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Riḍwān ibn Muṣṭafā ibn ʿAbd al-Muʿīn Pasha (Turkish language transliteration: Ridvan Pasha; died 2 April 1585) was a 16th-century Ottoman Empire statesman. He served terms as governor of Gaza Sanjak in the early 1560s and in 1570–1573, Yemen Eyalet in 1564/65–1567, Habesh Eyalet in 1573–1574 and Anatolia Eyalet in 1582/83 until his death. During his term in Yemen, Ottoman authority largely collapsed. Ridwan Pasha was the progenitor of the Ridwan dynasty, which chose Gaza City as its family headquarters, and where members of the dynasty ruled almost consecutively until 1690.
In 1565, Ridwan Pasha reached a deal with the Sublime Porte in which his trade of Yemeni spices through Jeddah to Egyptian markets would be exempted from taxation in lieu of his annual gubernatorial salary. In this case, "spices" was synonymous with coffee, the trade of which, since the mid-16th century, financed the salaries of the Ottoman garrisons in Yemen. The coffee was grown in areas dominated by the Ismailism (a sect of Shia Muslims) tribes. Ridwan co-opted the chief Ismaili da'i (missionary), giving him and his family several iltizam.Hathaway 2003, p. 84.
As intended by Mahmud Pasha, the division of Yemen highly restricted Ridwan Pasha's personal financial ambitions because his rule was effectively limited to the fortresses of Sana'a and Saadah, with no control over the Red Sea ports. He thus sought to renegotiate a deal made by his father, Kara Shahin Mustafa (r. 1556–1560), with the Zaidiyyah (a sect of Shia Islam) imam, al-Mutahhar, calling for extending taxation to the Zaidi-dominated northern highlands, where al-Mutahhar ruled virtually autonomously. Al-Mutahhar refused Ridwan Pasha's demands and opened a rebellion against Ottoman authority in 1566. By January 1567, all of Sana'a province with the exception of the fortresses of Sana'a and Amran had been conquered by al-Mutahhar's Zaidi tribesmen. Ridwan Pasha then called for a truce with al-Mutahhar, whose forces blocked all the roads to Sana'a to prevent the intervention of a potential Ottoman relief force.
Ridwan Pasha was dismissed from Yemen in April 1567, and was replaced by Hasan Pasha. His dismissal prompted him to head for Constantinople, capital of the empire, to argue his case with the Sublime Porte. He was consequently reprimanded and imprisoned. However, his incarceration was relatively short and he was pardoned in November 1567 when it was discovered that Mahmud Pasha had intercepted and concealed letters from Ridwan Pasha to the Sublime Porte, alerting the imperial authorities of the volatile situation in Yemen; Ottoman authority had largely collapsed in Yemen during Ridwan Pasha's governorship. The concealed letters were discovered after Mahmud Pasha was assassinated in Egypt.
Sometime following his dismissal from Habesh, he served terms as beylerbey of Diyarbakir and then Basra Eyalet. In 1579, he was a commander in the Ottoman military campaign against the Safavid Empire in the Caucasus Mountains. As a reward for his service, the Sublime Porte appointed Ridwan Pasha to the major eyalet of Anatolia Eyalet in late 1582 or early 1583. He died in office on 2 April 1585. Ridwan Pasha and his brother Bahram Pasha (died 1586), also an Ottoman statesman, were buried in a mausoleum situated in the garden of a mosque in Aleppo.Watenpaugh 1999, p. 90. The mausoleum was restored in 1924 by Abdullah Bek al-'Ilmi, a descendant of Bahram Pasha. It is unclear why Ridwan Pasha chose to be buried in Aleppo.
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