Roxelana (born c. 1505, Rohatyn, Poland [now in Ukraine]—died April 1558, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire [now Istanbul, Turkey]) was a Slavic woman who was forced into concubinage and later became the wife of the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent. Through her influence on the sultan and her mastery of palace intrigue, Roxelana wielded considerable power.

Early life, capture, and marriage

Roxelana was born about 1505 in the town of Rohatyn, in what is now western Ukraine. According to some sources, her Christian name was Aleksandra Lisovska. The moniker Roxelana, by which she became known in Europe, probably originated as a reference to her Rusyn, or Ruthenian, roots. She was captured as a young girl by Crimean Tatar raiders and taken to Constantinople (now Istanbul), the Ottoman capital, where she was sold in a slave market to someone connected to Süleyman, who became sultan in 1520. She was then made to convert to Islam and entered the harem, the royal household in which hundreds of women were held in sexual servitude to the sultan. Roxelana was not strikingly beautiful, but she had a pleasing personality (her Turkish name, Hürrem, means “joyful one”), and she quickly made a special place for herself in the harem. She bore her first son, Mehmed, in 1521 and supplanted Gülbahar (also called Mahidevran) as the haseki, or royal favourite. By Ottoman imperial custom, a concubine was allowed to have only one son; when he came of age, mother and son were sent away together. However, Roxelana bore at least four more sons to Süleyman and remained in the capital even after they came of age. At some point, Süleyman legally married Roxelana, an even more extraordinary occurrence. Inasmuch as the concubines’ sons were regarded as the sultans’ heirs, few sultans saw the necessity of marriage. As the sultan’s bride, Roxelana was freed from slavery.

Political influence

Roxelana and Süleyman had a close relationship. During his frequent absences on military campaigns, they wrote poetry to each other. Roxelana also corresponded on matters of state with Sigismund II Augustus, king of Poland, and with the wife and sister of Ṭahmāsp I, shah of Persia. She also became a patroness of public works, commissioning many projects for the Ottoman royal architect Sinan. Their first big project, started by 1539, was the Haseki mosque complex in Constantinople. Two schools and a hospital were among its components. She also commissioned the Haseki Hürrem Ḥammān (1556), an Islamic bath, in Constantinople.

So extraordinary was Roxelana’s success that her enemies saw witchcraft as the only possible explanation for it. She was also characterized as a schemer who plotted the assassination of İbrahim Paşa, the sultan’s grand vizier (chief minister), in 1536, in order to eliminate a rival influence on the sultan. She increased the importance of her harem by arranging for it to be moved from the Old Seraglio (Eski Saray) to the Topkapı Palace, where Süleyman lived and held court. Süleyman and Roxelana grieved when Mehmed, the heir apparent, died in 1543. Their daughter Mihrimah was given in marriage to a courtier named Rüstem, who became grand vizier in 1544. Rüstem and Roxelana were suspected of plotting the execution in 1553 of Gülbahar’s son Mustafa, who, as Süleyman’s oldest surviving son, stood between Roxelana’s own remaining sons and the imperial succession.

Roxelana died in April 1558. Süleyman lived on until 1566 and was succeeded as Ottoman emperor by Selim II, sometimes known as “the sot,” a weak ruler who was nonetheless Roxelana’s last surviving son. During Selim’s reign, the influence of the harem often overshadowed that of the grand vizier, resulting in the so-called “Sultanate of the Women,” a state of affairs often attributed to Roxelana’s legacy.