Ottoman sultans ruled an empire from Baghdad to Vienna for most of four centuries, but their personal lives back home in Constantinople's Great Harem of Topkapi were mainly a matter of bed and bored. One 17th-century sultan, aptly called Ibrahim the Mad, became so bored that he spent much of his time tossing gold coins to the fish in the Bosporus alongside the Topkapi Palace. One day, harem-scare-em Ibrahim ordered his 1,001 concubines trussed, weighted and tossed into the sea-and, of course, replaced. But between fits of madness, Ibrahim and the 24 other...
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