r/sultanateofwomen

The earliest Ottoman medieval silk brocade textile is preserved in Serbia, within the Studenica Monastery as a former shroud for the sacred reliquary of St. Simeon (Stefan Nemanja), founder of the Nemanjic dynasty. It features a distinctive weave intricately embroidered with gold and multicolored silk, displaying a cultural-hybrid tapestry of Egyptian, Mamluk, and Persian influence. In a classic textile style, it contains an explicit Arabic inscription woven directly into its fabric registers that continuously repeats praises of the Ottoman ruler: The first praises the ruler as al-Sultan al-alim al-adil ("The Sultan, the learned, the just"), and the second explicitly names him: Sultan Bayezid Khan azza nasruhu ("Sultan Bayezid Khan, may his victory be glorious")

How did it end up in the Studenica Monastery?

To understand how this significant tiraz ended up in a Serbian monastery, it helps to look through the distinct lenses of two different narratives. According to one story, the shroud was a joint donation from Bayezid and Olivera to the monastery around 1398. The political climate at the time was fragile. His brother-in-law, Stefan Lazarevic, was suspected of treason, and his mother, Milica Hrebeljanovic, and older sister intervened in support of his innocence and pardon. Under this 1398 lens, the textile can then be interpreted as a restored political peace by Bayezid via the influence of his wife, Olivera Lazarevic.

Bayezid’s wife was a direct Nemanjić descendant through her mother. Her maternal side belonged to the bloodline of Prince Vukan, the eldest son of Stefan Nemanja (Saint Simeon). This directly tied the sanctuary to the princess’s prestige and ancestry. Studenica was revered as a holy place by the Nemanjics and later Lazarevics, who frequently gifted to it and protected it, making it a spiritually significant monastic center. Bayezid and Olivera may have used this donation to represent the stabilization between their dynastic alliance during this tense episode. Another story, however, places responsibility on Olivera alone, omitting any contribution from her husband apart from ordering its creation.

Nonetheless, it may be one of the few remaining physical materials that has been touched by both.

Historically speaking prior to hurrem, if concubines had a son then they wouldn't visit the sultan again and would occupy themselves with raising the prince, by the time hurrem met Suleiman , Mustapha was already born and he was a 4 years old little boy so mahidevran's concubinage to the sultan had already ended years before hurrem's arrival , it doesn't make sense to me how she would be so jealous of hurrem ? Also mahidevran shared Suleiman with multiple concubines it's not like they were monogamous and then hurrem stole him from her, I would say intialy they kept a formal cordial relationship then with time when hurrem started being more and more powerful in an unprecedented manner and Mehmet being the favorite of the sultan the rivalry started and hostility started developing between the two.

But again we have a report of Navagero saying that as a result of the bitter rivalry between the two a fight between the two women broke out, and Mahidevran beat and humiliated Hürrem, which enraged Suleiman, the supposed fight happened in 1526 but he reported it much much later and This makes me doubt it tbh.

What do y'all think? I'm just making assumptions , I heard that there's also reports of hafsa sultan breaking the fights between the two but not sure if this is true or not

I have been intrigued to engage with this topic for a moment, especially as someone who prefers early Ottoman history to its “Golden Age” or “decline.” I will not argue for what came after Mehmed II (especially the 19th and 20th centuries), because, truthfully, I have no interest in it. I first came about to write a prospectus on this topic for my history advisor. However, knowing his high archival expectations, and given that I found another topic I am more passionate about. So, instead, I will provide and archive my analytic notes on the topic here for others to possibly retrieve. 

Current Ottoman historiography often argues that the dynasty increasingly avoided reproduction with wives in favor of concubines. Presenting their “lack of reproduction” as a deliberate precaution on the part of the dynasty, an avoidance. According to this interpretation, Ottoman rulers avoided reproducing with their wives because their in-laws might threaten the “political integrity” of the dynasty. It has become associated especially with the reproductive framework developed by Ottoman historians such as Leslie Peirce and has since been repeated in both academic and popular intellectual output. Yet the evidence for a decision to avoid children with noble wives is weaker than it is often presented. While concubinage undeniably predominated the reproductive system, the predominance of concubine mothers does not itself support that noble wives were intentionally excluded from childbearing. Instead, the evidence suggests that concubinage already functioned as the normal mechanism of the dynasty from its earliest generations, while dynastic marriages existed alongside that system for diplomatic purposes.  

