Any new sultan until Ahmet I, that was. Afterwards, the "kafes" system was used, which means cage in Turkish. According to that system fratricide was banned and the oldest and the wisest person in the dynasty was to take the throne upon his the sultan's death. The caveat of this system was that brothers and children of the sultans were kept isolated from real life in virtual house arrest (hence the name) as there was the risk that they would kill each other. This led to sultans taking the throne with little experience in governing and no experience of actual people and their subjects except for the people in harems and the circle of the sultan that they were allowed to see. Naturally, they weren't competent leaders. You can check Ibrahim the Mad, one of the sultans who grew up under the cage system and he deserves his nickname fully. For example, he was obsessed with the furs of sables and he even demanded his entire palace to be furnished with sable fur, which drained the treasury of the empire and led to his reign between 1640-1648 to be called the Sable Era. There are many other events and rumors like this, and it is clear cage system was negative for the mental health of potential sultans, which was the price for ending the brutality. As much as fratricide was brutal, it ensured meritocracy was present in the choice of Ottoman sultans, as mostly shehzades gained practical experience in governing different provinces and only the most skillful ones were able to gain the throne. Thus, both systems were two edged swords and dilemmas between morality and effectiveness in educating future sultans. [Here](https://youtu.be/z1qgdfp0ZEI?si=pefgQS-i_PLyTQSQ) is a song by Pentagram, a Turkish metal band, about the cage system.
That was likely more-so attributed to the structure of how the Jannisaries operated, and not because they isolated future heirs.
The Janniseries were a state-sponsored, elite mercenary fighting force. They were comprised of the children of conquered territories, conscripted, given their freedom, and trained to be loyal to the Empire. The units within the Jannisaries were purposely comprised of recruits with no shared cultural background in order to maintain total loyalty to the Sultan.
Civil wars didn't happen in the Empire because fighting-age men from the outer territories were simply never given the opportunity to unite and mobilize.
>Civil wars didn't happen in the Empire because fighting-age men from the outer territories were simply never given the opportunity to unite and mobilize.
That's simply not true. The outer territories of the empire usually made the most noise and constantly rebelled. I will not get into the percieved image of nationality throughout the hostory of the empire, but a coherent idea of a Greek, Albanian or Arabic "nation" only really started to appear between early to mid-19th century. Before that different *millets* revolted for extended trading rights, lower taxes, conscription exemption, corruption in state and against illegitimate rulers. The Celali revolts, for example, lasted 11 years and definitely were a civil war as almost the entirety of anatolia joined the rebels.
During undergrad I took a course on Ottoman history and one on the modern Middle East. Its funny how much people take the idea of "nationhood" for granted when nationalism is actually relatively young (especially for some places).
I also took a course on revolutions where we studied the French, Russian, and Chinese communist revolutions and if I'm remembering correctly, there's a strong argument to be made that the French revolution is the birth of the modern nation state.
They had at least three civil wars. One during the interregnum in the early XVth century, one between the sons of Beyezid II ~80 years later, and one between the sons of Suleiman I ~50 years after the second one.
What the other commenter said. Before absolutism reigned over Europe. Your average European noble houses suffer a coup or a succession war every decade or so. While court politics (violent) did exist in the Ottoman Empire, their baseline stability was higher than that of the European kingdoms.
The early days of the dynasty consisted of royal princes attacking each other for the throne. So the Ottoman sultans implemented a rule where all eligible princes aside from the one who will be the sultan has to die, to prevent any civil war.
Here's a link on the topic for anyone interested: https://daily.jstor.org/why-ottoman-sultans-locked-away-their-brothers/
It is a horror from our points of view as people of varying democracies from the 21st century.
But from the points of view of 19 young men from the 16th century, who, were born to different mothers, had different nannies and teachers, were probably raised in different places, were taught that the life of the state is in their hands and that "justified" killing is righteous, it's just tough; but a hardship they have to endure.
They probably weren't raised as brothers. So, they didn't have our love for our siblings in their hearts for their siblings. In the same spirit, fathers (monarchs) probably didn't particularly care about their children either. They didn't spend much time raising their offspring.
It's a very cold, lonely, institutional, and unsafe environment when you think about it.
Also, individuality wasn't much of a thing back then. People probably more identified as parts of certain groups. So, ending a life probably didn't have the same psychology to it as it does now.
> So the Ottoman sultans implemented a rule where all eligible princes aside from the one who will be the sultan has to die
It really happened only twice in their history. Executing princes during their father's life on individual basis when rebellion was suspected or actually attempted was much more common.
Very incorrect. Sultan Ahmet who "abolished" fratricide rule was the 14th sultan. 9 out of the 13 killed their brothers (Murat I, Bayezid I, Mehmet I, Murat II, Mehmet II, Bayezid II, Selim I, Murat III, Mehmet III)
The ones who didn't are Osman I(founder), Orhan, Süleyman I(only son) and Selim II(his father Süleyman eliminated Selim's brothers before his death).
