Hezarpare Ahmed Paşa

• Honorific Prefix — Tezkereci • Hezarpare (posthumously) • Name — Ahmed • Honorific Suffix — Pasha • Office1 — Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire • Monarch1 — Ibrahim • Term Start1 — 21 September 1647 • Term End1 — 8 August 1648 • Predecessor1 — Kara Musa Pasha • Successor1 — Sofu Mehmed Pasha • Office2 — Defterdar • Term Start2 — 1646 • Term End2 — 1647 • Predecessor2 — Nevesinli Salih Pasha • Successor2 — Halıcızade Mehmed Pasha • Died — 8 August 1648 • Place of death — Istanbul, Ottoman Empire • Spouse — Fülane Hatun Beyhan Sultan • Children — First marriage Baki Bey

Ahmed was a son of a professional soldier of probable Albanian origin. Instead of following his father's footsteps into the military, he chose to go into bureaucracy. He was appointed to several posts, one of which was the personal secretary (tezkereci) of the grand vizier Kemankeş Mustafa Pasha, gaining the epithet tezkereci after this appointment. In 1646, two years after Mustafa Pasha's execution, he was appointed as the defterdar, and in 1647, he was promoted to the rank of grand vizier, the highest post in Ottoman bureaucracy.

Sultan Ibrahim (sometimes called Ibrahim the Mad) was a rather unbalanced sultan. He was a connoisseur of sable skin coats and forced his grand vizier to buy huge quantities of sable skin for his palaces. Because of this, Ahmed Pasha was required to concentrate more of his time on the sable trade rather than on state affairs. During his term, the Venetian navy blocked the strait of Çanakkale (Dardanelles), and Venice also seized control of the important fort of Klis (in modern Croatia); see Cretan War (1645-1669). Moreover, largescale sable skin purchases caused an extra deficit in a budget already under strain due to the pressure of the war.

In 1648, Ahmed Pasha levied a heavy tax to meet the heavy expenditures of the budget. However, this step caused anger and rebellion among the populace of the Ottoman Empire. He was lynched on 8 August 1648, and his body was cut into many pieces by the angry mob. The epithet Hezarpare is a Persian epithet he gained after his death, meaning "thousand pieces," referring to the fate of his corpse after his lynching. On the same day, Ibrahim was seized and imprisoned in Topkapı Palace. He was executed a few days after Ahmed Pasha's murder.