Hass Murad Pasha
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Hass Murad Pasha was an Ottoman statesman and commander of Byzantine Greek origin.
According to the 16th-century Ecthesis Chronica, Hass Murad and his brother, Mesih Pasha, were sons of a certain Gidos Palaiologos, identified by the contemporary Historia Turchesca as a brother of a Byzantine Emperor.[2][3] This is commonly held to have been Constantine XI Palaiologos, the last Byzantine emperor, who fell during the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II in 1453. If true, since Constantine XI died childless, and if the Ottomans had failed to conquer Constantinople, Mesih or Hass Murad might have succeeded him.[4] The brothers were captured during the fall of Constantinople, converted to Islam, and raised as pages under the auspices of Sultan Mehmed II as part of the devşirme system.[2][5] The exact identity of his father is unclear; Sphrantzes adds the name of "Thomas" to "Gidos", while several scholars, beginning with Martin Crusius, rather improbably equated the latter name to the Venetian "Guido", Latin "Vitus".[6] However, neither Murad nor his brother can be identified with any of the known sons of Constantine XI's brothers who survived into adulthood—Thomas, Demetrios, and Theodore—leading Franz Babinger to suggest an illegitimate origin.[7]
