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Hurrem Sultan: The

Sultan’s Concubine
Who Became Queen
Hurrem Sultan was captured in her native land
and sold in the slave markets of the Ottoman
Empire. Fate decreed that she would become
the wife of a Sultan.

Jan 10, 2022 • By Lauren Nitschke, BA Psychology,

GradDip in Secondary Education, GradCert in History

Portrait of a Woman, by the workshop of Titian, c. 1515-20, via

the Ringling Museum of Art; with The Harem, by John
Lewis,1849, via the National Gallery of Victoria

The story of Hurrem Sultan is a unique facet of

the Ottoman Empire’s rich history. Hurrem,
also known as Roxelana, lived a life that
shocked her contemporaries and still inspires
fascination in modern-day audiences. Hurrem
Sultan was a trailblazer of gender politics, and
her story is all the more intriguing due to her
mysterious and humble beginnings. What
personal qualities did Hurrem Sultan possess
that elevated her position from that of a foreign
harem slave to the chosen Queen of Suleiman
the Magnificent, the ruler of the Ottoman
Empire?

Hurrem Sultan: The Maid

From Russia

Portrait bust in profile of Roxelana, the favorite wife of

Suleyman the Magnificent, Matteo Pagani, 1540s, via the
British Museum

Much of Hurrem Sultan’s early life is

speculative or simply unknown. Her name may
have been Anastasia or Alexandra Lisowski or
Lisowska, and she may have been the daughter
of an Orthodox Christian priest. It is generally
accepted that she was born between 1502 and
1506.

What is more definite is where she came from.

Hurrem was believed to have been captured by
Crimean Tatars in a slave raid in the Ruthenia
region of what was then part of the Kingdom of
Poland, which today is part of Ukraine.

The Tatars conducted regular raids on this

region, capturing people to be taken to Caffa on
the Crimean Peninsula to be sold at the slave
market. Hurrem Sultan was one of these
people. The Ottoman Empire owned the slave
market at Caffa. From here, Hurrem would
have been taken to another slave market at the
heart of the Ottoman Empire itself in
Constantinople. The journey took around ten
days by sea.

Suleyman the Magnificent, by an unknown artist, 16th century,

via Sotheby’s

Hurrem would have been a teenaged girl by

this stage, and it was this that would have been
her saving grace. Young and attractive female
slaves had the highest value at the slave market.
Therefore they would have been treated quite
well, relatively speaking, in order to preserve
their appeal and value.

It was at this slave market that Pargali Ibrahim

Pasha allegedly purchased Hurrem as a gift for
his childhood friend, Suleiman, who was the
son of the Sultan. Russian slaves were highly
valued for their pale skin and fine features, and
Pasha may have known what Suleiman the
Magnificent found attractive in a woman.
Hurrem is often depicted with red hair, a
common feature amongst people from Ukraine,
and may have been considered exotic in the
Ottoman Empire’s epicenter.

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Being a Christian was another factor that

worked in Hurrem’s favor. It was customary for
the Sultan to father sons with Christian women
to avoid the dynastic struggles that might
emerge if two powerful Islamic houses
intermarried. One cannot doubt Hurrem’s good
fortune up to this point, considering how things
could have fared for her as a slave. But what
happened afterward was less to do with luck
and more to do with her innate intelligence,
ability to adapt, and political savvy.

A Concubine in the Sultan’s

Household

Insignia (tughra) of Suleiman the Magnificent, 16th century,

via the Metropolitan Museum

The young Ruthenian slave acquired two new

names once she entered the royal household.
One of these names was “Roxelana”, meaning
“maid from Ruthenia”, and was given to her by
some Venetian ambassadors. Her other name
was the one by which history best remembers
her. She was called “Hurrem”, which means
“joyful”, or “the laughing one” in Persian. This
name tells us a great deal about her nature and
why Suleiman the Magnificent found her
company so compelling.

Many female slaves entering the palace were

put to work in a domestic capacity. One story
about Hurrem indicates that her first role was
that of a laundress. In this rather romantic
version of events, it was said that Suleiman
walked past the part of the palace where
Hurrem toiled, and he was charmed by her
lovely voice as she sang an old Russian folk
song.

The Harem, by John Lewis,1849, via the National Gallery of

Victoria

He stopped to converse with her and was struck

by her happy-go-lucky nature, and her ability to
converse. Whether or not this story is true, we
will never know. But it does tell us something
about her personality.

In other stories, it was Suleiman’s mother,

Hafsa Sultan, who selected Hurrem to spend a
night pleasuring her son. There were hundreds
of women in the Sultan’s harem, and the
likelihood of these women ever meeting the
Sultan in person was slim. In preparation for
this meeting, Hurrem would have been bathed,
shaved, anointed with fragrant oils, and dressed
in fine clothing in order to please her master.

The New Favorite

A Scene from the Turkish Harem, by Franz Hermann, Hans

Gemminger, and Valentin Mueller, 1654, via the Pera Museum

However their first meeting played out, fate

decreed that Hurrem would spend a night with
Suleiman. Venetian ambassadors described her
as being attractive but not beautiful, slender,
and graceful. The combination of her fine
Russian features, her unusual red hair, her
daintiness, and her joyful manner must have
been a compelling combination because
Suleiman called for Hurrem to join him again
and again.

