From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548)

Full text

Christiane Czygan
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s
Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548)
1 Introduction
Written texts by female slaves are rare. Some of the earliest examples, however, date
to the sixteenth century, when promising female slaves in the Imperial Ottoman
harem received training in writing. These women’s letters provide extraordinary in-
sights into their views, power and social relations as well as their perceptions of their
own dependency. This legacy has long been neglected, and the exploration of these
unique documents crafted by female slaves has only just begun.
1
Hurrem set several precedents
2
and thus changed the imperial fabric. Her extraor-
dinary ascent to power, from slave to empress, has continued to fascinate and inspire
people to the present day. The narrative about her witchcraft was a topos promoted by
contemporary European diplomats.
3
Nonetheless, nineteenth-century historians –Otto-
man and German alike –feverishly adopted this view, a notable example being Joseph
v. Hammer-Purgstall.
4
Hurrem took to writing letters to Sultan Süleyman during his campaigns, some of
which lasted several years. A considerable number of these letters have survived and
today constitute a most valuable resource, giving voice to a female slave. Hurrem’s
letters to the sultan can be seen not merely as expressions of her longing and love but
also, and perhaps equally, as attempts to keep herself in the sultan’s heart and mind
during long periods of separation. Süleyman’s lengthy and recurrent absences must
have reminded Hurrem continually that her life –and the lives of her children –de-
pended completely on the sultan. Simultaneously, however, the missives reveal a
Note: I thank Hedda Reindl-Kiel and William Clarence-Smith for their reading and enlightening thoughts.
Cf. Betül Argıtİpşirli, HayatlarınınÇeşitli Safharlında Harem-i Hümayun Cariyeleri, 18. Yüzyıl(Istan-
bul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2017): 42; Betül Argıtİpşirli, “A Queen Mother and the Ottoman Imperial Harem.
Rabia GülnuşEmetullah Valide Sultan (1649–1715),”in Concubines and Courtesans. Women and Slavery
in Islamic History, ed. Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (New York: Oxford University Press,
2017): 211; Hedda Reindl-Kiel, “Mord an einer Haremsdame,”Münchner Zeitschrift für Balkankunde
7–8 (1991): 171–74.
Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1993): 55.
Cf. Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, The Turkish Letters. Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople
1554–1562, trans. Edward Seymour Forster (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986): 33, 49.
Joseph v. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs, vol. 3 (Graz: Akademische Druck-
und Verlagsgesellschaft, 1963): 317.
Open Access. © 2023 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111210544-009

rather nonchalant attitude towards the sultan’s campaigns and thus suggest a differ-
ent perspective.
Moreover, these letters offer an intimate view of Hurrem’s rhetoric of love, while
also revealing her strategies and aims. It is striking that, even after her manumission
and rise to the position of queen, Hurrem referred to the kul-paradigm of ‘paragon
obedience’, identified by Madeline Zilfi. Nonetheless, Hurrem transformed and instru-
mentalised this paradigm to suit her own agenda.
5
2 Premodern Ottoman Female Slavery
In accordance with the BCDSS’s definition of ‘strong asymmetrical dependency’, three
factors are fundamental:
–The loss of personal autonomy
–An institutionally backed environment
–The impossibility of escape or protest
6
This raises the question of how the enslavement of women was legally defined. As an
Islamicate empire, the Ottoman Empire’s theory of female slavery was rooted in Qu-
ranic and Hanafi premises.
7
According to the Hanafi normative code, female slaves
belonged exclusively to their owners and were potential concubines. Despite being
commodities, female slaves also had specific rights:
–They were able to marry, except for their masters.
8
–If the female slave belonged to the lady of the household, intercourse with her
was forbidden for all male members of the household.
9
–If a slave woman bore a child acknowledged by her master as his, the child was a
free person.
10
–If a slave gave birth to her master’s child, her manumission was automatic upon
her owner’s death.
11
–Slave mothers of an acknowledged son of the master were prohibited from being sold.
12
Madeline Zilfi, Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010): 192.
Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, “Introduction,”in Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire,
ed. Stephan Conerman and Gül Şen (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2020): 13.
Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964): 127–30.
Conermann and Şen, “Introduction”: 14.
Suraiya Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire. A Social and Political History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2023):
47, 68.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 109–13.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 112.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire: 68.; Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 112.
198 Christiane Czygan

