THE SULTANATE OF WOMEN

                           Roxelana And The Sultan by German baroque painter Anton Hickel

How the harem became the place of power in the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years. It began at the tail end of the crusading movement in the Middle East and finished in the 1920s. This means that there are still a few people alive today who were born subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The peak of the empire began with Suleiman I, known as ‘The Lawgiver’ in the east and as ‘The Magnificent’ in the west. Intriguingly, while he was in charge of an empire in its prime and undeniably the most powerful man in Europe in the 1500s, it’s his reign that also begins the era of the ‘Sultanate of Women’, a time when the harem became the focal point of political power.

‘Harem’ is a Turkish word from the Arabic ‘haram’, which means forbidden or sacrosanct. It refers to the private quarters of the palace, set aside for the sultan’s women, including his mother, wives (officially four), daughters and other female relatives as well as the concubines who were there purely for the sultan’s pleasure. It was, quite simply, the sultan’s family home. The imperial harem, of which the one in Topkapı Palace is probably the most famous example, typically housed dozens of women – at its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries, there were about 300.

The power of the Ottoman court was based on a strict hierarchy, with the sultan at the top. The Ottoman harem was also a hierarchy, with the sultan’s mother, the valide sultan, the supreme ruler. Wives were next in rank and others followed according to how they played the power politics in this all female domain. Lower ranking women acted as servants to higher ranking women.

The Topkapı Palace harem is vast and labyrinthine. Walking around just the few parts of the compound that are open to the public is incredibly evocative, a place where it is easy to imagine whispered intrigues as footsteps echo through the beautifully tiled corridors. One room has a gurgling fountain, strategically located so that conversations could not be overheard. The harem would have been a lively place, with children running around, unaware that only one of the little boys would become the next sultan, to the detriment of his of brothers, who were, at times, ritually strangled on the accession of the new sultan. As such, there was constant plotting and scheming as each mother of a son vied to position him to become sultan.

Suleiman was the first sultan in over two centuries to be officially married (but he still had hundreds of concubines). His wife was formally known as Hürrem Haseki Sultan, but she was better known as Roxelana, and she was what we would today call Ukrainian. Roxelana was most likely captured by the Tartars and handed over to the Ottomans as part of their annual tribute. She was about 15 when she arrived in the imperial harem in Istanbul, a young girl in a strange land, surrounded by an unfamiliar language, religion and culture. Because of the sheer number in the harem, just being there didn’t automatically mean you would ever meet the sultan, let alone catch his eye. But catch his eye she did.

When Roxelana arrived, Suleiman already had two favourites, Gülfem and Mahidevran. But Roxelana’s outgoing personality and playfulness intoxicated the young sultan and, over time, she became his favourite by knocking her competitors down the pecking order. She was so favoured that she was allowed to have more than one son, breaking a centuries-old tradition. And she broke another tradition when she married Suleiman. Obviously their wedding in 1533/34 was as lavish and as opulent as it was surprising. The marriage and Roxelana’s new position as chief consort set a precedent and explains why women were to hold such sway at court for the next 130 years. Roxelana’s wealth and influence would have made her far more powerful than her contemporary, Queen Mary of England. This Ukrainian slave girl influenced foreign policy and affairs of state of the largest empire in Europe and the Middle East. The sultan’s wife now had more power than anyone but the sultan.

It is a little known fact that many of the sultan’s women did not spend their entire lives in the harem. Once a son came of age at around 16, he was sent off to govern an area of the empire… and the mother went with the son. This meant the son had an ally he could trust and it also stopped the harem from becoming a nursing home for older consorts. Again Roxelana bucked the trend and stayed in the royal harem to be near her husband and sons, in the thick of imperial intrigue.

Later in Suleiman’s reign, Mustafa, the son of Mahidevran, rebelled. He was older than any of the chief consort’s sons and, therefore, more likely to take the throne come the sultan’s death, which meant he posed a real and direct threat to Roxelana’s sons and her legacy.

Up until his rebellion, Mustafa had been seen as capable and had even served as his father’s grand vizier (prime minister) for a time. The interesting thing about this rebellion is that there seems to be no evidence for it other than hearsay, and that hearsay seems to have come from Roxelana.