Suleiman already had a favorite, who was also

his consort. Her name was Mahidevran Sultan,
and she had given Suleiman a son. Now that
Hurrem was making a name for herself at court
as the Sultan’s new favorite, one day
Muhidevran took matters into her own hands
and attacked Hurrem, scratching her face.
When Suleiman called for Hurrem that night,
she refused to see him on account of her
appearance. Intrigued, Suleiman called for her
again and saw the marks on her face that
Muhidevran had left. Hurrem’s position as the
Sultan’s favorite concubine was solidified even
further after this incident. These events are very
telling about how clever Hurrem was, and they
show that she instinctively knew how to play
the political game to her best advantage.

Wife, Mother, Ruler

Mihrimah Sultan, Daughter of Suleyman the Magnificent, after

Titian, 1522-1578, via Sotheby’s

Suleiman the Magnificent became Sultan in

1520, which was around the same time that
Hurrem became his concubine. She bore him a
son, Mehmed, the following year. When
Suleiman’s mother, Hafsa Sultan, died in 1534,
this left a vacant position of power in the harem
over which she had presided. Hafsa’s death also
meant that Suleiman was now truly
independent and, therefore, able to make a
decision that would change the course of
history. In 1533, something truly astonishing
happened. Suleiman the Magnificent freed
Hurrem from her concubinage in order to marry
her. Islamic law forbade a Sultan to marry a
slave, so in order to make Hurrem his queen, he
had to free her.

A Genoese ambassador documented this

momentous occasion in an undated letter,
writing, “this week there has occurred in this
city a most extraordinary event, one absolutely
unprecedented in the history of the Sultans. The
Grand Signior Suleiman has taken to himself as
his Empress a slave-woman from Russia, called
Roxolana”.

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, photo by Carlos Degado, via

Wikimedia Commons

The empire was to be shaken up once again

when Hurrem bore her husband yet another
son. Prior to this, it was customary that
concubines only bore the Sultan one son, so
that she could then focus on her son’s
upbringing and education. Yet, Hurrem and
Suleiman had six children together in all, five
sons and one daughter.

Despite the fact that Islamic law allowed the

Sultan to take up to four wives and keep as
many concubines as he pleased, Suleiman the
Magnificent remained true to Hurrem and spent
time with no other women. When his first
consort, Muhidevran, left the harem to follow
her son to his first political posting (which was
customary; concubines were accordingly
educated to be able to advise their sons on
matters of politics and religion), this left
Hurrem as the undisputed head of the harem.
Eventually, in another unprecedented move,
Hurrem convinced her husband to allow her to
leave the harem and join him at Topkapi
Palace, where she was given a suite of
apartments next to his.

Love and Influence in the

Ottoman Empire

The City of Constantinople, from Illustrated Notes on English

Church History, by Rev Arthur Lane, 1901, via the University
of South Florida

Hurrem Sultan was an intelligent woman. She

shared a love of poetry with her husband, and
no doubt they had much in common. When he
was away on military campaigns, he entrusted
her with keeping him informed about affairs
back at home. It is even speculated that Hurrem
was instrumental in having Pargali Ibrahim
Pasha, who was by this time Grand Vizier and
now her rival, killed due to his unbridled
ambition.

Portrait of a Woman (accepted to be Hurrem Sultan), by the

workshop of Titian, c. 1515-20, via the Ringling Museum of
Art

Hurrem had to have her wits about her if she

was to protect herself and her children from the
plotting and intrigue of the court. It was less the
case that she was cunning and more so that she
was adept at doing what she had to do to keep
herself and her loved ones safe. She protected
what was hers, even to the extent of throwing
tantrums when fresh young Ruthenian slaves
entered the harem, and having them married off
to other nobles lest her husband take a liking to
them.

But there was more to Hurrem than just looking

after her own. Due to the level of trust between
Hurrem and Suleiman, she earned herself the
freedom to preside over infrastructure works in
the city, such as the creation of public drinking
and bathing facilities, charitable projects, such
as the establishment of soup kitchens for the
poor, and religious works, such as the building
of mosques and hostels for pilgrims. Hurrem
was also a patron of the arts.

Hurrem Sultan and

Suleiman the Magnificent:
a True Love Story

The Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, via Turkey Tours

Several extant love letters between Suleiman

the Magnificent and Hurrem Sultan
demonstrate the genuine love these two shared
for one another. In one such letter, Hurrem
wrote, “I only find peace next to you. Words
and inks would not be enough to tell my
happiness and joy, when I am right next to
you”. His letters to her show no less fervor.

As it would turn out, Hurrem would change the

history of the Ottoman Empire yet again, even
after her passing. Her wish to be right next to
her Sultan was granted not only in life, but also
in death. She died in 1588 and was laid to rest
in a mausoleum in the Suleymaniye Mosque,
where the Sultan himself was buried in an
adjacent mausoleum eight years later. The
century that followed was to become known as
the “Sultanate of Women”, one in which royal