Koca Ragıp Paşa

• Honorific Prefix — Koca Damat • Name — Mehmet Ragıp • Honorific Suffix — Pasha • Office1 — Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire • Monarch1 — Osman III Mustafa III • Term Start1 — 12 January 1757 • Term End1 — 8 April 1763 • Predecessor1 — Köse Bahir Mustafa Pasha • Successor1 — Tevkii Hamza Hamid Pasha • Office2 — Ottoman Governor of Egypt • Term Start2 — 1744 • Term End2 — 1748 • Predecessor2 — Yedekçi Mehmet Pasha • Successor2 — Yeğen Ali Pasha • Born — 1698 • Birthplace — Constantinople, Ottoman Empire • Died — 8 April 1763 • Place of death — Constantinople, Ottoman Empire • Blank1 — Origins • Occupation — Civil servant

His father was Şevki Mustafa, a bureaucrat in the Ottoman Empire. After completing his education, Mehmet Ragıp worked in various parts of the empire as a civil servant. He served as the chief treasurer in Baghdad (then a part of the Ottoman Empire). He was a member of Ottoman representatives in the Treaty of Belgrade in 1739. He was promoted to the post of reis ül-küttab (equivalent to a modern foreign minister) in 1740. He was the governor of Ottoman Egypt from 1744 to 1748, when he was forced to step down by local troops.

• Illustration — Ragıp Paşa Library, Istanbul He was appointed as Grand Vizier on 12 January 1757 by the sultan Osman III. When Osman III died ten months later, Mehmet Ragıp Pasha continued under the new sultan Mustafa III with whom he had very good relations. He married Saliha, the sultan's sister, and gained the title damat (bridegroom). Ragıp's term was during an Ottoman decline. He nevertheless enacted reforms to Ottoman administration and treasury. For the first time Ottoman revenues exceeded expenditures. He was an adherent of peace policy. His term in the office almost coincides with the Seven Years' War in Europe (1756-1763). Despite the danger of war, he was able to keep the Ottoman Empire out of conflict. Upon his death, Mustafa III wrote an elegy expressing his sorrow for his good friend.