Born in Istanbul on 06 November 1615, Ibrahim I, who later came to be known as Ibrahim the Mad, reigned as the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 to 1648. He was born to Sultan Ahmed I and Kolsem Sultan, an ethnic Greek, originally named Anastasia, who was initially kidnapped from her family, made a concubine and later became the legal wife of the Sultan. When Sultan Ahmed died from typhus in November 1617, Kösem was only 28 years old and bore him at least five sons. However, as his younger brother, Mustafa I took the throne, Kösem and Ibrahim was sent to the Old Palace, far away from Topkapi Palace. However, after a short rule, he was deposed by a palace faction in favour of his oldest nephew Osman II, whose mother was Mahfiruz, another wife of Sultan Ahmed.

But, as Osman was assassinated in 1622, by the Janissaries, an elite infantry unit, Mustafa was restored to the throne and held it for only one year, when Murad IV, the 11 year old son of Ahmed I and Kösem, was enthroned on 10 September 1623. After his succession, Kösem came back in Topkapi as the Valide Sultan, mother of the sultan, who rules the harem and the naib-i-sultanat, a regent with her minor son, Sultan Murad IV. However, Ibrahim was confined in the Kafes, a secluded part of the Royal Harem, under surveillance and isolated from the outside world, where possible successors to the throne were kept, while his other brothers were executed one by one, by the order of the new Sultan.

When he died in 1640 from Liver Cirrhosis, Kösem decided to sit on the throne for Ibrahim, her last surviving son and the last male Ottoman. However, when Ibrahim was taken out of his seclusion and was informed that he had inherited the throne as the last male Ottoman, he did not believe it. He was passing his days in the Kafes in extreme fear of life and thought it was a cruel trick to entrap and execute him. He, therefore, fled back in terror and barricaded himself inside the Kafes. Finally, when the corpse of Murad was brought to his door to make him convinced and her mother persuaded him like a mother treats her little child, he came out to accept the throne.

Unfortunately, the trauma of his early years made him unhinged. He was often distracted by recurring headaches and attacks of physical weakness. He stated to feed the fishes in the palace pool with coins, instead of food. Under the circumstances, Kösem took the helm of the empire in her hands and to keep her crazy son busy, she inspired and encouraged him to spend his time in the lavish Harem in the company of around 280 attractive concubines at his disposal.

Ibrahim took to the Harem with relish, enjoyed indiscriminate sex like a lunatic, fathering three future sultans and a number of daughters. It is said that in the open palace gardens, under the sky, he frequently assembled all the virgins, made them strip themselves naked and ran amongst them neighing like a stallion and deflower one or the other. However, it was not always funny. One day, all of a sudden, the psychotic Sultan ordered all the 280 women of his Harem, the objects of his abnormal sexual pleasure, to be tied in weighted sacks and drowned in the sea.

The crazy Sultan was once attracted by the beautiful daughter of the Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority of the empire and expressed his intention to marry her. As everybody was aware of his depravities, the apprehensive father advised the girl to decline the proposal. As a result, the poor girl was kidnapped, carried to his palace, where she was raped by him time and again for days together, before she was returned.

Ibrahim also had a strange fixation for fat women. Once he was turned on at the sight of the vagina of a cow and engaged an artist to make golden copies of the animal’s genitalia. The copies were circulated around the empire to find a woman with a similar looking vagina. Eventually, a 158.75 kg (350 pound) woman was found with the matching honey-pot and she became his favourite sex partner. He was also obsessed with fur. In addition to decorating his clothes, curtains, walls and furniture with it, he liked to enjoy sex on the furs of sables, a small animal with valued fur.

Ibrahim, the crazy Sultan eventually exiled his mother and started rule his empire at his sweet will, which yielded disastrous results. He executed his efficient ministers and started to spend at random. As the treasury became empty, a popular revolt broke out in 1846. He was dethroned on 08 August 1648, in favour of Mehmed IV, his six-year old son with Turhan Hatice Sultan. After that, a fatwa was issued for the execution of the lunatic Sultan, which was carried out on 18 August 1648 by way of strangulation.