 
The Origin of this Particular Interpretation
Historians observed through the origin of Valide Hatuns that most later Ottoman sultans were born to enslaved concubines rather than aristocratic wives. At face value, it provides you a sufficient pattern. This theory of avoidance is not without backing. Concubinage did provide the dynasty with an outline of reproductive agents that were deprived of external networks, their loyalties were tied directly to the household, and their survival to that of the outcome of their sons. However, later summaries of a strict interpretation often move beyond what the evidence securely suggests. An alleged broader institutional tendency is frequently transformed into a much stronger claim than need be; that Ottoman rulers intentionally restricted themselves by not reproducing with their wives. Once stated in this strict tone, the argument becomes more difficult to sustain when examined against the actual evidence of the early dynasty.
 
Dominated Concubine Mothers Do Not Necessarily Mean Childless Wives
In her work, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Peirce noticed and utilized a pattern to support her argument: “More than any other Muslim dynasty, the Ottomans raised the practice of slave concubinage to a reproductive principle: after the generations of Osman and Orhan, virtually all offspring of the sultans appear to have been born of concubine mothers.” However, a lack of sources at the time she was writing this indicates otherwise. Before touching on that, however, we must differentiate the expected roles of a wife compared to a concubine. 
 
Concubines and noble wives did not occupy the same role within the Ottoman household. Concubinage was not an Ottoman innovation but a longstanding institution throughout Turco-Islamic dynasties before them. Enslaved concubines were numerous, continuously available through warfare and enslavement, and fully assimilated into the ruler’s household. Because Islamic law recognized the legitimacy of children born to concubines, rulers did not need aristocratic wives to secure dynastic continuity.
 
This distinction is important. In Christian Europe, queenship and legitimate succession were deeply linked. Kings depended upon their wives to produce heirs, making marriage central to continuation. By contrast, a Sultan could produce through concubinage alone. As a result, the predominance of concubine-born children may simply reflect demographic realities rather than an intentional exclusion of noble wives. A ruler might possess only a handful of political wives (one to four at a time) but dozens of concubines over the course of his reign. Under such conditions, it is unsurprising for concubine mothers to dominate the dynastic record even without any anti-aristocratic reproductive doctrine.
 
Case-by-Case Analysis and the Absence of a Clear Pattern
The biggest criticism against this avoidance theory is the evidence itself. Analyzing each ruler and their reigns, we find that half shared at least one child or more with a single wife:

• Orhan and Theodora produced a son
The only verifiable identity of one of the reproductive “partners” of Murad I is his former concubine and the mother of Bayezid I. Therefore, we cannot claim for and against anything in his case. 
• Bayezid I shared two to three daughters with Olivera Lazarevic as is supported by contemporary and near-contemporary Timurid sources and later Turkish researchers. Apart from this, we cannot prove he shared children with his other wives because it is said that all his sons were recorded to be from concubines, but that source is from decades after his death, so these claims must be treated cautiously. 
• Mehmed I with Emine (however, her origin is rather ambiguous)
• Murad II also shared a son with one of his wives and may have been rejected by Mara Brankovic (sexually). 
 
This evidence complicates any claim that the dynasty avoided reproducing with aristocratic wives. If noble wives repeatedly appear associated with offspring during the very era in which dynastic marriages were practiced, then the alleged pattern of “childless royal wives” becomes far less convincing. If we then treat this alleged system of avoidance as primary instead of secondary, must we find exceptional reasons for these exceptions? Moreover, concern regarding powerful in-laws was hardly unique to the Ottomans. Nearly all dynastic states worried about maternal relatives, aristocratic factions, and succession conflicts. Byzantine emperors, European kings, and Islamic dynasties alike struggled with the anxiety of competing noble networks surrounding succession and statecraft. The mere existence of concern over aristocratic maternal influence, therefore, cannot by itself demonstrate a uniquely Ottoman policy of reproductive avoidance. The difference is that European models had to almost “suck it up” for the sake of dynastic continuation. 
 
The Advantage of Wives and Their Agency
Another weakness in some interpretations is the tendency to treat noble wives primarily as reproductive instruments. Yet political marriages in the early Ottoman world may not have carried reproductive expectations to begin with. A peace-marriage could serve many purposes besides producing heirs: alliance, stabilization, symbolic submission, prestige, or political correspondence. Because the dynasty already possessed a functioning reproductive system through concubinage, wives were not necessarily required to become mothers of primary heirs without an agenda alongside it. 
 
