THE MOTHER OF SULTANS

16th Century portrait of Suleiman' the Magnificent's 'Rose Wife'

THE STORY OF the CHRISTIAN SLAVE GIRL WHO ROSE TO BE ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL AND INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN THE HISTORY OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE… 

When the young Aleksandra Ruslana Lisowska (known to western historians as Roxelana) was kidnapped from her home in the Ukraine, the terrified girl must have feared for her fate. Her captors were fierce Crimean Tartars, who regularly raided the border states of Eastern Europe for slaves, and they realised that the beautiful young girl would fetch a handsome price in the markets of the east.

Roxelana was taken to the Black Sea port of Kaffa, then a major centre for the trade in European slaves, but here her beauty became her salvation. The agents of a young Ottoman prince named Suleiman, selected Roxelana to be their master’s concubine and sent her to Constantinople.

Roxelana entered the seraglio (women’s quarters) sometime before Suleiman became sultan in 1520 but life in a royal harem was fraught with danger. Contrary to popular belief, harems did not exist purely for the pleasure of the sultan, their function was to provide the dynasty with a choice of male heirs but, upon the succession of the senior prince, his rival half-brothers were usually put to death and their mothers exiled. Moreover, only the sultan’s official consorts were permitted to bear more than one child, whilst the lower status concubines were limited one pregnancy each. Knowing their fate if they failed, led to bitter rivalry between the mothers as they sought to protect their children and themselves.

When Roxelana arrived in Constantinople, Suleiman already had 17 women in his harem and had sired a son with his official consort Mahidevran (whose name means ‘the one who is always beautiful’), but the new arrival soon became the sultan’s favourite. In 1521 Roxelana gave Suleiman another son, Mehmed, and contrary to the old custom she bore him four more sons and a daughter. This threatened Mahidevran’s status as ‘queen mother’ and she took to beating Roxelana with a stick, which so angered Suleiman he decided to promote Roxelana.

In 1533 (some sources say 1534) he married his When the young Aleksandra Ruslana Lisowska (known to western historians as Roxelana) was kidnapped from her home in the Ukraine, the terrified girl must have feared for her fate. Her captors were fierce Crimean Tartars, who regularly raided the border states of Eastern Europe for slaves, and they realised that the beautiful young girl would fetch a handsome price in the markets of the east. Roxelana was taken to the Black Sea port of Kaffa, then a major centre for the trade in European slaves, but here her beauty became her salvation. The agents of a young Ottoman prince named Suleiman, selected Roxelana to be their master’s concubine and sent her to Constantinople.

Roxelana entered the seraglio (women’s quarters) sometime before Suleiman became sultan in 1520 but life in a royal harem was fraught with danger. Contrary to popular belief, harems did not exist purely for the pleasure of the sultan, their function was to provide the dynasty with a choice of male heirs but, upon the succession of the senior prince, his rival half-brothers were usually put to death and their mothers exiled. Moreover, only the sultan’s official consorts were permitted to bear more than one child, whilst the lower status concubines were limited one pregnancy each. Knowing their fate if they failed, led to bitter rivalry between the mothers as they sought to protect their children and themselves.

When Roxelana arrived in Constantinople, Suleiman already had 17 women in his harem and had sired a son with his official consort Mahidevran (whose name means ‘the one who is always beautiful’), but the new arrival soon became the sultan’s favourite. In 1521 Roxelana gave Suleiman another son, Mehmed, and contrary to the old custom she bore him four more sons and a daughter. This threatened Mahidevran’s status as ‘queen mother’ and she took to beating Roxelana with a stick, which so angered Suleiman he decided to promote Roxelana. In 1533 (some sources say 1534) he married his Christian slave girl in a lavish ceremony but his caused a scandal in the palace.

By taking his concubine as his wife, Suleiman had violated a 200 year old Ottoman custom that forbade sultans from wedding either their official consorts or their unofficial concubines. Worse still, never before had a sultan married a former slave who’d been brought up a Christian. To add insult to injury, Roxelana received the official the title Haseki Sultan, meaning ‘Chief Consort’, as mark of her favoured status, but she generally became known as Hürrem, meaning ‘the cheerful one’. She was also given a salary of 2,000 aspers a day (by contrast Mahidevran’s allowance had been just 4 aspers a day) and, in a further break from tradition, permitted to remain at Suleiman’s side when her children came of age.

By another longstanding custom, the sultan’s male children were always sent to govern a far off province as when they reached the age 16 and they took their mothers with them. This was to prevent rival consorts from plotting on their son’s behalf and no royal mother was allowed to return to the palace unless her son became sultan. However, even though Roxelana’s healthy sons were indeed sent away, she was allowed to stay in the capital with her crippled son Cihangir. Moreover, she was moved out of the harem and into her own quarters close to Suleiman’s apartments in the recently completed Topkapi Palace.

Her physical proximity to the throne reflected Roxana’s enormous political power and influence over Suleiman who seems to have been truly smitten with his official wife. He wrote her love poems (see below) and regularly sought her advice on affairs of state. He particularly valued her opinions on foreign policy, which is not perhaps surprising as her Polish-Ukrainian heritage would have been of great importance to securing Suleiman’s alliance with his empire’s northern neighbours. Roxelana wrote to the Polish king Sigismund II Augustus on numerous occasions (two of her letters have survived) and she often received ambassadors from Poland on her husband’s behalf.

Besides helping to shape foreign policy, Roxelana also managed secure the succession for her second son Selim (Mehmed had died in 1543). In 1553, Suleiman ordered the execution of Mustafa, his son by Mahidevran, almost certainly at the insistence of Roxelana and she is traditionally blamed for the removal of any courtier who stood in Selim’s way. After Suleiman’s death in 1566, Selim was duly girded with the Sword of Osman and he ruled the Ottoman Empire until his death in 1574.

Roxelana herself died in 1558 but her legacy persisted for generations. By raising the status of royal wives at the Ottoman court she helped create what became known in the 17th Century as ‘the Sultanate of Women’. Her only daughter Mihrimah functioned as Valide Sultan (Queen Mother) for her brother Selim and by the early 1600s, the wife and mother of the sultan had become two of the most prominent and influential positions in government.

To read the text of Roxelana's letters and Suleiman's poems click here

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