–Even after giving birth to her master’s child, a slave mother remained at her mas-
ter’s disposal.
13
–Women slaves were able to register complaints.
14
–Liberation was attainable upon proper payment by the slave.
15
–Female slaves could be returned to the seller within a three-day window on the
basis of defectiveness –a backdoor to illicit prostitution.
16
This normative code was occasionally abused or ignored.
17
Thus, these rules largely
represented an ideal state rather than reality. Nevertheless, it should be emphasised
that in Islam manumission was indeed perceived as a desirable act of piety and that
slavery connoted a non-permanent state. Release was a matter of negotiation between
master and slave; the document that stipulated the instalment and its period was
dubbed the mükātebe and it was legally binding.
18
Abduction occurred in licit and illicit ways. In wartime and during raids, abduc-
tion was legally acknowledged, while kidnapping or the sale of female family mem-
bers were considered illicit. In practice, however, these acts were seldom pursued.
19
While neither race nor ethnicity excluded enslavement, religion did.
20
Although en-
slavement of Muslims was not permissible, when the Ottomans captured Shiites dur-
ing the fierce conflict between Selim I (r. 1508–1520) and Shah Ismail (r. 1501–1524),
they overcame this problem by declaring their captives apostates.
21
Once abducted, captives had to travel on foot to their destination. Though precise
figures are lacking, the march to the slave markets was a perilous journey that not all
survived. Although the slave population increased in wartime and decreased in peri-
ods of peace, Madeline Zilfi postulates that 20% of the inhabitants of sixteenth-
century Istanbul were slaves.
22
Peace was rare in the sixteenth century, however, and
the slave population might have been lower in the following centuries. Suraiya Far-
oqhi found evidence that even older women were abducted and bought for beggary.
23
Most abducted female slaves, however, were brought to the slave markets of Istanbul,
Bursa, or Edirne, where some were forced to reveal themselves publicly.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 112.
 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Slave Agencies Compared: The Ottoman and Mughal Empires,”in Slaves and
Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen (Göttingen: V&R unipress,
2020): 80.
 Conermann and Şen, “Introduction”:16–17.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 203.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire:66–68, 128; Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 112.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 108.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire: 128.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 106.
 See Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 208.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 130.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire: 65.
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 199

In Ottoman practice, it is necessary to differentiate between female slaves in weal-
thy or elite households and those in the Imperial harem. Within Ottoman households,
female slaves merged into family life, and their treatment was a matter of chance.
Their situation was to a large extent relational,
24
though they could in principle appeal
to Hanafi law (outlined above). In contrast, research suggests that entry to the Imperial
harem offered an opportunity to acquire wealth and even power through marriage to
state officials or by becoming an ‘elite slave’.
25
Under Islamic law, women could accu-
mulate wealth themselves, and Imperial concubines of higher status obtained salaries
that put them in such a favourable position.
26
However, life in the Imperial harem bore
certain risks that did not exist within other households. Hanafi law forbade slave own-
ers to apply the death penalty unilaterally and without reference to a ḳāḍī.Bycontrast,
in individual cases the sultan could take action, deviating from shariʿa practice on the
grounds of protecting the empire’s well-being.
27
When the sultan decided on execution,
no ḳāḍīhad to be consulted. The narrative that women from the harem were drowned
by being thrown into the Bosphorus on the sultan’s command is backed by poor evi-
dence, and care must be taken if relying on such narratives.
28
Beyond these risks, enter-
ing the Imperial harem did confer reputation and social status.
29
Conversely, it also
increased asymmetrical dependency by weakening personal autonomy; protest could
end perilously, and leaving was typically achieved through marriage.
30
Thus, although
Imperial harem slaves were distinguished from other slaves by their social status, they
were inseparably bonded to their Imperial owner. Importantly, social status was not
necessarily an indicator of freedom but, as in the case of Imperial harem slaves, could
in fact be linked to a higher degree of dependency.
Since the reign of Orhan, Ottomans took care to avoid motherhood by Imperial
wives, and the reproduction of the dynasty was achieved via concubines. As institutions
 İpşirli-Argıt, Harem-i Hümayun Cariyeleri: 35; Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 36.
 İpşirli-Argıt, Harem-i Hümayun Cariyeleri: 58; Faroqhi, “Slave Agencies Compared”:70–73; William
Gervase Clarence-Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery (London: Hurst & Company, 1988): 85.
Thanks are owed to Hedda Reindl-Kiel for the remineder that all women in the Imperial harem ob-
tained a daily salary, though less than that received by men of equal rank in the Imperial household.
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 8, 52.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 103.
 Faroqhi, “Slave Agencies Compared”: 73. Thanks are owed to Colin Imber, who pointed out a rare
piece of evidence on drowning described by the British ambassador. Henry Lello based his observa-
tions of procedures at Mahmud III’s court in 1603. According to Lello, 31 women were tied up alive in
sacks and thrown into the sea. Although ambassadors followed their own agendas and might have
misunderstood people or have been incorrectly informed, this report at least mentions the practice,
even if it falls well short of historiographical verification. Orhan Burian, ed., The Report of Lello: Third
English Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, 1952): 15.
 Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650. The Structure of Power (New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2009): 75–76.
 Ehud R. Toledano, As If Silent and Absent. Bonds of Enslavement in the Islamic Middle East (Yale:
Yale University Press, 2007): 19–22.
200 Christiane Czygan