Apart from this, wives may have also played a part in this lack of reproduction beyond being restricted from it. Several traditions and sources mention Murad II’s attraction to Mara Brankovic and her refusal and sexual rejection of him. After all, there was no political pressure on her to have relations with him, given that he had already had heirs, and she may well have exploited that fact to protect her chastity. Going from growing up thinking you alone had to provide an heir for your future husband to now having the opportunity to bypass a possible unwanted consummation by exploiting the presence of existing heirs and a system that incorporated concubines may have worked. This perspective also helps explain why the evidence appears so inconsistent. Some noble wives had children, while others apparently did not. Rather than indicating a rigid institutional rule, the evidence may instead reflect the flexible nature of this early period. Personal choice from the ruler’s attraction to the wife’s agency could play a factor. Although a European ruler had to tolerate frequent intimacies for a “greater” purpose, an Ottoman ruler didn’t. This leaves room for more humanistic choices on the part of these political actors concerning both sexual relations and reproductive output as a consequence.
 
Was There Really a “Gradual Shift” Toward Concubinage?
Historians often are tempted to describe the Ottoman dynasty as gradually shifting away from dynastic marriage and toward concubinage for concubinage. Yet this formulation may itself be misleading. Concubinage did not emerge gradually within the Ottoman dynasty. It appears to have predominated from the beginning. The more significant historical transformation may not have been a gradual rise of concubinage but rather the disappearance of politically necessary marriages after Mehmed II.
 
The overwhelming presence of concubine-born children is undeniable. Yet this fact alone does not demonstrate a systematic intention of avoiding reproduction with wives. The early evidence appears too mixed and inconsistent to support such a rigid conclusion. That leaves us with two questions: Has the theory become too totalizing relative to the actual evidence? Has historical writing moved too carelessly from treating such an act of avoidance from secondary caution to primary avoidance?
 
I hope you enjoyed what was going to be my prospectus (at least the summary of it)!

(No shade to womenoftheottomanempire, she’s not the one who called others names for this.)

Matrakçi Nasuh —in recognition of his singularly exceptional talents— was commissioned by Grand Vizier Rüstem Paşa to write his chronicle titled “Kitāb-ı Tārīh-i Āl-i Osmān” also popularly known as “Rüstem Paşa Tarihi”. Rüstem Paşa was thus Matrakçi's patron at least from 1540 onwards, if not earlier.

[ETA: There's a very informative article regarding this topic by Historian Göker Inan, if anyone's interested in a deep-dive.]

I have no words to articulate the characterisation meted out to him by MC series—but what an utter disgrace and abomination to have done so and corrupted the popular culture image of such an extraordinarily gifted man—indeed, a genius par excellence Ottoman Renaissance man.

From today’s visit of Topkapi Palace, i take couple of pictures from The Concubines’ Courtyard and living quarters.

Do you think the series did a good job of recreating these areas?

Btw i am a tourist guide and visiting the palace very often. If you are interested, i can take more!

This Lazar person —as some of you guys might know— literally copied my reddit post for their academia article, once I called them out, they downvoted my post and immediately deleted their academia profile lmao 🤣 and if you see when this source was added to Wiki, it was right before I had called them out about a month ago, so just a PSA...

Like see, I'm not a historian, not even a history student by any official means (fwiw I'm a Finance/Accounting/Business student) and I just do this as a hobby and I merely want people to be aware of the authentic facts— but, at least don't make your “academic” slop by copying an Internet post on damn reddit lol and claiming it as your own research 😂

Like genuinely, there are plethora of people who post straight up misinformation and disinformation (often in bad faith), and these guys just copy it and claim it as academia? Wow 😳

— xoxo, gossip girl 💋

I was trying to post some stuff on yesterday's fun post, but then, I was like “Damn, Hürrem would've them clutching their pearls every day lmao!!”, literally this girl broke a glass ceiling every.single.day!

Some of us on Tumblr still have been receiving "Hürrem is a witch" anon asks, btw!

