Welcome to this blog’s first profile of a super under-appreciated female historical figure that deserves more love and attention! To kick this blog off, I thought I’d profile one of my personal favourites; a woman that everyone should (and unfortunately does not know)! This will be part 1 of her story; there will be number of posts dedicated to her!
There’s a widely held belief in this country that the history of the Middle East, is sorely lacking female figures. I know whenever I start talking about my favourite historical figures from that part of the world, it’s rare that whoever I’m speaking to, knows who I’m talking about. This is in part due to the rampant Islamophobia that’s so prevalent in Western society, but it’s also a result of a lack of education; very little about history outside of Europe is taught in primary, secondary and even sixth form education. For most of my formal education, the Ottoman Empire (aka the pre-eminent power in the Middle East from the conquering of Istanbul in 1453 to the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922), was only mentioned a handful of times, usually in the context of World War I. The long history of the Ottoman Empire’s involvement in European politics however was rarely mentioned, and I personally never studied anything that focused solely on Middle Eastern history until I was at university. I had to to learn more about the Ottoman Empire myself and I was fascinated to discover that there is an entire forgotten legacy of strong Islamic women who held phenomenal amounts of political power, acted as patrons of art and culture, endowed charitable institutions and organisations and had direct impact on vital moments in world history. The first woman I’ll be profiling for this blog is one of those women and her incredible life-story is quite frankly batshit insane and almost defies belief. Let’s begin! So it’s the year 1520; it’s been twenty years since Columbus arrived in the America’s, the Renaissance is in full swing, Charles V is both King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor heralding the beginning of Habsburg dominance in Europe and Henry VIII is still on wife number one. At some point in 1520 (or potentially in the year before), in an area known as Ruthenia (a swath of land that covers parts of modern Russia and Ukraine although at the time was ruled by the Kings of Poland), a young girl probably whose birth name is unknown but was around 15 years old, was kidnapped from her village and forced into the slave trade. This is the beginning of our story.
You see this tragedy was not a one off. The Ruthenian region (seen above) often suffered intense aggression from the Crimean Tatar’s, who annually plunged the region into chaos by conducting large scale raids, during which they kidnapped thousands of Ruthenians who they then forced into the slave trade. Roxelana as the girl became known (the name means “the Ruthenian one”), is widely believed to have been taken during one of those raids; a belief backed by the likes of Pietro Bragadin the Venetian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire who wrote that she was from the Russian (Ruthenian) nation[1] as did Mikhail Litvin, a Lithuanian-Polish ambassador who wrote that she had been “kidnapped from our land”[2]. After being kidnapped, she was taken to the slave market in Istanbul aka the capital of the Ottoman Empire, having been taken there via Kefe, a city that was a major centre for the slave trade. Plucked from the plethora of slaves waiting to be bought, she was chosen, quite possibly by the Sultan’s chamberlain and best-friend Ibrahim Pasha (remember him – he’s important!!!), to be a concubine in the Imperial Harem. Unbeknownst to everyone, the House of Osman would never quite be the same again.
Around the time she entered the palace, the then sultan Selim I (who she almost certainly never met) died and was succeeded by his 26-year-old son Süleyman (seen above), who at the time was based in Manisa. Süleyman was nothing like his father who had been nicknamed Selim the Grim; he was young, handsome, intelligent, ambitious and unbeknownst to his European rivals, a force to be reckoned with. He was basically the Prince Charming of the Middle East. Shortly after his father’s death he travelled to Istanbul and immediately began making plans for the future. He was followed soon thereafter by his entourage which included his mother Aÿse Hafsa the new Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) and his four children of whom we know very little however records suggest that “Mahmud was eight years old at his father’s accession, Mustafa was five and their brother Murad an infant. They also had a sister whose birthdate and name (perhaps Raziye) are uncertain. Mahmud, Mustafa and Murad all had different mothers, as the Ottoman politics of reproduction demanded”[4]. You see, the Ottoman Empire had very different reproductive laws to most monarchies. Sultans and sehzades (princes) did not marry nor did they practise monogamy. They instead each had a harem, made up mostly of female slaves acquired either as gifts from high ranking statesmen or foreign dignitaries or brought from slave markets, a large one of which occupied a prominent place in the centre of Constantinople (also the one that Roxelana was sold at). The Sultan or Sehzade would then engage in sexual relations with the slaves that he was attracted to with the hopes of bearing a son. As a side-note, I’ll be doing another post focused specifically on the harem and how the reality of it was vastly different to the hyper-sexualised image that emerged in Western culture in later centuries.