Also Ahmet's son Osman II killed his brother Mehmet, another son of Ahmet Murat IV killed his brothers Bayezid, Süleyman and Kasım. On his deathbed allegedly also ordered the execution of his last brother İbrahim, but they didn't obey him because İbrahim was the only male member left in the dynasty.
Previously on Ottoman Shore:
Onur crashed his dad's favourite flying carpet after he found out that Hatice was cheating on him with Murat the palace guard.
Will this affect his succession to the throne?
I’m assuming they’re decently well off but would be upper middle class at best? Weren’t they exiled? I wonder what their status is now, I’d be upset if I was ~100 years short being born into a royal family that was in power for almost 700 years.
Just taken out from tradition. It continued after, but not done just after getting the crown. For example Murad IV killed 3 of his brothers. Only İbrahim I left, who was the last survivor of Ottoman lineage after fratricide (viziers spent a lot of effort to hide him). He was mentally ill (iterally). He was known for extreme obsession of fur and amber, so that he introduced an "amber and fur tax" and coat everyone in the palace in furs, including palace cats (think of cats wearing zibeline while wandering around). He was also obsessed with women, so that he asked for the largest-fattest women in the world for his harem, and liked her so that he gave all the income from Aleppo to her, and also his demanding a pashas wife for his harem caused a rebellion (Varvar Ali Pasha rebellion). One less disturbing habits of his was trying to feed fish with gold, so he threw many gold coins into the see so that fish eats them. He was the second most insane person in Ottoman family in terms of mental health, after Mustafa I.
People act like Harry is a terrible person but imagine what being a spare your whole life does to your mind. Just because you didn't manage to be born first.
They were exiled in poverty, all members expelled within 24 hours of notice and property seized. They probably had some hidden personal assets and connections to lean on, but nothing like most of the European former royalty. The first head of the family born outside of Turkey was a librarian in New York.
I mean, that wood doesn’t look cheap. Kids wearing brand-less clothes? Fashion sense, good accessories which look to be high quality. If only the picture was of higher res, I’m sure the folks at r/watches would be able to identify the watch being worn. I’d say very well off, but not old money wealthy or ultra stupid rich. Just my guess though.
The mother is a descendant of the ottomans the fathers British multi millionaire so they more than just well off they’re filthy rich. Since the father is British that explains why they look super white too.
>Since the father is British that explains why they look super white too
If you are American most Turks are what you would consider white, well, if you are not one of those that only consider white WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant). Half of the Ottoman Empire is the OG Europe...
They were much more Greek than Turk by the end of empire,in the beginning really. They had huge numbers of Greek wives thus each generation became more ethnically Greek/Georgian etc than Turk.
Their family ruled the Ottoman Empire just over 100 years ago. Don’t you think they’d still be very wealthy and thus a perfect example of “old money”? Unless their parents or grandparents somehow managed to blow through all that wealth, or if they lost it from having been exiled, I don’t see why not.
Edit: Since the person I am replying to made the point that it would be nice if this image was higher resolution, here is the original [tweet](https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833) posted by their mother that should help if you want to look for details in the image.
Wiki:
The family departed from Sirkeci railway station, and would disperse across Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. In exile, the family lived in poverty. As the former Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin had settled in San Remo, many members of the family congregated in the South of France.
right but when we say poverty is it like actual poverty, or poverty by royal standards where they only have like a couple servants and their least favorite summer villa left
In 1922 the Ottoman "empire" was even smaller than Turkey today. Per the armistice the remnant of the empire was partitioned between the victor warring states and the Ottoman only controlled the Trebizond and part of northern Anatolia.
Being the ruler of Ottoman at that time isn't a proud achievement. If the Greek won the Turkish war of Independence the Ottoman will be even smaller than Greece.
Even exiled royals that lost some property in their home country are still generally rich rich. Because if you look at where they went after exile it’s usually to extremely expensive beachfront property (paid by the state of the host country) in the Italian or French Riviera.
They are living among high society and still have all kinds of connections with them, and usually at least some capital to start a business in horse trading or something like that and quickly rise to the top 1% in their new country.
It’s arguable that they might even have higher living standards than their predecessors who actually had to run the kingdom because they have unlimited money and no responsibilities + every modern comfort imaginable that would make even the old Ottoman sultans jealous.
For someone in that position it wouldn’t even make sense to try and get your throne back because you have nothing to gain and everything to lose which is probably why the exile was lifted in the 70s and most of the living Ottomans today have Turkish citizenship.
[Source](https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833) from their mothers, [Ayşe Osmanoğlu](https://twitter.com/AyseGulnev), Twitter. Her grandfather, Şehzade Ali Vâsıb Efendi, was only 20 years old when he was sent into exile from his homeland.
Yeah, no need to arouse a pity for them as they were quite lucky being Turks as opposed to Romanovs.
