Haseki Sultan
Haseki Sultan ( Ottoman خاصکى سلطان İA Ḫāṣekī Sulṭān , German: Favoritein, Favorite Wife ' ) was the official title of the main wife of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire since the 16th century .
The first woman to hold this title was Haseki Hürrem Sultan ( Roxelane ), the companion and later principal wife of Sultan Suleyman I and mother of his successor Selim II. The last woman to bear the title was Rabia Gülnuş Sultan (1642 or 1647–1715). The Haseki Sultan had its own funds, so that some women were able to act as donors of important buildings of Ottoman architecture . Because of their proximity to the Sultan, the Haseki Sultan was able to exert political influence.
In the 17th century the title lost its meaning and was replaced by the more general name Kadınefendi ( Ottoman قادين افندی 'Lady' ) replaced.
Role and influence
The prominent position at the Sultan's court gave the Haseki Sultan special privileges and enabled her to exercise political influence: Suleyman I was the first to break with the principle that a concubine could only have one son from the Sultan. Her marriage to the Sultan made Hürrem free and the relationship legal. She was allowed to move her apartment from the harem to the Topkapı Palace . Due to her spatial and emotional proximity to the Sultan, she was able to influence his decisions; During the Sultan's absence from court, the Haseki Sultan was an essential source of information for him from the capital.
Numerous religious foundations such as the monumental Haseki Sultan Complex or the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hammām in the immediate vicinity of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, both donated by Haseki Hürrem Sultan and built by the Ottoman master architect Sinan , bear witness to the social importance of the sultan's wives .
Meaning for the dynasty
Suleyman's marriage with Hürrem marked a turning point in the exercise of power by the Ottoman dynasty: By around 1450, the sultans had sealed alliances with their neighboring powers by marrying a daughter of the neighboring ruler, who then received the status of main consort. Sons and successors, however, emerged predominantly from relationships with concubines who, due to their status as slaves, had little influence. With the emergence of the custom of legitimizing unfree women and mothers of the subsequent sultans through marriage, the role of the sultan's family as the pillar of dynastic rule was strengthened.
Up to the time of Mehmed II (1432–1481), the political elite of the empire had mainly recruited from the serfs (ḳul) of the sultan and was therefore directly dependent on and only obliged to him. Under Suleyman I, the custom arose of marrying off sultan's daughters to high officials of the empire. For example, the later grand viziers married Makbul Ibrahim Pascha Hadije, a sister of the Sultan and Rüstem Pascha his daughter, Mihrimah Sultan . Similar to the circumcision festivals of the sons, weddings in the sultan's family were publicly celebrated with great expense and served to demonstrate dynastic power. The expansion to include the sultan's family changed the Ottoman concept of rule of the patrimonial organized "household" with the sultan at the head. As the sultan's sons-in-law ( damad ) and members of the ruling family, the high imperial officials gained independent positions of power. In alliance with their influential wives and mothers, the Ottoman dignitaries were able to form factions within the sultan's family and thus influence the sultan's policies according to their own goals. The succession was open to all sons of a sultan up to Suleyman I. Since then, alliances between concubine, daughter and Damad have played a decisive role in determining the succession. For the first time, this procedure has been handed down to Rustem Pascha, Mirimah and their mother Hürrem, who tried together to establish a son Hürrem as the successor to Suleyman I.
The title "Haseki Sultan" later lost its meaning as a prominent denomination of rank for a single sultan's wife. Several women could bear the title of favorite consort at the same time. Sultan İbrahim (1615-1648) lived with seven women who carried this title. From the 17th century onwards, the role of the Valide Sultan , mother of the ruling sultan, became more significant and influential . During the period of " women's rule " from the end of the 16th to the middle of the 17th century, which was characterized by a number of politically weak or incapacitated sultans, sultans' mothers secured the power of the dynasty.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Fanny Davis: The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918 . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1986, ISBN 978-0-313-24811-5 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ^ A b Leslie Peirce: The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire . Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-19-508677-5 , pp. 57–90 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
- ↑ a b Colin Imber: The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650. The structure of power . 2nd Edition. Palgrave MacMillan, London / New York / Shanghai 2008, ISBN 978-0-230-57451-9 , pp. 75-115 .
- ^ Metin Kunt: Royal and Other Households. In: Christine Woodhead (Ed.): The Ottoman world . Routledge, 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-44492-7 , pp. 103-115 .
- ↑ Olivier Bouquet: The Sultan's Sons-in-Law: Analyzing Ottoman Imperial Damads . In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient . tape 58 , 2015, p. 327-361 ( academia.edu [accessed May 6, 2018]).