Kosem Sultan ~ one of the most powerful woman in history of Ottoman Empire

Kosem Sultan ~ one of the most powerful woman in history of Ottoman Empire

Kosem Sultan was one of the most powerful women in 600 year history of the Ottoman Empire – having started her life in slavery. Born in 1590ish on a Greek island, Kosem was sold as a slave to an Ottoman official in what is now Bosnia, who then sent her to the imperial harem in Istanbul’s Topkapi Palace.

As we saw with Khayzuran, male European travellers to the Ottoman Empire, frustrated that they were not allowed inside, depicted the harem as a place of ‘exotic’ women in a constant state of naked languishing. But let’s forget what those horny white boys thought was going on, because the imperial harem was so much more than that.

In this private women’s sphere of the palace, spanning 400 rooms and inhabited by the Sultan’s relatives, concubines, wives, and servants, Kosem was educated in theology, maths, music, and literature.

The harem was a centre of significant political power in the imperial administration, and none of its inhabitants was more powerful than the mother of the reigning sultan. Kosem would work her way up the ranks of the harem, becoming the legal wife of Sultan Ahmed I, and later the valide sultan, the queen mother and ultimate matriarch of imperial life.

Kosem Sultan would rule, directly and indirectly, for nearly five decades, during a period of Ottoman history known as the ‘Sultanate of Women’. This was a 130-year period in which lots of powerful wives and mothers of the imperial harem de facto ruled the empire via their weak husbands and their garbage sons.

Kosem asserted per infuence through her husband Mired, her two sons Murad and Ibrahim, and finally her grandson Mehmet, deploying a combination of milk and poison. The five-year period in which she ruled while Murad was underage was the first time in history that a valide sultan was official regent and therefore directly governing the empire.

Kosem’s life story – which is now the subject of a popular Turkish soap opera – shows two very different sides to her personality. As she explained it: ‘I have chosen to let my poison out into the palace and give my milk to the people.’

Kosem gave her milk to the people by way of giving her wealth to charity, helping orphans and particularly orphan girls to find husbands and receive an education, and by founding shelters and soup kitchens across the empire. She founded a beautiful mosque that still stands in Istanbul today, and she was known to be magnanimous and generous to the people.

But it’s no small feat to maintain political power, even unofficial political power, for as long as she did. Her manoeuvring involved a lot of intrigue, and, well, a bit of murder on the side.

While ruling with her son Murad, the two would take part in such mother-son bonding activities as executing the chief legal jurist of the empire, reconquering Baghdad in 1638, and putting down various rebellions. Much as mothers and sons enjoy doing today.

The way that succession worked in the Ottoman Empire before Sultan Ahmed I meant that any son, no matter if he wasn’t the firstborn, could become the next sultan if he could gain the necessary support for his rule. This made having brothers a risky business – and so many sultans would have their brothers killed.

This was, understandably, not a very popular practice among the general public, and so Sultan Ahmet instituted a new policy of putting brothers of the anointed successor in a ‘golden cage keeping them secluded in a part of the palace and so unable to curry the support to threaten the next sultan.

For the sons of Ahmed I and Kosem, this meant that while Murad was sultan, his younger brother Ibrahim would be isolated from the world. This would seriously damage his health, and later earn him the nickname Ibrahim the Mad’.

Ibrahim was in fact so unfit to rule that it was his older brother’s dying wish to have Ibrahim killed rather than allow him to rule and therefore carry on the dynasty, but Kosem did not allow it, instead seeing the opportunity to continue her indirect rule via her most incompetent son.

During Ibrahim’s rule, Kosem had to contend with a harem full of power-hungry wives and concubines, foremost among them Sechir Para, ‘Sugar Cube’, an Armenian woman who had been recruited in order to fulfil Ibrahim’s orders to his advisers to find ‘the largest woman in the empire’. She was his absolute favourite, and convinced him to kill his other concubines.

As things got out of control, Kosem plotted to depose and execute Ibrahim and replace him with her seven-year-old grandson, Mehmet.

Her plot failed, but eventually a revolt would depose Ibrahim, who was then summarily strangled. Once Mehmet was in power, however, Kosem met a rival nearly as ambitious as she: Turhan Hatice, Mehmet’s mother and her daughter-in-law. Kosem next plotted to kill Mehmet in order to install her other grandson, Suleyman, whose mother was less ambitious and just happy to be there tbh. But Turhan got there first, and had Kosem strangled.

She died in 1651 at the age of 61 or 62, after an unprecedented length of time ruling the harem and so the empire.

Source ~ 100 Nasty Women of History ~ by Hannah Jewell