Mustafa I

Mustafa I (October 17, 1600 – January 20, 1639) was a sultan of the Ottoman Empire during two periods, spanning from 1617 to 1618 and from 1622 to 1623.

About Ahmed I's brother, Mustafa, it is known that he suffered from mental retardation or at least neurosis and was nothing more than an instrument used in the conspiracies hatched in the cliques of the court of the Topkapı Palace. During the reign of his brother Ahmed I, he was confined to his room, a tacit imprisonment that lasted for fourteen years and was widely used throughout the Ottoman dynasty under the name Altın kafes (“golden cage”).

In 1618 he was deposed in favor of his young nephew Osman II, but after the assassination of Osman II in 1622 he regained the throne and remained on it for another year. He was eventually deposed and sent to the Bayezid palace, his successor being his nephew Murad IV. He would die sixteen years later of natural causes.

It is believed that he had two wives named Gencinihan Hatun who would have been the mother of two girls and Zamane Hatun mother of a boy and a girl.