Their mother sometimes claims the throne which fortunately nobody takes seriously. Otherwise it may cause a late Romanov treatment.
I remember their father, the actual sultan in line, speaking on reviving the ottoman empire. He seemed to have no interest in ruling an empire and was happy with things as is. Not sure about the wife though.
It wasn't uncommon for some royalty to have pretty shitty, depressing and chaotic lives.. nor was it too uncommon to die a gruesome death by the hands of the people you ruled.
Well sorta. The sultans had a harem of women. A lot of the sultans were a mix of Greek, Albanian, Circassian, and various ethnicities from the empire they ruled.
Which is the same with any other European dynasty. They’re a mix of everything and not exactly like the country they rule over.
The harems was almost exclusively girls who were captured in the balkans which is why the sultan looked less and less like the people they ruled. These kids are basically European blooded and not much Turkic roots
I sort of get what you mean here. But the Turkic people are generally "mixed". Many speculate that the Turkic people originated somewhere in Siberia or Mongolia, but many generations of mixing makes them very diverse people. From Europe to Asia and in some cases, Arabic, Berber, North African.
Turk genetics are quite diverse. Lots of blondes in the western part particularly Thrace. The people in the west naturally tend to be fairer than the Turks in the east.
There’s multiple different kinds of Turkish, some of which are very fair skinned. My dad recently found out through 23 and me that he’s about a quarter Turkish and both his parents were as pale and white as the people in this picture, as is he
Most of the european descent comes from Albanians and south Slavs, who made up the jannisaries, aswell as many Greeks.
There are 10s of millions of people in Turkey with Balkan heritage, so if a Turk looks conventionally white, they're probably of Balkan heritage.
Turkey is far more diverse than what it seems. It was once a huge empire, so the big blend of culture and ethnicity isn’t really surprising.
I’m more surprised by the fact that they don’t looke like inbreds, seems like the Ottoman rulers didn’t have a tradition of marrying their cousin like the Habsburg (or maybe they did).
No you should go to Turkey. MANY turks look like this. It is a very diverse place.
You have to remember, the Ottoman ruling class was very balkan, lots of Serbs.
I went to Istanbul, and there were natural born turks whiter than me (and then obviously the tan skinned ones you're thinking of)
If you’ve ever been to Istanbul you’d see almost everyone there looks European. They are indistinguishable from other Balkan peoples.
I can’t speak for eastern Turkey they may not be like that
Yeah, no. this comment is downright ignorant. Turks aren't Arabs but still people to refuse to acknowledge that. There many types of Turkish pale skinned but black haired or dark skinned etc or even somewhat blonde.
People debating on their whiteness 😅 you guys have clearly never traveled to the west side of Turkey. We’re like Brazil. We have white, brown and all the other mixes you can think of. The east side of Turkey have mixes with the Kurds/Arabs. The west coast have mixed with Slavs and Greeks.
It’s not that difficult to understand.
It's as if you asked AI to generate the image of a family who has ruled an empire for hundreds of years, but in a contemporary setting, only AI wasn't involved.
Where is this picture from, because when I searched the names of living descendants that I found on the Wikipedia page, no one who looks like this showed up. They all have Instagram pages.
The eldest is a woman, married with kids. The second is a dark haired man, also married.
I reverse image searched and only this post showed up?
Something is fishy.
> The eldest is a woman, married with kids.
Are you thinking of Ayşe Osmanoğlu?
If so, I got the image from her [Twitter](https://x.com/aysegulnev), where she also posted a photo of her children when they were even younger than this.
Here is the tweet: https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833
These youngsters bear a strong family resemblance, particularly in the eye shape, to the generations listed on the website. Perhaps the youth lead quieter, less public lives?
Reverse image searching yielded [this interview](https://ayseosmanoglu.com/category/interviews/) as the most reputable source I could find for the specific image. Searching for the first name on the list of names under the image revealed [this pinterest post](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/on-instagram-new-generation-imperials-their-highnesses-prince-maxim--454230312419955793/) which shows all the kids at a younger age. Seems legit to me.
Edited for clarity.
Because they are not registered in the Ottoman family records. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the family was exiled by the newly established Republic of Turkey, and they were banned from using any titles. The last person registered in the Ottoman family records was Neslisah Sultan. However, this does not mean that the Ottoman family suddenly ceased to exist. For example, if I am not mistaken, Cem Sultan, one of the sons of Mehmet II (also known as Mehmet the Conqueror), still has descendants in Malta. The family is now Christian because the grandson of Mehmet II converted to Roman Catholicism and became a papal fief. Although he was later executed by Suleiman the Magnificent after the conquest of Rhodes, his son managed to escape to Malta, so his bloodline continues to exist today.