One of the strictest and most central rules of the harem was the one child per slave rule. Once a female concubine had given birth to a son, the Sultan would not sleep with her again. Because the mothers of the children were slaves and not wives, legitimacy was not an issue. This allowed Sultans to bear a significant number of sons with an unlimited number of women and all of his sons would then have equal right to the throne. Although this might seem strange to us, this system did contribute to the longevity of the Ottoman Empire; they were rarely in the position of being faced with a king who lacked a male heir a la Süleyman’s contemporary Henry VIII. Of the women that bore him children, the name of only one woman is known and that was Mahidevran, a slave concubine who was believed to be either Albanian or Circassian [4] and who was the mother of Süleyman’s second son Mustafa. It’s also possible she was the mother of Süleyman’s unnamed daughter however we cannot be sure. Although Mustafa wasn’t the eldest, this didn’t matter; the Ottomans differed from their European counterparts in that they didn’t practise primogeniture where only the eldest living son could inherit. Instead when a Sultan died, his sons would fight for the throne with the theory being that the strongest candidate would win and thus only someone worthy of the crown would wear it. Afterwards the victor would execute his brothers and nephews in order to avoid a civil war. In a screwed-up way this kind of makes sense, however it’s also brutal and cruel and bloody and morally awful on just about every level. It makes the clans in Game of Thrones look pacifist in comparison. What this did mean was that all of Süleyman’s sons had equal importance however the sudden deaths of his other sons shortly into his reign, meant that Mahidevran and Mustafa significantly rose in prominence.
All in all, things were looking pretty rosy for Mahidevran. Cue Roxelana entering the picture and raining on her parade.
Although it’s unknown when Roxelana and Süleyman met nor is it known exactly how quickly she captured his attention, we know that their first meeting must have taken place almost immediately after his arrival in the capital and that within no time he was smitten. And by smitten, I mean completely head over heels, ready to risk it all, writing gushy love poetry and gifting priceless jewels, kind of smitten. Now Sultan’s having favourites wasn’t rare; the difference between Süleyman and every other Sultan before him, however was how abundantly obvious he was about it. He did nothing to hide his ever-increasing affection for Roxelana and within five months of their first meeting, she was pregnant. She also had a new name; Hürrem. The practise of a Sultan giving their favourites new names was a pretty standard practise, however this particular name change was significant for two reasons; firstly, Hürrem was not a standard Ottoman name having never appeared in the dynasty before and secondly, in Persian it means, “the cheerful one”, an apparent reference to her glittering personality. It was this personality above all else, that won her Süleyman’s favour. You see although Hürrem was by all accounts rather pretty with pale skin, a petite figure and either red or blonde hair (she’s usually considered to have been a redhead), her looks were dwarfed by the other women in Süleyman’s harem including Mahidevran who was said to be a great beauty. The Venetian ambassador wrote of Hürrem that she was “young but not beautiful, although graceful and petite”[5] . She was however witty, charming, playful and full of energy, a contrast to the more serious Süleyman. Later it would also be noted that she was incredibly intelligent, with ambition to boot. She made him laugh, she challenged him intellectually and considering the speed with which she became pregnant, he was immensely sexually attracted to her. It’s little wonder then, that he fell so head over heels in love so quickly. Within a year or so of their first meeting, Hürrem gave birth to a son Mehmed who was in all likelihood born during the Belgrade campaign. With Mehmed’s birth, Hürrem had secured her place not just in Süleyman’s affections but also in the dynasty, for she was now the mother of an heir and potentially the next Queen Mother.