Elsewhere in the world there was Anne Boleyn—Hürrem's contemporary and fellow "witch"— who was murdered today on May 19; Rest in peace and power, Anne and Hürrem— I hope both of you girlies are having a blast out there in heaven!

Guys, so I wanted to wind this topic up with a final conclusion post tying up all loose ends to soundly establish that Hürrem's first-born children were in fact, boy-girl twins— Mehmed & Mihrümah who were born in September, 1522.

So, as of now, we know:

• Süleyman must've met Hürrem around November 1521 after losing 3 of his kids in rapid succession in the September-October 1521 small-pox pandemic.
• Mehmed was Hürrem's first son and was born in September 1522.
• Süleyman's first born kids of his reign were born around January 9, 1522— clearly couldn't have been born of Hürrem, as she had conceived for the first time around the time of their birth.
• It's well-known that Hürrem's second son, Selim was born on May 30, 1524— see, for reference, Süleyman's court chronicler, Celalzade Mustafa Çelebi's work, "Tabakat", 157a-157b.
• Hürrem's third son, Abdullah was born on September 14, 1525.

Now, the first surviving letter of Hürrem to Süleyman was penned in the early months of the 1526 Mohaçs expedition, probably around July, 1526— and, it was in fact, apparently on Süleyman's insistence and *tantrums* that Hürrem started writing to him (and even then he would tease her for not writing more and more to him!), anyways from these letters, the existence of their 4 kids can be established:

>“...my sultan, this [much] should suffice for now, my soul is too affected [to write more to you]—especially as your humble servant and son Mir Mehmed and your concubine and daughter Mihrümah are overcome with sorrow and weep and wail from missing you whenever your noble letters are read aloud.

>Their weeping has driven me to distraction; indeed, it is as if a funeral mourning were taking place amongst us! My Sultan, your humble servant Mir Mehmed, your concubine Mihrümah, along with Selim Han, and Abdullah—offer you their manifold salutations and press their faces on the holy dust beneath your feet.”

It appears that Süleyman had taken his oldest surviving son, 9 year old Mustafa to a part of the initial journey on the way to the campaign and then sent him back to the capital and at this time, Hürrem wrote this towards the end of her letter:

>“Furthermore, my Sultan, [O you who are my darling and] the part of my very soul —should you send greetings to Sultan Mustafa, please send this letter of mine alongwith [yours] as well.”

Another letter from Hürrem was sent to Süleyman (Mustafa had made it back to the capital at this point) and this letter must've dated around early September 1526 shortly after Süleyman had won the Mohaçs expedition on August 29, 1526 and had immediately apprised Hafsa and Hürrem of the good news via his letters (as the Venetians reported), Hürrem wrote the following towards the end of her letter:

>“...Furthermore, Mustafa, your humble servant, along with Mir Mehmed, your servant; Mihrümah, your concubine; and Selim Han and Abdullah, your servants, offer praises unto Your Highness and press their faces against your blessed slippers.”

So, Mihrümah must've been born by May 1526 at the utmost latest when Süleyman went to his 3rd military campaign— so between the births of her three sons starting from September, 1522— only one possible year of Mihrümah's birth remains, if she was a born as a result of a singleton birth: 1523.

Historian Kaya Şahin too had stated Mihrümah's birth to have taken place in 1523 as well— however, it's clear that she couldn't have been born in 1523 because:

• Süleyman was away from the capital on his 3rd military expedition from mid-June, 1522 and he only came back to the capital (where Hürrem was) by early February, 1523.
• Thereafter, since Selim was born on May 30, 1524, Hürrem would've conceived him around August/September, 1523, i.e., within 6 months of Süleyman's arrival— so that, there's no time for conception and birth of Mihrümah in 1523 as well.

Also, if you notice Hürrem appears to have arranged the kids in order of seniority (and unrelated, but I suspect that Hürrem had somewhat of an OCD and she herself admitted that she was a perfectionist lol, anyways), so even that is an interesting little clue as to Mihrümah having been older than Selim and Abdullah, but younger than Mustafa and Mehmed.

Besides, it's interesting that Hürrem clubbed her son and daughter together in her letters— like moms often do with their twins lol, “like Mehmed & Mihrümah are doing this and that”, “this duo has driven me crazy”, etc.

All of this extensive and exhaustive reasoning and pieces of evidence presented in the previous posts and this one— prove that the only time Mihrümah could've been born was as a twin to her brother, Mehmed.