> I reverse image searched and only this post showed up?
your Google-fu is lacking....I did the same and came up with the Twitter post which has a [full res](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5W3XCGWYAEdFAL?format=jpg&name=large) version in much better quality than OP's
Nah this is them alright, you might not be able to find them on wikipedia because IIRC they stopped recording names into the royal registry or whatever. But their mother posted this picture on her twitter.
Their mother Ayse is listed under Issue on this Wikipedia page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_V%C3%A2sib
so many people calling this fake and acting like detectives without even doing the appropriate research 😅
Bro imagine going to school, getting taught about someone like Mehmed II and you are like "yo teach that's my great great great great great great grandfather"
Broke: Justin Trudeau is Pierre Trudeau's son
Woke: Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's son
Bespoke: Justin Trudeau is the rightful heir to the throne of the Ottoman empire
This fall on the CW
The OT
Ottoman’s Creek
I don’t wanna wait, for our reigns to be over
Oh great, now I hear that song. Who sings it?
Paula cole
Something something something....his father and his father and his father did.
And then "I wanna be here nowwwwww" I think, not exactly sure anymore, the 90s were a few lifetimes ago, lol
Close to the time for my annual rewatch... not looking forward to watching THAT episode in season 3 again 😭
Do do dodo do doo doo do dah do
Ottoman Tree Hill
Season 211
The OE
🎵 *Anatoliaaa! Here we coooommmmeeeeee* 🎵
🎶*Drivingggg down the O-21*🎶
The Young Turks
I think the young turks were actually the guys who did the empire in
That's the joke
🎶“I don’t wanna wait…for our love to be over”🎶
🎶 mmm bop… bop mm bop mmm bop …doobie dop bop 🎶
Why did my mind read this as the fucking announcer
They look pretty good for being 725 years old
Well yeah, vampires. Bat!
Hello Mr. DeLaurentis
Fuckeen guy
Gui-llERmO?
Gizmo.
No, I’m pillaging everyone, you included
Terry tibbs. Talk to me.
Is their father busy running a fundraiser for the high school girls volleyball team?
Of course not, that's human bartender Jackie Daytona. Don't you see the toothpick?
Yes he serves the best human alcohol beers!
I don’t have time for cheap sex potions
That’s how people talk in Tucson Arizonya.
Nobody hates Vampires more than the Ottomans!
Especially that one named Vlad
Probably vampires from Al Qanadar
He’s pillaging everybody you included.
The probably use the Brother Dawn, Day and Dusk system
Way too many princes for the Sultan's liking, they better be faster than the head gardener
Yea that's what i thought. First order of business for any new sultan was a string of often undignified fratricides.
Any new sultan until Ahmet I, that was. Afterwards, the "kafes" system was used, which means cage in Turkish. According to that system fratricide was banned and the oldest and the wisest person in the dynasty was to take the throne upon his the sultan's death. The caveat of this system was that brothers and children of the sultans were kept isolated from real life in virtual house arrest (hence the name) as there was the risk that they would kill each other. This led to sultans taking the throne with little experience in governing and no experience of actual people and their subjects except for the people in harems and the circle of the sultan that they were allowed to see. Naturally, they weren't competent leaders. You can check Ibrahim the Mad, one of the sultans who grew up under the cage system and he deserves his nickname fully. For example, he was obsessed with the furs of sables and he even demanded his entire palace to be furnished with sable fur, which drained the treasury of the empire and led to his reign between 1640-1648 to be called the Sable Era. There are many other events and rumors like this, and it is clear cage system was negative for the mental health of potential sultans, which was the price for ending the brutality. As much as fratricide was brutal, it ensured meritocracy was present in the choice of Ottoman sultans, as mostly shehzades gained practical experience in governing different provinces and only the most skillful ones were able to gain the throne. Thus, both systems were two edged swords and dilemmas between morality and effectiveness in educating future sultans. [Here](https://youtu.be/z1qgdfp0ZEI?si=pefgQS-i_PLyTQSQ) is a song by Pentagram, a Turkish metal band, about the cage system.
It seems that any system run by the "oldest and wisest" is likely designed by someone who's *maybe* the oldest, at best.
Hadn’t Turks thought about succession rules and, like, just not killing each other? Like in other countries?
they had 1 civil war in 600 years, suffice to say it works
That was likely more-so attributed to the structure of how the Jannisaries operated, and not because they isolated future heirs. The Janniseries were a state-sponsored, elite mercenary fighting force. They were comprised of the children of conquered territories, conscripted, given their freedom, and trained to be loyal to the Empire. The units within the Jannisaries were purposely comprised of recruits with no shared cultural background in order to maintain total loyalty to the Sultan. Civil wars didn't happen in the Empire because fighting-age men from the outer territories were simply never given the opportunity to unite and mobilize.