developed, the Ottoman Imperial harem organised the reproduction of the dynasty from
at least the fourteenth century to modern times.
31
Marriage was abrogated altogether
after Mehmed II’sreign(1451–1481). In the sixteenth century, it was usual for the sultan
not to marry but to enter into temporary relationships with female slaves from the
harem.Therulewas“one mother for one potential heir.”
32
This guaranteed that competi-
tion for the succession occurred solely between half-brothers. Though scholars have em-
phasisedthemalelineage,
33
this interpretation does not explain the one mother-one son
rule, which suggests that importance was also attached to the female line.
Abducted girls or women reached the palace through slave traders, who had to
remit one fifth of the women to the sultan, a tax called the pencik.
34
Another possibility
was for the women to be offered by dignitaries as a kind of a gift for the sultan or the
sultan’s mother. Examples also exist of women being purchased from the slave market
by eunuchs,
35
who acted as brokers between the Imperial harem and the city.
36
A strict protocol, supervised by the sultan’s mother or a lady steward, was ob-
served when presenting potential concubines to the ruler.
37
Those chosen for inter-
course with the sultan attained the status of concubine (gözde), a position that could
be superseded only by that of a haseki, acquired by giving birth to a boy. According to
the normative Islamic-Hanafi rule, the birth of a boy secured the eventual manumis-
sion of the mother, now designated as ümm-i veled.
38
Practice within the Imperial
harem differed, insofar as a concubine who had given birth to a boy then belonged to
the Imperial family and could become a life-long member of the harem.
39
Moreover,
she spent her entire life at the side of this prince –at least until his maturity.
40
The
birth of a son also brought an end to the intimate relationship between the sultan and
his concubine. However, if a concubine bore the sultan no child, she was eventually
bound to be married off to a senior Ottoman state official. Since the reign of Mehmed
II or even earlier, once several sons had reached maturity, the sultan refrained from
reproduction.
41
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 39, 41.
 Clarence-Smith, Islam and the Abolition of Slavery: 89.
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 41.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire: 20.
 Faroqhi, Women in the Ottoman Empire: 20.
 Jane Hathaway, TheChiefEunuchoftheOttomanHarem:FromAfricanSlavetoPower-Broker
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018): 43, 47–49.
 Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East. How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire
(New York: Basic Books, 2017): 35; Peirce, The Imperial Harem:6.
 Stephan Conermann and Gül Şen, “Introduction”: 15.
 Reindl-Kiel, “Mord an einer Haremsdame”: 175.
 Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650. The Structure of Power, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2009): 77–78.
 İpşirli-Argıt, Harem-i Hümayun Cariyeleri: 17; Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 53.
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 201

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, sultans’mothers, called valide sultan,
acquired such power that they partook in ruling the empire –via their sons.
42
In the
nineteenth century, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were first lent a misogy-
nistic undertone as kadınlar sultanatı(sultanate of women),
43
which is perhaps signif-
icant for the loss of plurality in the later period. Madeline Zilfi revealed that, at least
since the eighteenth century, a distinction existed between the two terms for woman:
kadınand hanım. While the latter term referred to a freed or free woman, the former
described an enslaved woman.
44
Whether noble or otherwise, these women had in
common their enslavement and their perilous transport to Istanbul. However perni-
cious the individual situation, the binary between victimization and agency, often
noted in Mediterranean slavery,
45
scarcely reflects the ambiguous settings that deter-
mined the lives of both domestic female slaves and those within the Imperial harem.
While concubinage did not affect reputation or power, all slave women had in com-
mon the obligation to comply with intercourse whether wanted or not.
46
3 Hurrem’s Life
Hurrem was most likely abducted in Lithuania around the age of 15. In European
texts she was named Roxelane or Roxolana; both names suggest a Ruthenian origin.
47
As family ties were completely cut upon entering the Imperial harem, knowledge of
her religious origin remains speculative. Details of her entry to the Imperial harem
and her initial acquaintance with the young sultan are unclear. When she gave birth
to her son Mehmed in 1521, tradition would have demanded her separation from the
sultan.
48
However, Sultan Süleyman returned to her. The reasons for this breach of
tradition have never been revealed, but reproductive factors may have been relevant,
as Leslie Peirce has argued.
49
Specifically, the death of several of Süleyman’s children
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 89; Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 105–6; İpşirli-Argıt, “A Queen Mother”:
207–8.
 Ahmet Refik Altınay, Kadınlar Saltanatı,ed.İbrahim Delioğlu et al. (İstanbul: Tarih VakfıYurt
Yayınları, 2000): 30–59; Peirce, The Imperial Harem: VII; Klaus Kreiser and Christoph K. Neumann,
Kleine Geschichte der Türkei, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 2008): 198.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 165.
 Zilfi, Women and Slavery: 97; Conermann and Şen, “Introduction”: 17.
 Gender studies have started to articulate harsh criticism, which has also reverberated through the
paradigm of the so-called “good East.”Toledano, As If Silent and Absent:19–20.
 Galina Yermolenko, “Introduction,”in Roxolana in European Literature, History and Culture,ed.
Galina I. Yermolenko (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010): 2.
 Imber, The Ottoman Empire: 78.
 Peirce, Empress of the East:53–55.
202 Christiane Czygan