Hence, Hürrem Sultan's first-born children were boy-girl twins, Mehmed & Mihrümah born around early-to-mid September, 1522.

Just read this heart-breaking 💔 extract taken from “Honoured by the Glory of Islam” by Marc David Baer which talks about the accession of Suleiman II after Mehmed IV's deposition— it had been agreed that a ~46 year old Mehmed IV was to be deposed and his half-brother Suleiman, who was merely 3.5 months younger than him, be enthroned instead.

Mehmed IV had expressed his wish for his son with his much-beloved Haseki Gülnuş— Mustafa (later Mustafa II who reigned from 1695-1703) to succeed him but Mehmed had been utterly disgraced at this point and well, they continued flouting even his orders, let alone fulfilling his ’wishes’, so that his half-brother was to succeed him, with his request being ignored:-

>“They established the throne at the Gate of Felicity and took a reluctant Suleiman from the cage.

>Like [his father] İbrahim (who years before had witnessed the first murder of a sultan in Ottoman history, the deposition of sultans, and the execution of his three brothers who had spent sixteen years locked in a room, and who feared for his life every time he heard footsteps in the hall), Suleiman was also terrified of being killed.

>He had refused to come out of his own accord. Told they did not come to frighten him or hurt him, but to make him sultan, he expressed doubt. He had been imprisoned for over forty years since childhood.

>Suleiman, completely breaking down from decades of anxiety about this very moment, asked whether they could possibly understand what it was like to spend a life in terror, or know "what is it for a soul to face what I faced."

>He concluded from his experience that "it is better to die at once than to die a little each and every day," and began to cry. As was the case for Mehmed IV nearly forty years before, Suleiman had nothing suitable to wear, so the eunuch put his own sable over his robe.”

I mean yes, they had been thoroughly brainwashed and conditioned since they're kids, but that doesn't preclude such young girls from having internal conflicts with how they're conditioned, especially when they're living the experience of putting themselves in mortal danger for birthing kids for the Empire they're enslaved by.

That too, in the cases of Hürrem, Safiye, Kösem and Gülnuş — who were the most reproductively prolific Imperial concubine mothers, who had little freewill otherwise:(

They barely (if at all?) acknowledged in the series how pregnancies must've taken a genuine toll on the mental, psychological and physical health of these young girls— and, I imagine more than anything, they must've been terribly afraid of what would befall their son(s) in the event of their death whenever they're pregnant again (as during the SoW era, it almost existentially mattered who your mother was after all, but of course, Hürrem didn't know this yet...)

It's a general piece of advice from what I'm aware that there must be at least 18 months of gap in between consecutive pregnancies and, just see for yourselves how it must've been like particularly for these 4 ladies...

I just utterly despised how they portrayed Hurrem in the series like she was basically salivating at the thought of pregnancies and children— what a creepy way to dismiss and diminish the feelings and conflicts of these young slave girls who didn't have any choice whatsoever.

I wonder if these young concubines compared their experiences of pregnancies and childbirth with those of the blue-blooded Imperial Princesses who in a polarly opposite fashion were the "masters" of their husbands, instead!

Of course, even among princesses, there were many who had many kids (5 or more) and from what I've seen— Hürrem's three grand-daughters, Hümaşah (b. August? 1543), İsmihan (b. early 1544) and Ayşe (b. August 25/26, 1547) hold the record for "the most kids birthed by Ottoman Princesses" as all of them had 10 kids each, but the fact is, it was their discretionary choice to do so, unlike their concubinal counterparts.

[The above extract is from American Historian Leslie Peirce's Empress of the East book and indeed, Süleyman had commenced his sex life from 1513 onwards, so that he was an 18 year old.]

Like here I'm rethinking, updating and confirming everything I write multiple times (and that's why I haven't replied to some of you guys' questions even now, besides that I was studying for tests and exams, so apologies, please know that I'm not ignoring you!) because I NEVER wish to be the source of wrong and/or obsolete information 🫠 and it's damn Reddit lol, not actual academia and still I'm so very scrupulous 😭

ETA: I mean genuinely, it's extremely okay not to know stuff (there's just infinite information and we can only know so much, especially as beginners and new enthusiasts), just don't claim something which you clearly don't know about— it's a very common pattern I have seen with quite some people and I'm just...baffled.