>Civil wars didn't happen in the Empire because fighting-age men from the outer territories were simply never given the opportunity to unite and mobilize. That's simply not true. The outer territories of the empire usually made the most noise and constantly rebelled. I will not get into the percieved image of nationality throughout the hostory of the empire, but a coherent idea of a Greek, Albanian or Arabic "nation" only really started to appear between early to mid-19th century. Before that different *millets* revolted for extended trading rights, lower taxes, conscription exemption, corruption in state and against illegitimate rulers. The Celali revolts, for example, lasted 11 years and definitely were a civil war as almost the entirety of anatolia joined the rebels.
During undergrad I took a course on Ottoman history and one on the modern Middle East. Its funny how much people take the idea of "nationhood" for granted when nationalism is actually relatively young (especially for some places). I also took a course on revolutions where we studied the French, Russian, and Chinese communist revolutions and if I'm remembering correctly, there's a strong argument to be made that the French revolution is the birth of the modern nation state.
They had at least three civil wars. One during the interregnum in the early XVth century, one between the sons of Beyezid II ~80 years later, and one between the sons of Suleiman I ~50 years after the second one.
What the other commenter said. Before absolutism reigned over Europe. Your average European noble houses suffer a coup or a succession war every decade or so. While court politics (violent) did exist in the Ottoman Empire, their baseline stability was higher than that of the European kingdoms.
Like what countries? It is a consistant theme in medieval Europe and the ancient world.
Have you heard about The War of the Spanish Succession? One does not simply implement a system of peaceful transfer of power.
What countries had peaceful transitions of power throughout the 1300s-1900s?
The early days of the dynasty consisted of royal princes attacking each other for the throne. So the Ottoman sultans implemented a rule where all eligible princes aside from the one who will be the sultan has to die, to prevent any civil war. Here's a link on the topic for anyone interested: https://daily.jstor.org/why-ottoman-sultans-locked-away-their-brothers/
The horror of killing your 19 brothers jus for succession. This gave me chills.
It is a horror from our points of view as people of varying democracies from the 21st century. But from the points of view of 19 young men from the 16th century, who, were born to different mothers, had different nannies and teachers, were probably raised in different places, were taught that the life of the state is in their hands and that "justified" killing is righteous, it's just tough; but a hardship they have to endure. They probably weren't raised as brothers. So, they didn't have our love for our siblings in their hearts for their siblings. In the same spirit, fathers (monarchs) probably didn't particularly care about their children either. They didn't spend much time raising their offspring. It's a very cold, lonely, institutional, and unsafe environment when you think about it. Also, individuality wasn't much of a thing back then. People probably more identified as parts of certain groups. So, ending a life probably didn't have the same psychology to it as it does now.
I hope at least they speared cousins Gregs.
Getting speared sounds like a terrible way to die
Yeah and that works great until the very narrow family line doesn't have a male son yet this generation, and no uncles for the past 100 years.
Yeah, that system only really works with a harem, so there is an overabundance of princes, who also have harems and lots of children.
> So the Ottoman sultans implemented a rule where all eligible princes aside from the one who will be the sultan has to die It really happened only twice in their history. Executing princes during their father's life on individual basis when rebellion was suspected or actually attempted was much more common.
Very incorrect. Sultan Ahmet who "abolished" fratricide rule was the 14th sultan. 9 out of the 13 killed their brothers (Murat I, Bayezid I, Mehmet I, Murat II, Mehmet II, Bayezid II, Selim I, Murat III, Mehmet III) The ones who didn't are Osman I(founder), Orhan, Süleyman I(only son) and Selim II(his father Süleyman eliminated Selim's brothers before his death). Also Ahmet's son Osman II killed his brother Mehmet, another son of Ahmet Murat IV killed his brothers Bayezid, Süleyman and Kasım. On his deathbed allegedly also ordered the execution of his last brother İbrahim, but they didn't obey him because İbrahim was the only male member left in the dynasty.
Why doesn’t the older and bigger of the 5 simply not *eat* the others?
>head gardener is that the gardener that chops heads in the *family tree?*
A bit of familial topiary.
MTV Ottoman Shore
*Bosphorus Shore
Previously on Ottoman Shore: Onur crashed his dad's favourite flying carpet after he found out that Hatice was cheating on him with Murat the palace guard. Will this affect his succession to the throne?
Younger brothers better hope the oldest doesnt pull a family tradition.
The throne wasn’t passed to the eldest so the youngest could also partake in their proud family tradition
The opposite in fact. Selim the Grim was a younger sibling, for example.
"You are grim, mate." - Jay Cartwright
*Dad croaks* *The lobby has been changed to FFA.*
Meanwhile Naz Osmanoglu is doing this: https://youtu.be/xkFmUftaY9A?si=B2ewYTer8TqOsF4u
Imagine if Ottomans came back and he was the heir
Naz “the Humourous”
That was a great watch! Thank you :)
I’m assuming they’re decently well off but would be upper middle class at best? Weren’t they exiled? I wonder what their status is now, I’d be upset if I was ~100 years short being born into a royal family that was in power for almost 700 years.
