Ridwan Pasha

Riḍwān ibn Muṣṭafā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿīn Pasha (Turkish transliteration: Ridvan Pasha; died 2 April 1585) was a 16th-century Ottoman statesman. He served terms as governor of Gaza in the early 1560s and in 1570–1573, Yemen in 1564/65–1567, Habesh and Jeddah in 1573–1574 and Anatolia in 1582/83 until his death. During his term in Yemen, Ottoman authority largely collapsed. Ridwan Pasha was the progenitor of the Ridwan dynasty, which chose Gaza as its family headquarters, and where members of the dynasty ruled almost consecutively until 1690.

Biography

Early career Ridwan was the son of Kara Şahin Mustafa Pasha, a Bosnian kapikulu (slave of the Sublime Porte) and later statesman, who served gubernatorial terms in the eyalets (provinces) of Erzurum (1544–1545), Diyarbakir (1548), Yemen (1556–1560) and Egypt (1562/63–1565/66). Early in his career, Ridwan was made defterdar (treasurer) of Yemen, after gaining the recommendation of Mahmud Pasha. In the following years, he was assigned sanjak-bey (district governor) of Gaza. he was appointed beylerbey (governor-general) of Yemen, replacing Mahmud Pasha, According to historian Clive Smith, the large sum that Ridwan Pasha paid for the governorship was attributed to his expectation of accumulating large wealth as governor of the province. Prior to his dismissal, Mahmud Pasha had succeeded in persuading the Sublime Porte to divide Yemen into two separate provinces: Sana'a, which consisted of the interior highlands, and Tihama, which consisted of the province's central and southern coastal plains. According to the 16th-century Arab chronicler al-Nahrawali al-Makki, Mahmud Pasha's motivation was to leave Ridwan Pasha to govern the restive highlands, while virtually appointing a subordinate of his to Tihama with its lucrative Red Sea ports. The Sublime Porte may have agreed to the division out of the belief that a single governor for each of Yemen's two regions would serve to help the Ottomans prevent Portuguese attempts to control Yemeni ports and ensure Ottoman control over the coffee trade, which was primarily cultivated in the highlands.

As intended by Mahmud Pasha, the division of Yemen highly restricted Ridwan Pasha's personal financial ambitions because his rule was effectively limited to the fortresses of Sana'a and Saadah, with no control over the Red Sea ports. He thus sought to renegotiate a deal made by his father, Kara Shahin Mustafa (r. 1556–1560), with the Zaydi (a sect of Shia Islam) imam, al-Mutahhar, calling for extending taxation to the Zaidi-dominated northern highlands, where al-Mutahhar ruled virtually autonomously. Al-Mutahhar refused Ridwan Pasha's demands and opened a rebellion against Ottoman authority in 1566. His dismissal prompted him to head for Constantinople, capital of the empire, to argue his case with the Sublime Porte. He was consequently reprimanded and imprisoned. However, his incarceration was relatively short and he was pardoned in November 1567 when it was discovered that Mahmud Pasha had intercepted and concealed letters from Ridwan Pasha to the Sublime Porte, alerting the imperial authorities of the volatile situation in Yemen; Ottoman authority had largely collapsed in Yemen during Ridwan Pasha's governorship. He was dismissed from Habesh in July 1574. The mausoleum was restored in 1924 by Abdullah Bek al-'Ilmi, a descendant of Bahram Pasha.