in 1521 and Hurrem’s proven ability to bear healthy offspring may have played a
role.
50
Between 1521 and 1531, Hurrem gave birth to one daughter (Mihrumah in 1522)
and four sons (Selim in 1524, Abdullah in 1525, Bayezid in 1527 and Cihangir in 1531).
51
When Süleyman’s mother, Hafsa hanım, died in June 1534, Hurrem was the clos-
est person to the bereaved sultan. It can be assumed that she used this period for her
own aims and consolidated her position through marriage.
52
Though the wedding
took place in 1534, details of the public celebration of the event remain contentious.
53
Before Süleyman’s urgent departure from Istanbul for the Iran campaign in the
fall of 1534, he ordered that Hurrem be moved from the Old Palace to the New Palace.
The Old Palace had been abandoned by Mehmed II, who preferred the New (Topkapı)
Palace as his imperial residence. Since then, the Old Palace, located on the grounds of
today’s Istanbul University, had housed the Imperial harem. In modern research, Sü-
leyman’s return to Hurrem and their marriage are regarded as less significant than
Hurrem’s move with her children to the New Palace, which enhanced her proximity
to power in an unprecedented way.
54
Though tradition demanded that the sultan’s intimates refrain from using power,
55
Hurrem participated actively in state affairs. This transgression of boundaries alongside
her ongoing presence in the capital –another breach of tradition –are said to have
made her the target of animosity, and contemporary diplomats emphasised her notori-
ety among Istanbulites.
56
It should be highlighted, however, that this notoriety was re-
corded only by diplomats, who pursued their own agendas and may have had their
own informants. No comparable evidence exists from Istanbulites themselves, which
puts this long-standing hypothesis in question. Moreover, from the late 1530s, Hurrem
engaged in benevolent activities. Her building of a mosque complex close to Istanbul’s
Avrat market
57
must have affected those who benefitted from its school, healthcare and
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 60.
 Peirce, Empress of the East: 72; Peirce, The Imperial Harem:53–58.
 Christiane Czygan, “Depicting Imperial Love: Love Songs and Letters between Sultan Süleyman
(Muhibbī) and Hürrem,”in KanūnīSultan Süleyman ve Dönemi. Yeni Kaynaklar, Yeni Yaklaşımlar, ed.
M. Fatih Çalışır, Suraiya Faroqhi and M. Şakir Yılmaz (İstanbul: İbn Haldun Yayınları, 2020): 251.
 Peirce, Empress of the East: 116, 146; Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 62; Suraiya Faroqhi, “Introduc-
tion,”in KanūnīSulṭān Süleymān ve Dönemi.Yeni Kaynaklar, Yeni Yaklaşımlar, ed. Fath M. Çalışır, Sur-
aiya Faroqhi and Şakir M. Yılmaz (İstanbul: İbn Haldun Üniversitesi Yaynları, 2020): 34; Czygan,
“Depicting Imperial Love”: 251.
 Peirce, Empress of the East: 46, 116, 120, 128, 137–39.
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 75, 87. Peirce mentions 1536 as the date for a public festivity, while
Alan Fisher dates the wedding to 1534. See Alan Fisher, “The Life and Family of Sultan Süleyman I,”in
Süleyman the Second and His Time, ed. Halil Inalcık and Cemal Kafadar (Istanbul: ISIS Press, 1993):
10–11.
 Oghier Ghiselon de Busbecq, The Turkish Letters. Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople 1554–1562,
trans. Edward Seynour (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986): 31; Peirce, The Imperial Harem:75.
 The Avrat Market (Women Market) was sometimes confused with the slave market, but it was sim-
ply a market within in a quarter of the city. Yermolenko, “Introduction”:2;Peirce,Empress of the
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 203