Rebelling Ottoman princes were nothing new, so it could be that Mustafa had grown impatient to become sultan, or it could be that the whole thing was made up by Roxelana as a means to remove the main impediment to one of her sons becoming sultan (with all that this meant for her). If the latter was the case, her scheming worked. Suleiman had Mustafa executed and Mahidevran, with no son, lost her status and became an irrelevance in the power politics of the sultanate.

While it’s not hard to believe that Roxelana plotted Mustafa’s fall, it could also be that rumours about her involvement were spread by her enemies (she had many). However, when considering cui bono (who benefits), this turn of events would seem to have most favoured Roxelana. Her links to other high profile executions seem to have been based more on gossip than this particular one. She died in 1558 in her mid-50s and her mausoleum is adjacent to Suleiman’s in Istanbul.

Fast forwarding about 50 years, we come to the other famous female figure in Ottoman politics, Kösem. This is where the Sultanate of Women becomes 'Game Of Thrones' on steroids.

Sultan Ahmed became the new sultan at the age of 13 in 1603. Even at this young age he made a significant impact on Ottoman imperial protocol – he did not have his brother strangled. Instead, his 11-year-old brother Mustafa was quietly tucked away in a palace, in essence, under a very luxurious house arrest. Ahmed had yet to hit puberty, so it was best for all that there was an heir and a spare. However his decision was written into law and from then on no more little coffins would be carried out of Topkapı Palace on the accession of a new sultan.

For one so young, Ahmet had a lot on his plate. He finished a war in the west and one in the east, with no major changes in the balance of power. Ahmed knew the importance of the dynastic line and, once he reached an appropriate age, he met Kösem, a girl in the harem who was only a little older than he was. Better known to history as Kösem Sultan, she arrived in the harem at exactly the right time. Ahmed’s mother and grandmother, both women of immense power and influence, would not have shared Ahmed with this new girl, but they both died relatively early in Ahmed’s reign, so Kösem, having caught the sultan’s eye, now had to keep it.

Whatever she did worked spectacularly well as the year she gave birth to the boy who would later be sultan was the same year that Ahmed’s other consort, Mahfiruz Hatice Sultan, was beaten by the eunuchs, a sign that Kösem Sultan remained at the top of the pecking order. She was the wife of one sultan, the mother of two more and was still around to wield power for her grandson.

Unfortunately, Sultan Ahmed caught typhus in 1617 and died from internal bleeding. He was just 27 years old and, although he had a young son, the Ottoman court feared what message a boy ruler would send out to the empire’s enemies. This was a critical moment for the empire.

Enter Mustafa, the brother who had been quietly tucked away since Ahmed’s coronation. Mustafa may have been born with a learning or mental disability, which would not have been helped by years spent in the ‘cage’, a windowless set of sumptuous rooms in the harem, where the sultan’s male heirs lived out their young lives.

The decision to gird Mustafa with the sword of Osman (the Ottoman equivalent of being crowned) was not a popular one, and many in the court objected. With the impossible choice of a boy sultan or a mad one, the court picked the mad one. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go well and he has been remembered by history as Mustafa the Mad.

Sultan Mustafa lasted three months. He was seen at the royal arsenal, made a few public appearances, waved to the crowds a bit and then was unceremoniously dumped back in his palace. The reason was a powerful new cabal in the government, and they preferred Osman, who was Ahmed’s oldest son. So, a 14 year old was the next to be girded with Osman’s sword and he became Osman II.

After his father’s death and a decade of scheming, there were too many vested interests to give Osman a chance. Rather than a leader in his own right, he was meant to be a figurehead under the control of the anti-Mustafa cabal. He was a teenager surrounded by hungry wolves, with no power base of his own. The Janissaries, always alert to the machinations of power politics, began to scheme while in the harem Kösem Sultan plotted. Osman II was not her son. If he were allowed to build a power base or, worse for her, to marry and announce his own Haseki Sultan, then her influence would evaporate.

Despite his early promise as a military leader and the four years he spent trying to suppress the intrigue in his own court, Osman II was finally outmanoeuvred. The Janissaries seized the sultan and imprisoned him. A short time later he was strangled and, after this assassination of the rightful ruler, Mad Mustafa was brought back to be the figurehead for the ruling elite.

