Empress of the East

by Leslie Peirce

  Over the centuries, a complex politics of sex, gender, and power had come to underpin royal benevolence. The patronage of mosques, madrasas, and other charitable institutions was not a straightforward enterprise open to any member of the dynastic household with the wealth to endow them. A fundamental qualification of the builder was that his or her identity be dominated by an intimate connection to the Ottoman dynastic house. The Christian wives of the early sultans were not Ottoman builders since they retained their native dynastic loyalties and their Christian faith. The top convert slave recruits who served the dynasty as commanders, governors, and viziers, however, were eligible builders because their Christian identity was overtly erased and replaced with Islam and affiliation to the House of Osman. Ottoman largesse traveled to remote corners of the empire via the hundreds of foundations built by pashas, viziers, and occasionally prominent eunuchs who had risen to positions of wealth and power. With the reign of Suleyman’s grandfather Bayezid II, royal mothers began to join this elite in notable numbers.

  Adulthood was a second prerequisite for philanthropic building. But maturity was measured not in years but in terms of the significance of one’s political function. When the Ottomans first appeared on the horizon, princes were builders. The madrasa in Nicea endowed by Suleyman, son of the second Ottoman ruler, Orhan, was one of the very first; his father completed it after the prince’s premature death in 1357. But as royal sons were gradually subordinated to their father’s charisma and authority, it was mothers who provided patronage on behalf of their prince-governor sons. As for princesses, once they ceased marrying foreign princes in the later fifteenth century and began to marry high-ranking Ottoman statesmen, their identity was wholly Ottoman, and they too became builders.

  The options for patronage open to top-ranking female slave recruits were trickier to navigate than those open to statesmen. A politics of sexuality defined these women’s full adulthood and thereby determined which could be builders. Only in the postsexual phase of a royal mother’s life, when she had moved to the provinces with her son, was she considered fully mature, hence eligible to endow a prominent foundation. Roxelana, however, thirty-five or so when construction began on her mosque, could be presumed to still be sleeping with the sultan. The dynasty’s formula for assigning political adulthood subordinated her motherhood to her sexual partnership with Suleyman. It took the invention of a new tradition—creating a favorite, then freeing and marrying her—to open the way for the Avrat Pazar mosque.

  Roxelana’s mosque has come in for a certain amount of debate among art historians. The discussion concerns the architectural judgment that the mosque was insubstantial, lacking in robust design, and unusually conservative, especially in comparison to the subsequent components of the foundation.27 In other words, such a modest structure, one that looked backward architecturally rather than forward, has been considered unworthy of Roxelana’s stature as queen. But this seemingly academic matter in fact casts light on aspects of Roxelana’s mind-set when she undertook her building project—her piety, her ambition, and her awareness of the political snares she had constantly to avoid.

  The personal and political considerations that occupied Roxelana during the planning of the Haseki can help account for the gap in elegance between the mosque and its neighboring structures. The story told by Dernschwam suggests that Roxelana earnestly dedicated herself to the goal of endowing a mosque, one that fitted her station and personal budget. Perhaps a modest yet pious endeavor is all she initially wished for—Dernschwam noted that, once freed, Roxelana funded the mosque she had built herself.

  The simplicity of Roxelana’s mosque can be linked to the timing of her building debut and the probability that the then head royal architect Persian Ali designed it. As chief architect, Persian Ali had been in charge of Hafsa’s great initiative in Manisa.28 Completed around 1522, two years after Suleyman’s accession, the Manisa complex comprised a mosque, a madrasa, a primary school, a sufi lodge, and a soup kitchen. At the time, Hafsa’s was the largest foundation endowed by a royal mother and also the most prestigious. Not one but two minarets flanked the mosque, a prerogative until then reserved to sultans.29

  Hafsa’s foundation was the first step in the ramping up of monumental architecture as a propaganda vehicle for Suleyman’s reign. The Ottomans were still working to consolidate the empire’s legitimacy as a world power in the eyes of the Muslim east as well as the Christian west. In 1538, while Roxelana was planning her mosque, Suleyman was adding a hospital and a public bath to the Manisa foundation in his mother’s name. The timing of these two projects—the sultan’s completion of his mother’s memorial and his wife’s initiation of her first act of public patronage—was unlikely to have been coincidental.

  The joint timing helps to explain the unpretentious nature of Roxelana’s mosque, since a muted start to her debut project would not draw attention from Suleyman’s aggrandizement of the queen mother’s monument. The architect would presumably be sensitive to the protocol involved in the two projects, as of course would the royal couple. Once Hafsa’s foundation was complete, however, Roxelana was free to pursue her own philanthropic ambitions in a more grandiose fashion, with the support of the new royal architect Sinan and the financial backing of her husband. The Avrat Pazar initiative, with its unassuming mosque but magnanimous public services, could be construed (and justified, if need be) as the favorite’s homage in the capital to the queen mother’s benevolence in the province.