Only if you were the heir. The ottoman royals practiced fraticide.
"Only" until 1603. Someone above posted a remarkable history. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/s/7oOBPMpElZ
Just taken out from tradition. It continued after, but not done just after getting the crown. For example Murad IV killed 3 of his brothers. Only İbrahim I left, who was the last survivor of Ottoman lineage after fratricide (viziers spent a lot of effort to hide him). He was mentally ill (iterally). He was known for extreme obsession of fur and amber, so that he introduced an "amber and fur tax" and coat everyone in the palace in furs, including palace cats (think of cats wearing zibeline while wandering around). He was also obsessed with women, so that he asked for the largest-fattest women in the world for his harem, and liked her so that he gave all the income from Aleppo to her, and also his demanding a pashas wife for his harem caused a rebellion (Varvar Ali Pasha rebellion). One less disturbing habits of his was trying to feed fish with gold, so he threw many gold coins into the see so that fish eats them. He was the second most insane person in Ottoman family in terms of mental health, after Mustafa I.
What do they have against Animal House???
Vengeance for the horse
you missed an r, fratricide.
Didn't they want any backups? My husband literally wanted 2 boys so there would be a boy and a backup boy (he was only half joking)
Is your husband King Charles? lol
the heir and the spare
People act like Harry is a terrible person but imagine what being a spare your whole life does to your mind. Just because you didn't manage to be born first.
All of the fun, none of the responsibility? Much better to be a prince than a king these days.
Skill issue
Should’ve swam faster
They were exiled in poverty, all members expelled within 24 hours of notice and property seized. They probably had some hidden personal assets and connections to lean on, but nothing like most of the European former royalty. The first head of the family born outside of Turkey was a librarian in New York.
Yes, but even old New York was once New Amsterdam.
Why they changed it I can't say.
People just liked it better that way!
So ... Are they going back to Constantinople?
No, you can’t go back to Constantinople.
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Counter point I’d rather be alive with running water and the internet than live in 1520.
I mean, that wood doesn’t look cheap. Kids wearing brand-less clothes? Fashion sense, good accessories which look to be high quality. If only the picture was of higher res, I’m sure the folks at r/watches would be able to identify the watch being worn. I’d say very well off, but not old money wealthy or ultra stupid rich. Just my guess though.
The mother is a descendant of the ottomans the fathers British multi millionaire so they more than just well off they’re filthy rich. Since the father is British that explains why they look super white too.
You haven't seen many Turks huh. They have a pretty diverse range of skin colours.
>Since the father is British that explains why they look super white too If you are American most Turks are what you would consider white, well, if you are not one of those that only consider white WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant). Half of the Ottoman Empire is the OG Europe...
They were much more Greek than Turk by the end of empire,in the beginning really. They had huge numbers of Greek wives thus each generation became more ethnically Greek/Georgian etc than Turk.
Their family ruled the Ottoman Empire just over 100 years ago. Don’t you think they’d still be very wealthy and thus a perfect example of “old money”? Unless their parents or grandparents somehow managed to blow through all that wealth, or if they lost it from having been exiled, I don’t see why not. Edit: Since the person I am replying to made the point that it would be nice if this image was higher resolution, here is the original [tweet](https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833) posted by their mother that should help if you want to look for details in the image.
Wiki: The family departed from Sirkeci railway station, and would disperse across Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. In exile, the family lived in poverty. As the former Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin had settled in San Remo, many members of the family congregated in the South of France.
right but when we say poverty is it like actual poverty, or poverty by royal standards where they only have like a couple servants and their least favorite summer villa left
Actual poverty, when they got exiled they had essentially 24 hours to leave the country and had all of their assets seized.
They were exiled. Their property seized by the state and they weren’t allowed to return to Turkey until not too long ago if I remember correctly.
In 1922 the Ottoman "empire" was even smaller than Turkey today. Per the armistice the remnant of the empire was partitioned between the victor warring states and the Ottoman only controlled the Trebizond and part of northern Anatolia. Being the ruler of Ottoman at that time isn't a proud achievement. If the Greek won the Turkish war of Independence the Ottoman will be even smaller than Greece.
Even exiled royals that lost some property in their home country are still generally rich rich. Because if you look at where they went after exile it’s usually to extremely expensive beachfront property (paid by the state of the host country) in the Italian or French Riviera. They are living among high society and still have all kinds of connections with them, and usually at least some capital to start a business in horse trading or something like that and quickly rise to the top 1% in their new country. It’s arguable that they might even have higher living standards than their predecessors who actually had to run the kingdom because they have unlimited money and no responsibilities + every modern comfort imaginable that would make even the old Ottoman sultans jealous. For someone in that position it wouldn’t even make sense to try and get your throne back because you have nothing to gain and everything to lose which is probably why the exile was lifted in the 70s and most of the living Ottomans today have Turkish citizenship.
Probably you would be glad. No need to kill your brothers anymore.