soup kitchen as well as the opportunity it offered for gatherings and prayer. Thus, a
variety of perceptions must have existed at different times, while diplomatic reports
probably pointed to a single moment that was subsequently perpetuated. Moreover, it
has to be asked whether there existed any continuity in her notoriety –if it existed at
all –and whether this narrative of notoriety fit conveniently with the restrictive turn of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was thus promoted further.
58
Nei-
ther Hurrem’s positive reputation in recent decades nor her vilification in the nine-
teenth/twentieth centuries have yielded a deeper understanding of her role within her
own time, and both attitudes hide more than they reveal.
From the late 1530s, Hurrem struggled and schemed on behalf of her male chil-
dren in the ultimate quest for the throne. When Mustafa, the only prince who was not
Hurrem’s son, was strangled in 1553, people were shocked.
59
Mustafa’s execution was
a watershed moment; the sultan’s killing of his own son violated a hitherto unchal-
lenged taboo and provoked outrage.
60
It was popularly perceived as the result of plot-
ting by Hurrem’sfaction–by her, her daughter Mihrimah, and her son-in-law, the
grand vizier Rustem Paşa (d. 1561).
61
Hurrem’s many philanthropic activities must be understood in the context of Is-
lamic piety. Her strong religiosity corresponds with Sultan Süleyman’s increased reli-
ance on Sunni Islam after the execution of his boon-companion and grand vizier,
İbrahim Paşa, in 1536 at his own command.
62
As argued above, Hurrem’s notoriety is
a matter of contention, and her piety must have found some resonance in Istanbul as
well, while her prestige grew in the provinces, such as in Jerusalem.
63
When Hurrem died in April 1558 after a period of illness, the sultan lost not only
his beloved wife but also his closest political partner.
East: 170–94; on Hurrem’s piety see also Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial
Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002): 71–98.
 Czygan, “Depicting Imperial Love”: 252–53.
 Peirce, Empress of the East:272–79; Zahit Atçıl, “Why Did Süleyman the Magnificent Execute his
Son Şehzade Mustafa in 1553?”OsmanlıAraştırmaları48 (2016): 77.
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 85.
 Peirce, The Imperial Harem: 78; Ahmet Refik Altınay, Kadınlar Saltanatı:41–49; Susan A. Skilliter,
“Khurrem,”Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1986): 67; Joseph v. Hammer-Purgstall, Ge-
schichte des Osmanischen Reichs, vol. 3 (Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, 1963): 317.
 Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs: 282–83; Altınay, Kadınlar Saltanatı: 40; Czy-
gan, “Depicting Imperial Love”: 250.
 Amy Singer, Constructing Ottoman Beneficence:71–98.
204 Christiane Czygan

4 Hurrem’s Love Letters
In total, seven long letters by Hurrem have been published,
64
and further examples
have been found and await publication.
65
The otherwise undated letters were dated
by Çağatay Uluçay as follows:
–1526: letters 1 and 2
66
–1534–1536: letters 3 and 4
67
–1541 or 1549: letter 5
68
–1548: letters 6 and 7
69
The Hungary campaign of 1526 aimed to prevent the alliance of Walachia, Moldova and
Hungary with the Safavids.
70
The campaign started on March 19, and on November 14
the sultan celebrated his return to Istanbul. On August 29, the conquest of Mohác
marked one of the most prominent victories of his age.
71
Mohác was the gate to Vienna
and its capture enabled the siege of the latter.
The latent crisis with the Safavids gained immediacy after the new Safavid ruler
Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576) marched towards Baghdad. On 11 June 1534, Sultan Süleyman
set out with his army over the Bosphorus. This campaign, also called the first Iraq
campaign, took more than a year, and only in January 1536 did Sultan Süleyman
make his grand return to Istanbul.
72
Tabriz was not easily taken by the Ottomans, and
 M. Çağatay Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları(Istanbul: Şaka Matbaası, 1950): 29–45. An
interesting extract of an eighth missive was also published by Uluçay. TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi.
No. E 10704 in M. Çağatay Uluçay, Harem’den Mektuplar (Istanbul: Vakit Matbbası, 1956): 84.
 A research group at the TopkapıPalace Archive has prepared additional letters for publication. As
the pandemic precluded further contact and correspondence, this fresh material has not been consid-
ered here.
 See letter 1: TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5662 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektu-
pları: 31; see letter 2: TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5426 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk
Mektupları: 36.
 See letter 3: TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E.5038 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektu-
pları: 39; see letter 4: TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 6056 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk
Mektupları: 40.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 11480 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 42.
 See letter 6: TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5038 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektu-
pları: 43. The archive number for either letter 3 or letter 6 is wrong as both letters cannot have the
same archive number. A revision would be desirable; see TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5859 in
Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 45.
 İsmail Hami Danişmend, İzahlıOsmanlıTarihi Kronolijisi, 1513–1573, vol. 2 (Istanbul: Türkiye Bası-
mevi, n.d.): 112.
 Danişmend, İzahlıOsmanlıTarihi Kronolijisi: 112–20.
 Danişmend, İzahlıOsmanlıTarihi Kronolijisi: 158–81.
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 205

