A Koran was hung about his neck as a defence against the evil eye, and frequently he removed it and knelt before it, as did Louis XI before the leaden figures of saints which adorned his hat.

He ordered a complete chemical laboratory from Venice, and engaged alchemists to distill the water of immortality, by the help of which he hoped to ascend to the planets and discover the Philosophers' Stone.

Not perceiving any practical result of their labours, he ordered the laboratory to be burnt and the alchemists to be hung.
Ali hated his fellow-men.

He would have liked to leave no survivors, and often regretted his inability to destroy all those who would have cause to rejoice at his death.

Consequently he sought to accomplish as much harm as he could during the time which remained to him, and, for no possible reason but that of hatred, he caused the arrest of both Ibrahim pacha, who had already suffered so much at his hands, and his son, and confined them both in a dungeon purposely constructed under the grand staircase of the castle by the lake, in order that he might have the pleasure of passing over their heads each time he left his apartments or returned to them.
It was not enough for Ali merely to put to death those who displeased him; the form of punishment must be constantly varied in order to produce a fresh mode of suffering, therefore new tortures had to be constantly invented.