Kösem Sultan

Brought to the Ottoman harem as a captive girl, Kösem Sultan became the favourite consort of Sultan Ahmed I and then, as mother of two sultans and grandmother of a third, the most powerful figure at the Ottoman court for much of the period 1623 to 1651. She governed as regent for two child sultans and dominated a third, mentally unstable one, in an era historians call the Sultanate of Women. Her violent death in the palace in 1651 shocked the capital.

She was born around 1589. Her origins are uncertain: she is usually thought to have been Greek, perhaps from the island of Tinos, or possibly Bosnian, and the traveller Pietro della Valle heard that her father was a Greek priest. Taken captive as a teenager in 1604, she was bought in Bosnia and sent to the harem in Constantinople, where she converted to Islam and was named Mahpeyker. By 1605 she had become the haseki, the chief consort, of the young Ahmed I, who later appears to have married her and gave her the name Kösem.

Kösem bore Ahmed several daughters and sons, including the future sultans Murad IV and Ibrahim. Ottoman princes were commonly executed when a brother took the throne, and she feared for her sons if Ahmed's eldest son Osman, by another mother, became sultan. She therefore worked to keep alive Ahmed's half-brother Mustafa, and when Ahmed died in November 1617 her faction helped Mustafa I succeed. This helped shift the Ottoman succession from father-to-son towards rule by the eldest male of the dynasty. Mustafa proved incapable and was soon replaced by Osman II, who sent Kösem to the Old Palace. Osman was killed by the Janissaries in 1622, and after Mustafa's brief second reign Kösem negotiated the accession of her son.

Murad IV became sultan on 10 September 1623 as a boy, and Kösem was named regent, the first woman formally given that role in the empire. She attended council meetings behind a curtain, appointed officials, corresponded with viziers and met foreign envoys. Her regency faced the loss of Baghdad and Erivan to the Safavid Empire in 1624, provincial revolts and Cossack raids on the Black Sea, against which she ordered two forts built at the mouth of the Bosphorus. In 1632, after a Janissary revolt, Murad took full control and ordered her to stay out of politics, though she kept some influence.

When Murad died in 1640, Ibrahim was the last male of the Ottoman dynasty, and Kösem is credited with having saved his life. She became his chief adviser, but his erratic rule, an empty treasury and the costly war against Venice for Crete that began in 1645, which she had supported, fuelled unrest. In 1648 the Janissaries and religious leaders demanded his removal. Kösem agreed, after a long argument, and produced her six-year-old grandson Mehmed IV; Ibrahim was deposed on 8 August and strangled on 18 August 1648, with her consent, though how far she was involved is debated. The boy's young mother, Turhan Sultan, was passed over, and Kösem became regent for a third time.

The two women soon became bitter rivals. Kösem allied with the Janissaries, while Turhan was backed by the palace eunuchs and the grand vizier. According to the chronicler Naima, Kösem planned to replace Mehmed with another grandson. Turhan's side struck first: on the night of 2 September 1651 the chief black eunuch Süleyman Agha and his men found Kösem hiding in the harem and strangled her. The city mourned for three days, and her Janissary allies were hunted down and executed. Some historians blame her for Ottoman decline; others see her actions as attempts to keep the dynasty alive. She was remembered for her charity and buildings, including the Çinili Mosque in Üsküdar and the Büyük Valide Han in Istanbul.

Our 1650 map shows the Ottoman Empire at the end of her life, with Crete still contested with Venice; the island fell only in the siege of Candia of 1669.