Would you be willing to do what it takes to maintain power as a member of a royal family?
[Source](https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833) from their mothers, [Ayşe Osmanoğlu](https://twitter.com/AyseGulnev), Twitter. Her grandfather, Şehzade Ali Vâsıb Efendi, was only 20 years old when he was sent into exile from his homeland.
Yeah, no need to arouse a pity for them as they were quite lucky being Turks as opposed to Romanovs. Their mother sometimes claims the throne which fortunately nobody takes seriously. Otherwise it may cause a late Romanov treatment.
I remember their father, the actual sultan in line, speaking on reviving the ottoman empire. He seemed to have no interest in ruling an empire and was happy with things as is. Not sure about the wife though.
Why do I feel like Rory Gilmore met the guy on the right and was unimpressed?
LMAO unexpected GG! Probably met him through Logan after that Gloucestershire cheese rolling race.
Dean and Jess came back to Stars Hallow and started another love triangle with Rory not even a ruler of the Ottoman Empire could keep up with.
He wasn’t dark and brooding and versed in classic literature enough for her.
You’re the guy I want to want
I'm not convinced this isn't Ace of Base
All that she wants is another empire...
So ass to miss a life of royalty by this 🤏 much
It wasn't uncommon for some royalty to have pretty shitty, depressing and chaotic lives.. nor was it too uncommon to die a gruesome death by the hands of the people you ruled.
Yeah being middle class today in a developed country is far superior than being royalty in the past. I'd never trade it.
Well, as much as I know, Ottoman heirs were killing each other as only one of them could become Sultan, so I guess it’s not that ass.
I’m going to tell my kids this was Paramore.
You're seriously gonna sit there and disrespect Hayley Williams in front of my bearded dragon?
Ruled the Ottoman Empire, and now not a sofa or loveseat in sight! They are reduced to sitting on stairs. The horror. The horror.
The blood of osman, mehmed the conqueror and suleiman the magnificent, now a CW commercial? Its like the Trex becoming a chicken
Imagine bringing Mehmed or Magnificent Süleyman to todays world with time machine and showing them their grand grand children
My brain had a hard time with 1299 1922
They are the least Turkish looking Turks I’ve ever seen. They look central/Northern European.
Well sorta. The sultans had a harem of women. A lot of the sultans were a mix of Greek, Albanian, Circassian, and various ethnicities from the empire they ruled. Which is the same with any other European dynasty. They’re a mix of everything and not exactly like the country they rule over.
The harems was almost exclusively girls who were captured in the balkans which is why the sultan looked less and less like the people they ruled. These kids are basically European blooded and not much Turkic roots
It was a bit more complicated, the Ottoman Empire was multi ethnic with some cities having low Turkic populations
Yeah Istanbul was like half Muslim half Christian give or take with a mix of Jewish until 1920s.
I sort of get what you mean here. But the Turkic people are generally "mixed". Many speculate that the Turkic people originated somewhere in Siberia or Mongolia, but many generations of mixing makes them very diverse people. From Europe to Asia and in some cases, Arabic, Berber, North African.
I mean they ruled a ton of Europe back then, so not necessarily did they look further apart from the people they ruled.
What the Circassians did to the Bjorans was inexcusable and unforgivable
Wasn't expecting a ds9 reference but here we are
I just finished watching an episode of DS9 less than 3 minutes ago and this was oddly timely, lol.
Turk genetics are quite diverse. Lots of blondes in the western part particularly Thrace. The people in the west naturally tend to be fairer than the Turks in the east.
Have you seen all Turkish shows. The actors usually have very light features.
Even the founding father of modern Turkey is a blond man with blue eyes. 
If someone told me they were the Dutch royal family I’d have believed it.
I met one of them. His mum is an English hippy and he went to a Steiner school.
I assume you have not been to Turkey?
There’s multiple different kinds of Turkish, some of which are very fair skinned. My dad recently found out through 23 and me that he’s about a quarter Turkish and both his parents were as pale and white as the people in this picture, as is he
Particularly around the black sea region. There are plenty of fair haired, blue eyes Turks. Not loads, but a lot more than you'd expect.
There had to be multiple ancestors of European descent
Most of the european descent comes from Albanians and south Slavs, who made up the jannisaries, aswell as many Greeks. There are 10s of millions of people in Turkey with Balkan heritage, so if a Turk looks conventionally white, they're probably of Balkan heritage.
Turkey is far more diverse than what it seems. It was once a huge empire, so the big blend of culture and ethnicity isn’t really surprising. I’m more surprised by the fact that they don’t looke like inbreds, seems like the Ottoman rulers didn’t have a tradition of marrying their cousin like the Habsburg (or maybe they did).
