Şemsi Pasha


Şemsi Ahmet Pasha also known as Chamsi-Pasha; was a prominent Ottoman nobleman and statesman of Albanian origin who occupied numerous high-ranking political posts, serving at different stages as the Ottoman governor of Damascus, Rûm, Sivas, Anatolia and Rumelia, and subsequently succeeding Sokollu Mehmet Pasha as grand vizier of the Ottoman Empire in 1579.

Life

Originally he was Albanian, but he considered himself a direct descendant of Khalid ibn al-Walid, the celebrated commander whose armies conquered Syria at the time of Muhammad in the 7th century, in order to glorify himself as a warrior of Islam. His wife was the granddaughter of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman I, Ayşe Hümaşah Sultan.
Raised in the Imperial residence of the period, Topkapı Palace, as Grand Vizier, he charged renowned court architect Mimar Sinan with the task of building a mosque and adjoining complex near his main seat, the Şemsi Pasha Palace on the Bosphorus shoreline in Constantinople. The Şemsi Pasha Mosque is one of the smallest mosques to be commissioned by a Grand Vizier, and yet it is one of the most well-known mosques in city, due to a combination of its miniature dimensions and its waterfront location. It is mentioned as a chief example of Mimar Sinan's skill in organically blending architecture with the natural landscape.
During Şemsi Pasha's tenure as the beylerbey of Rumelia, it was reported that he left the capital for Sofia in 1565 with such pomp that the people of Constantinople who watched the spectacle of his lavishly clad retinue had never seen a beylerbey display such 'majesty and grandeur.'