In October 1521 shortly after his return from the campaign, Süleyman made what was at the time an unprecedented decision; he asked her back into his bed! He doubled down nine months later when it was announced to the astonished Ottoman people that she had given birth to yet ANOTHER child. Now remember the one child per concubine rule, that no Sultan broke and that was considered pretty important; in fact, the entire Ottoman dynasty was kind of based around that system. Concubines had no monopoly on the Sultan’s time and affection nor could they bear him multiple heirs. With Hürrem however, Süleyman was willing to break the customs of a dynasty which at this point had been established for three centuries and create new customs of his own. This would be the first imperial rule that Hürrem and Süleyman ignored, it would however not be the last and within six years of their first meeting in 1520, she had given birth to four sons Mehmed, Abdullah, Selim and Bayezid and a daughter Mihrimah. A few years later they would add to their brood with a sixth and final child Cihangir.
This ground-breaking diversion from tradition also earned Hürrem a certain degree of notoriety. The harem was a place of widespread mystery, so the fact that Hürrem’s maverick status as the mother of multiple heirs resulted in her developing a public reputation, was unprecedented in the Ottoman dynasty. She became famous, not just within the empire but outside it too and we have evidence that foreign monarchs who were eager for news of what was happening in Istanbul, were even more curious about the young (possibly still teenage) woman that had managed to turn an old dynasty upside down and install herself as the sultan’s unrivalled favourite. There is a mass of diplomatic, usually Venetian, reports that demonstrate the fascination with which the world seemed to view Hürrem, and one of these diplomatic reports demonstrates the second earth-shattering change that Süleyman and Hürrem implemented in the early years of their relationship. He became strictly monogamous, with it being written in one dispatch that Süleyman had given himself completely to Hürrem[6] and there is no evidence that after falling for her, he ever slept with anyone else. It’s entirely possible he took other concubines during Hürrem’s constant pregnancies or when they were separated during military campaigns (during which they’d be separated for months at a time), however evidently steps were taken to avoid children being born from any possible liaisons and thus no evidence exists to back that up. Now let’s be honest, emperors and kings are not exactly renowned for being good and faithful husbands, so Süleyman’s decision to devote himself solely to one woman, would have been noteworthy in any country at almost any time in history; but considering the nature of the dynasty, Süleyman’s decision to forgo all others was in the words of Leslie Peirce, “a revolutionary break from tradition”[7]. Why Süleyman decided to become monogamous is a question, probably only he and Hürrem would be able to answer, however it does appear that despite the questionable power imbalance between the two, there was a degree of genuine affection from both parties, although more so Süleyman.
Suleyman’s decision to not only make her the mother of multiple royal heirs but also make her his unrivalled romantic partner, was the foundation of everything that Hürrem would later achieve. To learn about those achievements you’ll have to wait for part 2 which should be coming your way shortly!!
Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this post,
Alexandra x
References
[1] Eugenio Alberi, “Le relazioni degli ambasciatori Veneto al Senato”, Serie 3, Vol 1, (Florence, 1840), p. 74.
[2] Galina Yermolenko, “Roxolana: The Greatest Empress of the East”, The Muslim World, Vol 95, Issue 2, (2005), p. 234.
[3] Leslie Peirce, “The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire”, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 55.
[4] Leslie Pierce, “Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl became Queen of the Ottoman Empire”, (New York, Basic Books, 2017), p. 35.
[5] Peirce, “The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire”, p. 59.
[6] Albieri, “Le relazioni degli ambasciatori Veneto al Senato”, p. 75.
[7] Peirce, “Empress of the East”, p. 59.
Other Bibliography
1. Aleyv Lytle Croutier, “Harem: The World Behind the Veil”, (New York & London, Abbeville Press Publishers, 1989)
2. Caroline Finkel, “Osmans Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire”, (New York, Basic Books, 2005)
3. Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, “Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History without the Fairytale Endings“, (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Quirk Books, 2013)
4. Sarah Shaver Hughes & Brady Hughes, “Women in World History: Volume 2, Readings from 1500 to the Present“, (London & New York, Routledge, 1997).
5. Walter G Andrews & Mehmet Kalpakli, “The Age of Beloveds: Love and Beloved in Early Modern Ottoman and European Society and Culture“, (Durham & London, Duke University Press, 2005).
The Monstrous Regiment of Women 
Brilliant
LikeLike