He was trained in the Enderun palace school in Istanbul and during the reign of Mustafa II he was appointed to be the personal secretary of the sultan.

Shortly after his appointment, he succeeded in ratifying the Treaty of Pruth with Russia, thus securing the northern frontiers of the Ottoman Empire at Dnieper River.

[2] By early 1714, his attention shifted to the Morea, which had been held by the Republic of Venice since the Morean War and the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz.

The subsequent campaign in 1715, led by Silahdar Ali Pasha himself, was an overwhelming success, as the entire Morea fell quickly and with little bloodshed to the Ottoman army.

He commanded the Ottoman army against the Austrian forces led by Prince Eugene of Savoy at the Battle of Petrovaradin (5 August 1716).