Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said Pasha

Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said Pasha
Mehmed Said in Stockholm as ambassador in 1733, by Georg Engelhard Schröder (now in the Pera Museum).
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office
25 October 1755 – 1 April 1756
Preceded byKöse Bahir Mustafa Pasha
Succeeded byKöse Bahir Mustafa Pasha
Personal details
BornUnknown
DiedOctober 1761
Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
NationalityOttoman
Parent
ProfessionStatesman, Diplomat
Mehmed Said (then an Efendi) in Paris as ambassador in 1742, by Joseph Aved (now in the Musée de Versailles).
Mehmed Said in Paris in 1742, by Charles-Antoine Coypel.

Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said Pasha (died October 1761), earlier in his life known as Mehmed Said Efendi (sometimes spelled Sahid Mehemet Effendi in France), was an Ottoman statesman and diplomat. He was Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from October 25, 1755, to April 1, 1756.[1]

He was a son of Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi, ambassador of the Ottoman Empire to France in 1720–21. Mehmed Said was of Georgian[1] descent through his father. His epithet Yirmisekizzade, meaning "son of twenty-eight" in Turkish, is a reference to his father's own epithet Yirmisekiz ("twenty-eight"), a reference to Yirmisekiz Mehmed Çelebi's membership in the 28th battalion (orta) of the Janissaries early in his life. He already accompanied his father during this first mission as his personal secretary. He is said to have enjoyed the French culture and lifestyle tremendously, and ended up speaking French fluently.[2]

Mehmed Said was himself dispatched for an embassy in Paris in 1742, as well as another more historically significant one in Sweden in 1733 and Poland, which led to his writing a sefaretname like his father.[3] In Sweden, he succeeded Mustapha Aga as ambassador.[4]

He briefly served as the Shaykh al-Islam between 1749 and 1750.

Reception of Mehmed Said, then ambassador to Poland, in the Audience Room at the Royal Castle, Warsaw in 1731 (watercolour painting by Joachim Daniel von Jauch).
  1. ^ a b İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı, Türkiye Yayınevi, İstanbul, 1971, p. 60.
  2. ^ East encounters West by Fatma Müge Göçek p.69-70
  3. ^ East encounters West by Fatma Müge Göçek p.85
  4. ^ Imber, p.53