only the conquest of Baghdad followed by a second siege of Tabriz forced Shah Tah-
masp to ask for peace.
73
The fifth missive could have been written either during the siege of Buda in late
summer1541orafterthesiegeofTabrizduringthesecondIrancampaignfrom
1548–1550, while missives 6 and 7 date to the period before or after Tabriz’conquest
in August 1548.
74
Interestingly, encomia appear only in the first two letters, which were written by
a ghostwriter.
75
In contrast, in the subsequent missives, the expressions in praise of
the sultan are more intimate and laced with a personal touch, e.g. “Part of my soul,
my exalted sultan, after having prostrated my ugly face in front of your feet [. . .]”
76
Expressions of longing and affection are interwoven in all Hurrem’sletters.In-
variably, they conclude with greetings from her individual children and to the son
accompanying the sultan. Beside these commonalities, the topics can be divided into
five categories, each of which will be discussed in turn:
1. Family and persons who merged into family life
2. Gifts from and to the sultan
3. Finances
4. The situation in Istanbul
5. The actual campaign
1. The missives provide little information about individual family members.
77
How-
ever, Hurrem’s greetings at the conclusion of each letter identify persons who were
either important enough to Hurrem that she thought them worthy of inclusion in her
greetings, or whose importance to the sultan she recognised. Thus, it is revealing that
she mentions “the pasha”and “her brother pasha”in letters 1, 2 and 4.
78
This likely
refers to İbrahim Paşa, who had been invested with the grand vizierate since 1523 and
whose spectacular diplomatic successes through agreements with France and the
Habsburgs had been recognised by the time of Hurrem’s fourth missive in the years
1534–1536. In the 1520s and early 1530s, İbrahim Paşa’s influence on the sultan must
have been enormous, and it can be assumed that there was competition for the sul-
tan’s affection between him and Hurrem. While Hurrem was still conceiving children
at the time of her first missives (at least in 1524–1526), by 1534 she had consolidated
 Danişmend, İzahlıOsmanlıTarihi Kronolijisi: 158–81, 176.
 Danişmend, İzahlıOsmanlıTarihi Kronolijisi: 222–31, 255–62.
 Czygan, “Depicting Imperial Love”: 258; Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 11.
 Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 39.
 Only in letter 4 is it mentioned that the sultan had asked about Cihangir, who was a toddler and
held the sultan’s special affection. Peirce, Empress of the East: 111.
TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E 6056 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 40.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E.5662; No. E 5426, No. E 6056; in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına
Aşk Mektupları: 31, 36, 40.
206 Christiane Czygan

her power through marriage. Hurrem’s greetings may have been an attempt to re-
main on good terms with this important figure and suggest a strategy of embracing
someone she was unable to vanquish. Strikingly, letter 3 includes no greetings to the
Pasha. Alongside the probably erratic manuscript numbering, this raises doubts about
Uluçay’s order. Most likely, Uluçay’s chronological order for letters 3 and 4 should be
reversed, as the conquest alluded to therein occurred not at the beginning of the cam-
paign but at the end. Thus, letter 3 must have been written after letter 4, with letter 4
probably written in 1534 and letter 3 at the end of 1535. Only in the second missive
from 1526 did she also submit greetings from Prince Mustafa, who must by then have
reached maturity and was thus approaching the traditional time for his departure to
a residence city to practice ruling.
79
Thus, the greetings reveal which of Hurrem’s chil-
dren were at her side at the moment of writing and also show that, in the 1520s, she
was carefully consolidating her power.
2. Gifts from the sultan are mentioned in letters2and3from1526andtheperiod
1534–1536, respectively.
80
The first gift was a bottle of perfume, the second a hair from
the sultan’sbeard.
81
Both gifts provoked effusive appreciation and an emphasis on
their preciousness and the delight they created. Though other gifts may have fol-
lowed, these are the only two missives to mention them.
3. Hurrem touched on financial issues in letters 2 to 4 during the period from 1526 to
1536. Leslie Peirce convincingly explained the absence of financial topics in Hurrem’s
later missives as a consequence of her growing wealth.
82
By the end of the 1540s, Hur-
rem must have acquired a fortune, and the Imperial apanage and incomes from her
various endowments had surely made her a self-confident entrepreneur in her own
right. Wealth in the Ottoman Empire was often unstable, as it could be stripped away
by the sultan (muṣādere) at any time. Nonetheless, it is noteworthy that Hurrem
seems to have acquired a certain degree of financial independence, which made refer-
ences to finance superfluous. In letter 2 (1526), Hurrem mentions 60 florins sent by
the sultan,
83
and in letter 3 (4), 5,000 florins.
84
Moreover, in letter 4 (3), redated to
1534, Hurrem mentions having strained the 50,000 florin budget for the kitchen and
refers to the building of a bath.
85
This information coincides with Hurrem’s move to
 Petra Kappert, Die osmanischen Prinzen und ihre Residenz Amasya im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Is-
tanbul: Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Instituut, 1976): 5–9, 95–102.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E 5426, No. E 5038; in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektu-
pları: 36, 37.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E 5038; in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 36, 37.
 Peirce, Empress of the East: 242.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E 5426 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 36.
 Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 37.
 Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 40.
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 207

