Sultanas of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman case, perhaps the best example of female rule—women practically controlled the empire from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century—is also the most incredible. During that period young women were brought to the Ottoman palace as chattel, war captives and slaves, resocialized in the harem, and used as sexual companions for the sultan or the princes. Yet some of these women succeeded in extracting themselves from their state of bondage and became the sultan’s favorites and eventually the next sultans’ mothers. From that point on harem women held the reins of power. This chapter follows the rise of this phenomenon from the arrival of Hurrem/Roxelana to the harem, through the reigns of Nurbanu Sultan and Safiye Sultan in the second half of the century, to the rise of Kösem Sultan, the last great queen and her fall some fifty years later. It centers on their construction of a power base and involvement in foreign affairs, with an emphasis on their connection to other powerful women around the globe, including Bona Sforza, queen of Poland, Shahzada Sultanum of the Safavid Empire, Catherine de Medici of France, and Elizabeth I of England.