8. The Sultanate of Women
For the most part, the Ottoman sultan’s Harem was not a Hugh Heffneresque playground of sensual pleasures. Instead, it was more of a dumping ground in which hundreds of royal female relatives, concubines, and wives were kept, most of them bored out of their minds with little to do. However, some powerful Harem women managed to wield great influence over a stretch of 130 years, circa 1533 to 1656. That period came to be known as “The Sultanate of Women”.
During the Sultanate of Women, imperial wives known as Haseki Sultans, and mothers of sultans known as Valide Sultans, often wielded significant political and social power. That enabled them to influence the daily running of the Ottoman Empire, the appointment, dismissal, and sometimes execution of its foremost officials.