the ‘New’TopkapıPalace, which necessitated some changes for hosting females, and
indicates her new duty as manager of the kitchen.
4. Whether Hurrem refers to actual questions from the sultan or invokes a rhetorical
technique to introduce what she wants to convey remains opaque. Nonetheless, it can
be assumed that the topics she deemed worthy of writing about were highly impor-
tant to her. In letters 3 (4), 5 and 6, she reported on the mood in the city, cases of pesti-
lence and rebels (kızılbaş) who had not been caught.
86
Though Leslie Peirce argues
that the sultan must have been pleased by these pieces of information,
87
they seem
too imprecise to have been useful to him. Moreover, spies certainly brought more de-
tailed information to the sultan. It is thus more likely that Hurrem selected aspects of
city life that were of concern to her. It is striking that, especially in her reports about
Istanbul, she legitimised her observations by framing them as responses to the sul-
tan’s questions. Though her words cannot be verified or falsified, it is abundantly
clear that women from the Imperial harem were not excluded from city life but
completely submerged in it.
5. Hurrem makes little reference to particular campaigns but offers wishes for victory
as well as congratulations.
88
While news of a specific victory might not have coincided
with the moment of her writing, there is a general lack of enthusiasm: Hurrem did
not take to writing after a victory. The same is true of her wishes for victory. Both
reveal an astounding nonchalance that contradicts her effusive expressions of longing
and love.
The structure of each letter seems spontaneous rather than following a tight formula.
Uniting all the letters, however, is Hurrem’s insistence on her love for the sultan, as
the following example illustrates:
My exalted sultan, I prostrate myself on the ground and I kiss the fortunate dust under your pro-
tective feet, the sun of my happiness, basis of my felicity, my sultan. The fire of this separation
roasts my heart, [which dissolves] into shreds. My chest is compressed, and my eyes have become
a well of tears. Without knowing the [difference between] day and night, I drown in a sea of
affliction. With my wretched love for you [I am] worse than Ferhad and Mecnun in the lunacy of
love. If you ask about [me], your slave, since my separation from [you] my sultan, my state is
such that even my nightingale-like moans and cries are hushed. [Beyond] the separation from
you, may God not burden me, the unworthy [one, any] further. My happiness, my sultan, it is one
and a half months since I have received any message from my sultan. By the omniscient God, I
cry from dawn till dusk and from dusk till dawn because I cannot see your face, which gives me
so much comfort [. . .]
89
 Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 37, 40, 43.
 Peirce, Empress of the East: 138.
 There is one congratulation and one wish for victory in total. Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk
Mektupları: 36, 37.
 See Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 37; my translation.
208 Christiane Czygan

