Murad V

Sultan Murad V was born in Istanbul on 21 September 1840. His father was Sultan Abdulmejid, his mother Şevk-Efza Kadın Efendi. In childhood and youth Murad V received a good education and learned French. Being greatly fond of reading, he had books brought from France and read constantly. He was very interested in literature and had formed close friendships with many poets of the age, among them Ziya Pasha and Namık Kemal. Influenced by foreign cultures, Murad V played the piano and even composed in the Western style. A friend of European princes with whom he corresponded, he was never without domestic and foreign newspapers at his side.

Having seen Europe at close hand and been filled with admiration during the European journey he made with Sultan Abdulaziz, Murad V formed a close friendship on that trip with the Prince of Wales, whom he met in England and who later became King Edward VII.

Murad V became sultan on 30 May 1876 in place of the deposed Abdulaziz. But the hopes of the intellectuals who wanted a constitutional order established to save the Ottoman state, and who with that thought had brought to the throne a ruler they trusted, were once again broken. After ninety-three days he was removed from the Ottoman throne on 31 August 1876. Living a further twenty-eight years in the palace, Murad V died on 29 August 1904 and was buried in the tomb of his mother Şevk-Efza Kadın Efendi at the Yeni Mosque.

Source: Osmanlı Tarihi Interaktif CD-ROM (Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları XXXI. Dizi-Sa.2)