Murad IV
1612 – 1640 · 28 years · Istanbul · Middle East
Reign: 1623 – 1640 (Ottoman Empire)
Enthroned as a child under the regency of his mother Kösem, he later restored order ruthlessly and banned tobacco, coffee and wine. In 1638 he retook Baghdad from the Safavids; the Treaty of Zuhab (1639) fixed the border with Iran for centuries.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 17th century
Portrait: Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Galileo Galilei — Italian physicist and astronomer, 48 years older
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- Oliver Cromwell — Lord Protector of England, 13 years older
- Charles I — king executed by Parliament after the Civil War, 12 years older
- Louis XIII — king who ruled alongside Cardinal Richelieu, 11 years older
Eastern Europe & Russia
- Michael I — first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, 16 years older
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Middle East
- Abbas the Great — Safavid Shah of Iran, 41 years older
- Kösem Sultan — Ottoman queen mother, 23 years older
- Evliya Çelebi — Ottoman traveller, 1 year older
- Mustafa I — mentally unstable sultan enthroned twice, 12 years older
- Ibrahim the Mad — sultan nicknamed 'the Mad', 3 years younger
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Africa
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- Fasilides — Emperor of Ethiopia, 9 years older
- Ahmed Baba — Timbuktu scholar, 56 years older
Asia
- Nur Jahan — Mughal empress, 35 years older
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- Tokugawa Iemitsu — shogun who closed Japan to the Europeans, 8 years older
- Aurangzeb — Mughal emperor, 6 years younger
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Americas
- Samuel de Champlain — French explorer, 45 years older
Oceania
- Abel Tasman — Dutch navigator, 9 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 1612 Minin and Pozharsky liberate Moscow — aged 0, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1613 Election of Michael Romanov as Tsar — aged 1, Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War — aged 6, Europe
- 1624–1663 Nzinga becomes Queen of Ndongo — aged 12, Africa
- 1632–1653 Building of the Taj Mahal — aged 20, Asia