Hezarpare Ahmet Pasha was an 17th century Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

  grand vizier

Grand Vizier

Grand Vizier, in Turkish Vezir-i Azam or Sadr-ı Azam , deriving from the Arabic word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...

.

Early life

He was a son of a professional soldier of probably Greek origin. But he chose bureaucracy. He was appointed to several posts one of which was the personal secretarial (tezkireci) of the grand vizier Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha

Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha

Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha was a 17th century Ottoman military officer and statesman. He served as Kapudan Pasha and as Grand Vizier.- Early life :...

. (He gained the epithet tezkireci after this appointment) In 1646, two years after Mustafa Pasha's execution he was appointed as the defterdar

Defterdar

Defterdars were top officials in charge of the finances in the Ottoman Empire, including heads of the Ottoman provincial treasuries; they were responsible for defters....

 and in 1647 he was promoted to the rank of grand vizier, the highest post in Ottoman bureaucracy

As a grand vizier

Sultan İbrahim

Ibrahim I

Ibrahim I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 until 1648. He was born in Istanbul the son of Ahmed I by Valide Sultan Kadinefendi Kösem Sultan, an ethnic Greek originally named Anastasia...

 (sometimes called mad) was a rather unbalanced sultan. He was an addict of sable skin coats. He forced his grand vizier to buy huge quantities of sable skin for his palaces. Ahmet Pasha concentrated more on sable trade than state affairs. During his term the Venetian navy blocked the strait of Çanakkale (Dardanelles) and the important fort of Klis

Klis

Klis is a village located around a mountain fortress bearing the same name. It is located in central Dalmatia, Croatia, located just northeast of Solin and Split near the eponymous mountain pass...

 (in modern Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

) was lost to Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. (see Cretan War (1645-1669)) Moreover, large scale sable skin purchase caused in extra budget deficit which was already under the pressure of the war.

Death

In 1648 he levied a heavy tax to meet the expenditure. But this last step caused a rebellion. He was lynched on 8 (?) August 1648. The epithet Hezarpare is a Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

epithet he gained after his death means 1000 pieces referring to lynch indident. After a few days sultan İbrahim was also killed.