Melek Ahmed Pasha

Damat Melek Ahmed Pasha
Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire
In office 5 August 1650 – 22 August 1651
Monarch	Mehmet IV
Preceded by	Kara Murat Pasha
Succeeded by	Abaza Siyavuş Pasha I
Personal details
Born	c. 1604
Died	1662 Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Nationality	Ottoman
Spouse(s)	Kaya Sultan (1644–59, her death) Fatma Sultan (1662, his death)
Religion	Sunni Islam
Ethnicity	Abkhaz or Abazin

Melek Ahmed Pasha ("Ahmed Pasha the Angel"; c. 1604–1662) was an Ottoman statesman and grand vizier during the reign of Mehmed IV.

He was of Abkhaz (or Abazin) origin. According to one source, his father was a sea captain named Pervane. During the reign of Murad IV, he was appointed as the governor of Diyarbakır. During Ibrahim's reign, he was appointed to the governorships of Erzurum, Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus. In 1644, he married to Kaya Sultan, Murad's daughter, and gained the title damat (groom). But all of the provinces (even Erzurum a part of Turkey) he was assigned, were quite far from Istanbul, the capital, and during most of his assignments, his wife stayed in Istanbul. During the reign of Mehmed IV, he finally returned to Istanbul as a vizier. But in 1650, to the dismay of his wife, he was appointed as the governor of Baghdad, another post far from Istanbul. Kaya Sultan tried to persuade the queen regent to revoke the decision. But she couldn't succeed, a sign of the chaos in Ottoman palace. Nevertheless, before Melek Ahmed left Istanbul, the Grand Vizier Kara Murat Pasha resigned, complaining of the intrigues of the palace people. The queen regent offered the post to Melek Ahmed, who accepted the offer on the condition that the palace people would not meddle with the governance of the state on 5 August 1650.

He was the brother-in-law of the Haydarzade Mehmed Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Egypt from 1646 to 1647, who married his sister.

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