Hurrem’s repeated and varied evocations of Allah, together with allusions to the
mythical character of Hızır and the prophet Joseph,
90
demonstrate her religious and
social assimilation.
In a letter to Sultan Süleyman written in 1548, she states:
Part of my soul, my exalted sultan, from the depths of my soul [. . .] with thousands and thou-
sands of kinds of longing, my praises and prayers for you are a thousand-fold. I prostrate myself
on the ground and I kiss your illustrious munificent hand. My fortunate Padishah for whom my
two eyes have the sole purpose of waiting to see you. It is my hope that your helpless slave’s
tremendous longing will be accepted. My happiness, my felicity, my sultan, may your eminence
be kept well, from your exalted head and all your limbs to your exalted feet. My fortunate one,
my sultan, may your well-being be complete. My two eyes, my exalted sultan, with the glorious
God, it is my desire to protect your illustrious body from all blemishes and ills.
91
One has to ask how her effusive exclamations of love and her claim to protect the
sultan could be taken seriously when the actual state of affairs has been excluded.
This passage and many others appear more like templates and reveal that the sultan’s
actual situation was not her concern. Instead, Hurrem’s sole aim seems to be to con-
vince the sultan of her love.
Even as the tone grew more intimate over the course of 20 years of correspon-
dence, Hurrem was always mindful of her status as cariye (female slave) vis-à-vis the
sultan. The quote below illustrates one of the very rare examples in which Hurrem
allows a glimpse into her own considerations, describing a seemingly realistic situa-
tion. However, it is not the sultan who is her concern but the arrival of brigands in
Istanbul. It becomes clear that she knew about the winter camp, but it is of concern to
her only as it relates to the situation in Istanbul. Her attitude is ambiguous: She seems
to fear the brigands and was planning to take refuge in her son’s residence in Manisa;
conversely, she offers her help to the city. This ambiguity reveals an authenticity oth-
erwise rarely found in her assertions of love. The text in question is from 1548:
My fortune, my sultan, there are rumours in the city that the muştucus (those with knuckle-
dusters)
92
are coming, and the whole city is preparing to welcome them. It is said that two or
three days remain only until the muştucus’arrival, and the city is being decorated for them. I do
not know if this is true. My fortune, my sultan, if the muştucus really come, will be strange be-
cause my sultan will stay with his army at the winter camp in Aleppo. What is more, my sultan,
the men and women of the Kızılbaş
93
were not caught. In the meantime, everything is calm
 See letter 1, TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5662 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektu-
pları: 31.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi. No. E. 5038 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları: 42; my
translation.
 It must be a part of the military, perhaps a group within the akıncıs, the cruel advance party,
meant to spread terror among the enemies. For muşta, see Mehmed Zeki Pakalın, Tarih Deyimleri ve
Terimleri, vol. 2 (Istanbul: Milli Eğitim Basımevi, 1993): 586.
 Redheats is a sect strongly inspired by Shiism, many of whom were opposed to the Sunnite Otto-
man government. See Markus Dressler, “Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and
From Slave to Queen: Hurrem Sultan’s Agenda in Her Narration of Love (1526–1548) 209

[there was nothing]. If the muştucus arrive, their behaviour will please no one. My sultan, my
fortune, if you allow your slave to depart, I would travel to Bayezid [to Manisa]. Before departing,
may the Almighty God show me your blessed perfection. My sultan, my desire, may God com-
mand that I prostrate my face whole-heartedly before your exalted feet. What is more, my sultan,
my exalted padishah, [wherever the rumours came from] all the people are [nervously] excited
by the arrival of the muştucus. There are rumours that you, my sublime Padishah, sent the muş-
tucus because of the winter camp in Aleppo. If you command me, my sultan, your slave will go
into the city to carry out your wishes.
94
At least in her later missives, as above, Hurrem’s self-designation as a slave coincided
with a wish from the sultan. The evocation of slavery with a particular wish seems to
have been an effective device for getting what she particularly wanted. However, it
should be remembered that the evocation of cariyelik, female slavery, was a conven-
tional topos. Although she referred to the image of paramount obedience, and cer-
tainly employed it for her purposes, this does not necessarily mean that her affection
for the sultan was false. Here too, the binary between agenda and power seems ill-
suited. Rather, Hurrem’s writings might reflect the coexistence of aims and affection.
5 Conclusion
Hurrem’s letters constituted a means to bridge the long periods of separation and cre-
ated proximity to the sultan, which was essential for the acquisition and maintenance
of power. She was a strategic mastermind who succeeded by making the sultan be-
lieve in her total submission and extraordinary affection. Words were a strong device
and an effective means of remaining in the heart and mind of the sultan. If necessary,
however, she seems to have been capable of going to extremes, as the strangulation of
Prince Mustafa in 1553 suggests. Hurrem used sweet talk, the creation of precedents
and deadly scheming as tools in her agenda to acquire power. As this case study
shows, while Hurrem effusively asserted her affection for the sultan, his campaigns
were of little concern to her. Morever, in the course of their 20-year-long correspon-
dence, expressions of longing and absence also disappeared. In fact, in the final mis-
sives from 1548, Hurrem played the ‘slave card’when she wanted something. The
systematic reading of her missives reveals developments and inconsistencies that
question the narrative of submissive love and reveal a woman who had a strong per-
sonal agenda of her own, though this did not exclude her strong affection for the sul-
tan. In contrast, behind a veil of strong dependency, a rather autonomous personality
takes shape.
Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safevid Conflict,”in Legitimizing the Order. The Ottoman Rhetoric of State
Power, ed. Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (Leiden: Brill, 2005): 151–73.
 TopkapıSarayıMüzesi Arşivi, No. E 5038 in Uluçay, OsmanlıSultanlarına Aşk Mektupları:42–43;
my translation.
210 Christiane Czygan

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