Born: 1478 or 1479, Ukraine
Died: 19 March 1534
Country most active: Turkey
Also known as: حفصه سلطان
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
During the Ottoman Empire’s so-called Sultanate of Women from 1534 to 1683, the valide sultans (mother of the ruling sultan) held much more power than they had as haseki sultans (wives of the ruling sultan). In addition to the various other reasons that a man may be more inclined to listen to his mother than his wife—age and experience, the emotional bond many people have with a parent—polygamy likely contributed to this disparity as well. A sultan could have multiple wives but typically only one mother. This is not to say that these women had no influence as wives—indeed, the Sultanate of Women started with Hürrem Sultan, also known as Roxelana. She rose from an enslaved concubine to the wife of Süleyman the Magnificent to his chief consort as he repeatedly broke with tradition for love of her.
Like Hürrem Sultan and her daughter Mihrimah, several royal women proved influential during this time long before their 40th birthday, but a dozen of them became valide sultan later in their lives. Süleyman’s own mother, Hafsa Sultan, was the first to hold the honorific title of valide sultan. Prior to Süleyman’s reign, it was customary for women of the harem who gave birth to a son not to bear the sultan any further children, and mother and son would then be sent to provincial areas. In his late teens and early 20s, Süleyman was the administrator for a region in modern-day western Turkey, with his mother at his side. There, Hafsa was responsible for the construction of a mosque, a children’s school and a college, as well as a hospice. She started the Mesir Festival, which continues to this day, and a monument honoring her was erected in Manisa. She was also paid three times more than even her own son, the highest of anyone on the princely payroll at 6,000 aspers, in recognition of her presence as a representative of the elder generation. It was at some point during this time that she turned 40, though we cannot be precisely sure of her birth year.
But it was when Süleyman came to the throne in 1520 that her power expanded. In 1526, she was described as “a very beautiful woman of 48, for whom the Sultan bears great reverence and love,” while another observer commented in 1540 that, “his mother, who is with him, instructs him in how to make himself loved by the people.” Setting a precedent for her daughter-in-law and female descendants, she had major works constructed in the capital, such as a complex with a mosque, a religious college, a dervish hostel, a primary school, and a soup kitchen. The mosque would come to be known as “Sultaniye,” the imperial mosque. When she died in 1534, there was great public mourning in the empire and a magnificent tomb was crafted for her. As scholars have observed, “The career of Hafsa Sultan heralded the full incorporation of the sultan’s mother into the dynastic family … Hafsa is also the first royal concubine to be remembered with the title ‘Sultan,’ which recognized her as a legitimate sharer in dynastic power.”