Born: 1550, Albania
Died: 10 November 1618
Country most active: Turkey
Also known as: Sofia, صفیه 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.
Safiye, mother of Mehmed III. Like her predecessors, Safiye, born in Albania, was taken from her home and arrived at the court as an enslaved concubine. Murad would come to rely on her more as haseki after his mother’s death, with one observer noting, “with the authority she enjoys as mother of the prince, she intervenes on occasion in affairs of state, although she is much respected in this, and is listened to by His Majesty, who considers her sensible and wise.” She is described as having dominated the compliant Mehmed during his reign, though we can never be certain exactly the extent of her influence.
Mehmed took the throne when his mother was in her 40s, but she was advising him long before that. There are multiple stories of women like Hafsa and Safiye guiding their sons on how best to deal with the boys’ sultan fathers. Safiye warned Mehmed to hide his ruthless ambition, lest his father take steps to neutralize an over-eager heir. Mehmed would later execute his own son for the same reason, only months before Mehmed himself died. Safiye would outlive her son, and his son as well, the teenaged Ahmed. Seemingly in response to his father’s kowtowing to Safiye, Ahmed appears to have deliberately lessened the power of a valide sultan, and it wouldn’t have helped that his mother, Handan, died only two years into his reign. Ahmed was followed by his half-brother Mustafa, whose mother’s name was not noted enough at the time to have survived to modern knowledge.