Hürrem Sultan according to later traditions either Alexandra Lisowska or Anastasia was the legal wife and haseki sultan of Suleiman the Magnificent and the mother of Şehzade Mehmed, Mihrimah Sultan, Şehzade Abdullah, Sultan Selim II, Şehzade Bayezid and Şehzade Cihangir of the Ottoman Empire. She was one of the most powerful women in Ottoman history and a prominent figure during the era known as the Sultanate of Women. She achieved power and influenced the politics of the Ottoman Empire through her husband and played an active role in state affairs of the Empire. According to late 16th-century and early 17th-century sources, such as the Polish poet Samuel Twardowski, who researched the subject in Turkey, Hürrem was seemingly born to a father who was an Ukrainian Orthodox priest. She was born in the town of Rohatyń, 68 km southeast of Lviv, a major city of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (today in Western Ukraine). In the 1520s, she was captured by Crimean Tatars during one of their frequent raids into this region and taken as a slave, probably first to the Crimean city of Kaffa, a major centre of the slave trade, then to Istanbul, and was selected for Suleiman's harem She quickly came to the attention of her master, and attracted the jealousy of her rivals. She soon proved to be Suleiman's favorite consort or Haseki Sultan. Hürrem's influence over the Sultan soon became legendary. She was to bear six of Suleiman's fourteen children and in an astonishing break with tradition, she was eventually freed. Breaking with two centuries of Ottoman tradition, a former concubine had thus become the legal wife of the Sultan, much to the astonishment of observers in the palace and the city. It made Suleiman the first Ottoman emperor to have a wed wife since Orhan Gazi and strengthened Hürrem's position in the palace and eventually led to one of her sons, Selim, inheriting the empire. In the Constantinople harem, Hürrem Sultan was a very influential rival for Mahidevran Sultan. Hürrem gave birth to her first son Mehmed in 1521 (who died in 1543) and then four other sons including Selim (future Sultan Selim II) in 1524, destroying Mahidevran's status of being the mother of the sultan's only son. The rivalry between the two women was partially suppressed by Ayşe Hafsa Sultan, Suleiman's mother, but after her death in 1534, as a result of the bitter rivalry a fight between the two women broke out, with Mahidevran beating Hürrem. This angered Suleiman, who subsequently sent Mahidevran to live with her son, Şehzade Mustafa, in the provincial capital of Manisa. This exile was shown officially as the traditional training of heir apparents, Sanjak Beyliği. Many years later, towards the end of Suleiman's long reign, the rivalry between his sons became evident. Furthermore, both Hürrem Sultan and the grand vizier Rüstem Pasha (Hürrem's son-in-law) turned him against Mustafa and Mustafa was accused of causing unrest. During the campaign against Safavid Persia in 1553, because of a fear of rebellion, Sultan Suleiman ordered the execution of Mustafa. After the death of Mustafa, Mahidevran Gülbahar lost her state in the palace (as being the mother of the heir apparent) and moved to Bursa. Suleiman also allowed Hürrem Sultan to remain with him at court for the rest of her life, breaking another tradition—that when imperial heirs came of age, they would be sent along with the imperial concubine who bore them to govern remote provinces of the Empire, never to return unless their progeny succeeded to the throne (Sanjak Beyliği Hürrem also acted as Suleiman's advisor on matters of state, and seems to have had an influence upon foreign affairs and international politics. Two of her letters to King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland have been preserved, and during her lifetime, the Ottoman Empire generally had peaceful relations with the Polish state within a Polish--Ottoman alliance. Aside from her political concerns, Hürrem engaged in several major works of public buildings, from Mecca to Jerusalem, perhaps modeling her charitable foundations in part after the caliph Harun al-Rashid's consort Zubaida. Among her first foundations were a mosque, two Koranic schools (madrassa), a fountain, and a women's hospital near the women's slave market (Avret Pazary) in Constantinople. She commissioned a bath, the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, to serve the community of worshippers in the nearby Hagia Sophia. In Jerusalem she established in 1552 the Haseki Sultan Imaret, a public soup kitchen to feed the poor and the needy. Hürrem Sultan died on 18 April 1558 and was buried in a domed mausoleum (türbe) decorated in exquisite Iznik tiles depicting the garden of paradise, perhaps in homage to her smiling and joyful nature. Her mausoleum is adjacent to Suleiman's, a separate and more somber domed structure, at the Süleymaniye Mosque.

• published: 14 Dec 2013
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