Ishak Pasha


Ishak Pasha was an Ottoman general, statesman, and later Grand Vizier.

Origin

reveals that Ishak Pasha was Albanian. Turkish orientalist Halil Inalcik believed that Ishak Pasha was created by the confusion between several Ottoman Ishak Pashas and Ishak Bey, but according to him Ishak Pasha was Albanian. According to German orientalist Franz Babinger he was a convert of Greek origin.

Career

In circa 1451 he was appointed as the beylerbey of Anatolia; the same year, the newly ascended Sultan Mehmet II forced him to marry his father Murad II's widow Sultan Hatun.
His first term as a Grand Vizier was during the reign of Mehmed II. During this term, he transferred Oghuz Turk people from their Anatolian city of Aksaray to newly conquered Constantinople in order to populate the city, which had lost a portion of its former population prior to the 1453 conquest. The quarter of the city where the migrants were settled is now called Aksaray.
His second term was during the reign of Beyazıt II. He died on 30 January 1487 in Thessaloniki.

In popular culture