Interestingly Mustafa did not take the news of his return to power in a way that might be expected. As the heads of the various power bases conveyed the news of his nephew’s death, Mustafa was clearly making mental notes, and every one of the men involved in the plot, including the grand vizier and the head of the Janissaries was executed under his orders. Later he was seen wandering the corridors of the palace looking for Osman, crying out for him to relieve him of the burdens of being sultan.

The executions were probably the only thing Mustafa did in his second reign that were his own idea. He was his mother’s puppet, and behind the scenes, Halime Sultan was vying for power with Kösem Sultan. It remained to be seen just which of the harem mothers would come out on top. Kösem Sultan brought instability to a close (in the short term) when she won the battle for power in the harem. Mustafa gratefully stepped down again and was allowed to live out his days in the old palace, while Kösem Sultan’s son became by far the youngest sultan at just 11 years of age.

In the future, Murad IV would become one of the greatest dichotomies in Ottoman history but, in the meantime, Kösem Sultan was regent to her sultan son. She was all too aware that as he matured, nature would take its course, and she would be superseded by her son’s wife, just as she had herself had usurped her mother-in-law’s power.

So it seems that Kösem Sultan came up with a cunning plan – she would ensure Murad IV was gay. While this is speculation there can be almost no other reason to have attractive male teenagers regularly paraded in front of her son. To say that her ploy affected Murad’s attitude to women is something of an understatement. On one occasion he ordered the personal guard on his barge to attack washer women on the shoreline. Their crime? Singing. On another occasion, he ordered all the concubines into the swimming pool where they had to tread water to stay afloat, while he fired a slingshot at any woman who tried to get out. Some of them drowned.

Murad IV died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1640, aged just 28. All of his hard work to bring stability was undone. Murad IV had come to power after a mad predecessor and now, once again, power was back in the hands of a madman. Murad IV’s brother and the son of Kösem Sultan, Ibrahim, had lived his entire life in the cage. Such a strict confinement was likely to drive anyone mad, but mad or not, Ibrahim had the strongest claim to the throne (It was vital to the Ottomans that the empire was always ruled by an heir to the first Osman).

Unfortunately, he thought the ceremony of his accession was an elaborate hoax on the part of his dead brother, and he resisted being girded with Osman’s sword and belt. To be fair to Ibrahim, Murad IV had killed men for far less, but Ibrahim couldn’t believe he was sultan until he was allowed to see Murad IV’s body.

Kösem Sultan was in a bind. While she had always struggled to put her own power before the health of the empire, there was no doubt that heirs to the throne were becoming thin on the ground. While she did not want to lose out to a younger woman, she had to make sure that Ibrahim had children. Ironically, Ibrahim sired three sultans, a record number. This is probably unsurprising given that he spent most of his time in the harem which was the only home he had ever known.

In 1647 Kösem Sultan, as well as the grand vizier, began plotting Ibrahim’s overthrow. Unfortunately for them, he got wind of the palace coup and acted first. The grand vizier was executed and Kösem Sultan was banished from the capital, but these moves only slowed the At its peak there were over 300 concubines in the harem. Although the women were held in bondage, they received stipends and were allowed to leave after a certain period of service, usually nine years, when many of them married into the Ottoman aristocracy wheels of revolt.

Once again the Janissaries rose up, and this time they were supported by the general population. Everyone had had enough. While Ibrahim was living lavishly, the price of food and other goods was constantly rising for the public.

With turmoil at the top once more, Kösem Sultan was brought back to work out what to do. Ibrahim’s reign was now untenable, but a successor had to be chosen before an uprising turned into a revolution – or even civil war. The new grand vizier and Kösem Sultan agreed that the best plan of action was to have Ibrahim executed and install his six-year-old son Mehmed as the new sultan.

Mehmed IV’s reign brought an end to Kösem Sultan’s power. She was not a blood relative and his mother Turhan feared the scheming woman might well make a move against the boy sultan. While it is thought that this was unlikely, it didn’t prevent her execution in 1651 (there is no proof, but it was believed to have been ordered by Turhan), when it is said that she was strangled with her own hair. Her execution was a bold move and her death brought to a close the many decades of influence she and her predecessors had wielded both in the harem and the sultan’s court.

Written by Jem Duducu in "All About History Magazine",UK, issue 074, June, 2019,excerpts pp. 52-57. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.