#suleiman the magnficent

[fymagnificentwomcn]

So there is a high chance that suleyman and hurrem 's relationship wasn't monogamous right ? But if he really slept with other concubines then why and how didn't they give birth to children just like hurrem who gave him 5 or 6 children in a short period of time ? Also do you think that hurrem didn't sleep with suleyman after giving birth to her youngest sehzade since they didn't have another child for like 25 years+ ?

For this system and this culture I think we may safely call it monogamous. There’s nothing to indicate that he had any longer, even purely sexual, relationship with another woman. However, we obviously weren’t under his bed and since he had a harem full of women, we can’t be certain whether e.g. he didn’t quarrell with Hürrem once or twice and then had a one-night stand with one of the concubines for consolation… Even though Hürrem became his legal wife, there wasn’t a concept of marital fidelity there… And if he had any sexual encounters with any other women, he obviously most likely never produced any more children.

Here’s a quote from The Empress of the East by Leslie Peirce discussing the issue: (long, so under Read More)

Cihangir would be the last of Suleyman’s children. The sultan turned forty inAugust 1533, five months after he placed Mustafa in the field. The timing of the prince’s political inauguration was not coincidental. Forty was a number replete with religious, mythical, and historical significance for the Ottomans. For men, it was universally thought to be the threshold of full maturity. In Islamic tradition, the Prophet Muhammad was forty when he received the first of the revelations brought to him by the archangel Gabriel. In premodern times, the realities of the average person’s life span meant that a forty-year-old man was probably head of an extended family in which he and his wife were counting their own children’s children. Suleyman’s age was easy for his subjects to calculate if they remembered the year of his birth, 900, in the Islamic calendar. The beginning of a new Islamic century was thought to be a moment when a great leader might emerge.

Roxelana herself was still relatively young in 1533, probably in her late twenties at Cihangir’s birth two years earlier, almost certainly no more than thirty. But it would not be seemly to make a man who could now anticipate his first grandchild a father all over again. If decorum brought an end to her childbearing career, Roxelana may not have regretted leaving behind a phase of her life during almost half of which she had been pregnant. With five royal children to prepare for adulthood, she had her hands more than full. The end of childbearing did not spell the end of a sexual relationship between Roxelana and Suleyman, however. The sultan had apparently been unable to stay away from his favorite, and nothing suggests that their intimacy did not continue. And now it would be freed of the physical encumbrance of pregnancy. 

But how did the couple keep from conceiving more children? It is fair to say that without the practice of birth control, the Ottoman sultanate could not have evolved the highly engineered politics of reproduction that it sustained. In the opinion of the majority of Muslim jurists, abortion in the first trimester was acceptable if the birth of a child would bring physical harm to the mother or hardship to the family. The Old Palace midwives and female doctors were doubtless experts not only in conception and childbirth but also in forms of birth control that were compatible with the needs of the imperial household.

A variety of abortifacients and contraceptive techniques were known and had been catalogued already in medieval times. Use of suppositories and tampons by females predominated. Among the prescriptions of Al-Razi were five for intravaginal suppositories that used oil from cabbage flowers, pepper, juice of peppermint, leaves of pennyroyal, and dill. Known to western tradition as Rhazes, the great Persian philosopher was also head of the Baghdad hospital, cutting-edge for its time, and a practicing physician. Roxelana herself was by now probably familiar with the palace’s recommended techniques, or so her slower rate of childbirth from 1526 on suggests. 

Dynastic family planning was political planning. The personal decision of how many children to have and when was fraught with political consequence in the Ottoman dynastic family. Too many sons was a liability, as Suleyman had observed all too closely in the bitter rivalry between his uncles and his father. Even before their deadly showdown, he had watched Selim chafing at his confinement in Trabzon while his seven brothers and then their sons gained princely posts closer to the capital.

In 1533, Suleyman had four sons eligible to succeed him: Mustafa, Mehmed,Selim, and Bayezid. We can safely presume that Suleyman and Roxelanadeliberated the question of whether or not to have more children. Both wouldrecognize that the birth of yet another boy would only add more grief to thespectacle of their sons combating one another, let alone Mustafa. Four healthy sons was sufficient dynastic insurance, one more than Mehmed the Conqueror had provided. The public introduction of the three eldest princes at the 1530 circumcision celebration may have been intended in part to signal that the sultan considered his reproductive obligation to the empire fulfilled. A late baby, Cihangir was perhaps unanticipated or an afterthought — the result of a decision by Roxelana and Suleyman to have one last child.

- Joanna

It seems that Suleiman made a conscious decision not to have ANY more children, even with Hürrem. Still, judging by sources, I don’t think he had any long-term sexual relationship with any other woman.

[mihrunnisasultans]

Stannis Baratheon & Süleyman the Magnificent —  parallels

Happy Birthday Tisha! (@queenhurrem)

[tiny-librarian]

In the letters that she wrote to Kanunı Sultan Süleyman, Hurrem Sultan discusses especially their separation and the pain that she suffered because of it. Hurrem Sultan knew very well that her husband, who was surrounded by blood, death, and the smell of war, and whose ears and mind were buzzing with the ringing of swords and the beating of drums, was in need of love, poetry, tenderness. Because of this she strove to adorn her letters with expressions that would soften his soldier’s and emperor’s heart which was as hard as steel.

Turkish Men and the History of Ottoman Women: Studying the History of the Ottoman Dynasty's Private Sphere through Women's Writings

[droegeboycreations]

With all unlocked stretch goals, Suleiman the Magnificent will have access to all these heroes.

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Heroes for Suleiman the Magnificent With all unlocked stretch goals, Suleiman the Magnificent will have access to all these heroes.

[tiny-librarian]

The persistent memory of Süleyman’s reign as the epitome of Ottoman glory was not the result of conquest alone, however, for it was also during his reign that the empire began to experience the political and social strains of its vast size. Süleyman was king in an age of kings. He was the contemporary of the Hapsburg emperor Charles V, reviver of the Holy Roman Empire, and of Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England, whose celebrated meeting on the Field of Cloth of Gold took place three months before his accession. In the east, Süleyman’s contemporaries were the Safavid Ismail and the Mughal Babur, conquerors and founders of two great Muslim empires. Known to his fellow monarchs in the west as “the Magnificent,” Süleyman projected an image of splendor and power to an audience both European and Muslim. The Ottoman sultan was as deft as any of his royal peers at handling the politics of ceremonial monarchy—indeed, he had to be.

The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire - Leslie P. Pierce

[tiny-librarian]

I've been replaying the Ezio trilogy, now I'm on Revelations. It's so much more interesting to play, lame as this sounds, after having watched Magnificent Century and knowing even a wee bit about Turkish culture and that era. Seeing a super young Suleiman is funny too.

I can even pick out some words/phrases as well. (I keep subtitles on but still it's cool I was right)