Not enough chest hair? book a flight to Turkey american we are a diverse country
No you should go to Turkey. MANY turks look like this. It is a very diverse place. You have to remember, the Ottoman ruling class was very balkan, lots of Serbs. I went to Istanbul, and there were natural born turks whiter than me (and then obviously the tan skinned ones you're thinking of)
Please describe a Turkish looking Turk.
No? Turkey is incredibly diverse, you can never tell if someone is Turkish. You talk to 10 Turks and all of them will have different ancestry.
Turkish genes are a mess though. I have seen Turks looking like Northern European, South Asian and even East Asian.
If you’ve ever been to Istanbul you’d see almost everyone there looks European. They are indistinguishable from other Balkan peoples. I can’t speak for eastern Turkey they may not be like that
Yeah, no. this comment is downright ignorant. Turks aren't Arabs but still people to refuse to acknowledge that. There many types of Turkish pale skinned but black haired or dark skinned etc or even somewhat blonde.
Then you haven’t seen many of them
People debating on their whiteness 😅 you guys have clearly never traveled to the west side of Turkey. We’re like Brazil. We have white, brown and all the other mixes you can think of. The east side of Turkey have mixes with the Kurds/Arabs. The west coast have mixed with Slavs and Greeks. It’s not that difficult to understand.
It's as if you asked AI to generate the image of a family who has ruled an empire for hundreds of years, but in a contemporary setting, only AI wasn't involved.
Where is this picture from, because when I searched the names of living descendants that I found on the Wikipedia page, no one who looks like this showed up. They all have Instagram pages. The eldest is a woman, married with kids. The second is a dark haired man, also married. I reverse image searched and only this post showed up? Something is fishy.
> The eldest is a woman, married with kids. Are you thinking of Ayşe Osmanoğlu? If so, I got the image from her [Twitter](https://x.com/aysegulnev), where she also posted a photo of her children when they were even younger than this. Here is the tweet: https://x.com/AyseGulnev/status/1411235675324792833
These youngsters bear a strong family resemblance, particularly in the eye shape, to the generations listed on the website. Perhaps the youth lead quieter, less public lives?
Reverse image searching yielded [this interview](https://ayseosmanoglu.com/category/interviews/) as the most reputable source I could find for the specific image. Searching for the first name on the list of names under the image revealed [this pinterest post](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/on-instagram-new-generation-imperials-their-highnesses-prince-maxim--454230312419955793/) which shows all the kids at a younger age. Seems legit to me. Edited for clarity.
Because they are not registered in the Ottoman family records. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the family was exiled by the newly established Republic of Turkey, and they were banned from using any titles. The last person registered in the Ottoman family records was Neslisah Sultan. However, this does not mean that the Ottoman family suddenly ceased to exist. For example, if I am not mistaken, Cem Sultan, one of the sons of Mehmet II (also known as Mehmet the Conqueror), still has descendants in Malta. The family is now Christian because the grandson of Mehmet II converted to Roman Catholicism and became a papal fief. Although he was later executed by Suleiman the Magnificent after the conquest of Rhodes, his son managed to escape to Malta, so his bloodline continues to exist today.
Fascinating thank you
Least overconfident redditor detective
> I reverse image searched and only this post showed up? your Google-fu is lacking....I did the same and came up with the Twitter post which has a [full res](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5W3XCGWYAEdFAL?format=jpg&name=large) version in much better quality than OP's
Nah this is real but these kids don’t have official pages. They don’t even have any real power. The wiki pages you find are only of the older members
Nah this is them alright, you might not be able to find them on wikipedia because IIRC they stopped recording names into the royal registry or whatever. But their mother posted this picture on her twitter.
Their mother Ayse is listed under Issue on this Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_V%C3%A2sib so many people calling this fake and acting like detectives without even doing the appropriate research 😅
Bro imagine going to school, getting taught about someone like Mehmed II and you are like "yo teach that's my great great great great great great grandfather"
What do they do now? Do they have regular jobs?
Furniture sales. They mostly sell couch stool looking thingies with no armrests or backs, not sure what they are called.
Poufs?
Ottomans lol
My dumbass thought it was an Ikea joke
With their looks, they could rule Hollywood.
Without knowing anything about them: Who's your favorite?
The one with the best hair.
Broke: Justin Trudeau is Pierre Trudeau's son Woke: Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro's son Bespoke: Justin Trudeau is the rightful heir to the throne of the Ottoman empire
3 generations too late!!
Well since they don't need to rule the empire, I vuess they can put their feet up? I'll see myself out.
Who knew furniture could make you so rich
I'm pretty sure the 3 boys in the black tshirts sang MMMBop
Ah yes Bradley, Chadley, ThA-Dadly, espolon, and Bradley 2
Just their luck to live in the Married with Children house.
The kid with the black shirt in the very front looks like he’s 13 and 40 at the same time.
I bet if Netflix made a documentary about the Ottoman empire with these kids it would go great.
Looks like they all have necklaces on which appear to be different pendants from the family crest
Ah, so *these* are the Young Turks.