Empress of the East: How a Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire

"Süleyman’s wife entered the Ottoman orbit as a slave woman. Ottoman dynastic reproduction when Süleyman was born relied on sexual intercourse between an Ottoman prince and a concubine. In earlier centuries, Ottoman princes had married princesses from neighboring dynasties, both Muslim and Christian. But as the Empire became larger, and as the power of the sultan kept increasing, it seems that there came a turning point. Concubinage had existed before, but at some point in the early to mid-15th century, the Ottomans decided to reproduce the dynasty only through concubines in order to make sure that the princes become purely Ottoman products. This is very similar to the devşirme system, which I discuss in the book and through which the architect Sinan was taken into Ottoman service. Ottoman agents would go around the countryside and select good-looking, smart-sounding, early adolescents, and take them into Ottoman service through conversion and education. They would be given a new name. Even though some of them maintained relationships with their family members, they were purely Ottoman products, and they remained the slaves of the sultan. So slavery was used both to create this loyal service class and to create Ottoman princes. According to the sharia, if a Muslim man has a child by a slave, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, that child becomes a Muslim, and is recognized as a free person. So Süleyman’s wife was taken into the Ottoman realm through slavery. There are discussions about when she met Süleyman—it was probably after he became sultan. She may have been one of the slave women who was given to Süleyman as a gift upon his accession, or she may have been taken into his household during his time as prince shortly before he became sultan. Yes, she came from that Eurasian steppe which was a major hunting ground for slave merchants at this time. The numbers are horrifying—a couple of million people were enslaved, according to some estimates. And yet, it’s very rarely part of the discussion. For both historiographical reasons and understandable political reasons there is much more focus on Africa and slavery. Also, past Ottoman historians have been quite ‘successful’ in trying to erase the legacy of slavery. That’s why I’m bringing all these different pieces into discussion, as I do in my book. For instance, I point out in the introduction, ‘You think Süleyman was a guy who did interesting things? Well, he was surrounded by slaves. Even his wife was a slave, even though he liberated her at some point.’ Hürrem would probably have been converted to Islam before she entered Süleyman’s household. It’s likely that she received some education in the household. We know through her correspondence that she knew how to read. She may have known how to write. I looked at letters by Süleyman’s mother, who was also a slave. The writing is obviously that of someone who has learned to write late in their lives and Hürrem may have been the same. Süleyman had relationships with concubines before he met Hürrem. He had children, many of them dying in infancy, but at least one son from another concubine survived into adulthood and was eventually executed. “Competition was required to survive in this environment” But after Süleyman met Hürrem, he became increasingly monogamous. We don’t know what the attraction between the two was. There’s no documentation about how they met or what they felt about each other. But we know from the reports of diplomats in Istanbul that Süleyman formed a monogamous family in the midst of the harem, which was a system that was established to make sure that a prince had sex with different concubines and had children with them. When a concubine produced a son, the prince was supposed to move on to the next concubine. I think this was a crude Ottoman understanding of evolution. They had an idea of something like a gene pool, which you could extend by producing princes from different concubines. Süleyman didn’t want that. He became monogamous in the early years of his sultanate. He had an interesting relationship with women because we also have indications that he had a close relationship with his mother and his sisters. Even before his wife became a visible presence in the life of the Ottoman dynasty, Süleyman supported his mother, and gave her significant resources to create a charitable complex to her own name. Süleyman tried to create personal and intimate relationships that have left behind traces, which tells us that these were significant relationships for him. By all accounts, Hürrem was an extremely gifted, intelligent person. We have her letters. She was someone who was capable of great intimacy, who became a refuge for her husband. Süleyman was very conflicted. He lived in the midst of this very violent, masculine dynastic culture. But he also displayed an element of vulnerability—in his poetry, for instance, that’s quite visible. His wife became a companion for him. She also became an informant. When he was on campaign, they corresponded. She told him about the gossip in the palace and around Istanbul; she was his confidant. Hürrem also started creating her own architectural legacy and I think Leslie Peirce is right that she was the first female member of the Ottoman dynasty to create a visible architectural legacy in the capital city itself. We have examples in the provinces, but it was the first time a woman of the dynasty was building a mosque complex and soup kitchen in Istanbul to her name. Hürrem was one of Süleyman’s biggest supporters. Süleyman manumitted her and she died as a free person in 1558. Süleyman had multiple children by Hürrem, including four boys. Immediately after she died, her two surviving sons entered into a deadly succession contest that determined the tenor of the last years of Süleyman’s reign. So, yes, this is the right book to read about Hürrem. I do also see it as an exercise in feminist history, as much as that is possible given the scarcity of the sources. This is an aspect of Ottoman history that has not been studied much, and whenever it has been studied, it has been studied through a male perspective. I remember reading in high school all this horrible stuff about how the meddling of women started the decline of the Ottoman Empire! So there’s a pushback against that and there are other scholars who have been working on queen mothers. This is part of a new scholarship that restores the importance of women in the Ottoman story."