taqiya (a worship building for dervishes) built in the Kara Meydan square of the Cairo Citadel, from which Ottoman governors ruled. In 1696, he organized an elaborate and massive celebration and feast for his sons, who were just circumcised, that lasted for 15 days.Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. Egypt's Adjustment to Ottoman Rule: Institutions, Waqf and Architecture in Cairo, 16th and 17th Centuries (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 65–6{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA64|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|pages=64–65}}

He was deposed by the local soldiers in September 1697, and the acting governor became Kesici Hasan Pasha. Ismail Pasha then headed an expedition to Baghdad.{{cite book|author1=Ahmad D. Damurdashi|author2=ʻAbd al-Wahhāb Bakr Muḥammad|title=Al-Damurdashi's Chronicle of Egypt, 1688-1755: Al-Durra Al-muṣāna Fī Akhbār Al-Kināna|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nnOHEYxc6PwC&pg=PA78|year=1991|publisher=BRILL|isbn=978-90-04-09408-6|page=78}} After this event, a local Arab source claims that the sultan then sent an order for Ismail Pasha's execution and that he defected to Persia to escape. However, another source, the 19th-century Ottoman Turkish historian Mehmet Süreyya Bey, claims that he became the Ottoman governor of Baghdad, and then of Van, and makes no mention of an execution order.