  Roxelana’s foundation was not an isolated undertaking. With Suleyman’s reign, the clear separation of the philanthropic theater of the sultan from that of royal women came to an end. Suleyman was the architect of a policy that no longer reserved patronage in the capital to males—Ottoman monarchs and their principal statesmen. By the early 1540s, female patronage had emerged in Istanbul as a signature feature of his reign. In addition to his wife, Suleyman’s sister Shah Sultan would prove a prolific patron, although of relatively modest projects (over the course of her long lifetime, she endowed three mosques, three dervish lodges, and other smaller structures in three different Istanbul neighborhoods).30 And in 1543, Roxelana and Suleyman’s only daughter Mihrumah would initiate construction of the elaborate mosque complex that still graces the waterfront of Üsküdar, the Asian suburb that was the departure point for the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Istanbul’s changing skyline was an unambiguous sign of the rising stature of the dynasty’s women.

  The Istanbul endowments of Roxelana, Shah Sultan, and Mihrumah stretched from the shrine of Eyüp north of the city, to the suburb of Silivri to the west, down along the western city walls and across the city proper, over the Bosphorus straits to Üsküdar. Each of these structures helped to broadcast the dynastic house’s piety and benevolence. While the sultan’s own immense complex, the Suleymaniye, broke ground in 1548, it was not inaugurated until 1557. In the meanwhile, it was the women of his family who answered the dynasty’s mandate to provide for the public welfare. The Haseki complex set the model for large-scale foundations endowed by females in the imperial capital—not only for Suleyman’s reign but also for the powerful queen mothers of the future. They would build on the precedents established by this bold and munificent woman.

  There was a loser in all this, however: Mahidevran, the mother of Suleyman’s eldest son Mustafa. When ground was broken for the Haseki mosque, Mustafa was in his sixth year as governor of Manisa, somewhat early for Mahidevran to consider an endowment of her own. If Suleyman’s marriage to Roxelana had widened the gap between the two royal mothers, the Haseki foundation opened a chasm between the provinces and Istanbul. Even if Roxelana had not intended to outshine Mahidevran—the trajectory of her career produced its own compelling need for a mosque—it was as if Suleyman’s two families were living in different epochs of history, with different rules of conduct and status. Neither Mahidevran nor Mustafa nor their numerous partisans could have been pleased.

  WHAT DID ROXELANA’S foundation mean to her, both pol
itically and personally? Her status as Suleyman’s queen now had a literal foundation. The discussion of such a project had perhaps been under way for some time, perhaps as early as the 1520s, when it was obvious that Roxelana was no ordinary royal concubine. In fact, as a royal mother she had always known that she would be expected to engage in some form of architectural patronage. Responsibility for philanthropic gestures would certainly be an element in the instruction Hafsa imparted to the mothers of her son’s children.

  With marriage, Roxelana became a wealthy woman. The jewels that Suleyman had heaped on her and her large dower were known to envoys and elite circles and probably to the Istanbul street as well. Were people wondering what this new wife of the sultan, living next to him in the splendidly renovated New Palace, planned to do with her riches? Roxelana’s newfound status and wealth were a virtual imperative that she perform a noteworthy act of generosity. It is impossible to exaggerate the profound obligation to give in Ottoman society of Roxelana’s day. All over the empire, modest women were making their own charitable donations. In the southeastern Anatolian city of Aintab, for example, Aisha gave her share of a jointly owned house to her local mosque in 1541 (eventually the entire dwelling was donated by its four shareholders). The mosque could then raise funds by renting or selling it.31

  The urban jewel that was the Haseki dispelled any doubts about the sultan’s endorsement of his queen’s influence. Even if Roxelana financed the building of the mosque herself, it took Suleyman’s support to expand the complex. Rather than directly underwrite the “good works” of his household affiliates—Roxelana included—the sultan made them legal gifts of crown lands, now their private property to dispose of as they wished. Builders generally dedicated these properties to support their endowments. The income generated by the properties, for example tax revenues from villages or customs duties, then went to upkeep and operating costs. Among the most exquisitely rendered documents in the possession of the Topkapı Palace Museum Archive are the property deeds drawn up for Roxelana’s use.

  These deeds were formally witnessed by the signatures of the empire’s top echelon of statesmen. The act of witnessing had the effect of forcing any pasha with reservations about the queen’s building privilege to implicate himself in her project, if only on paper. One deed issued in 1539 was signed by the grand vizier, Lutfi Pasha; the other three viziers, Suleyman, Mehmed, and Rustem; the chief justices of Rumelia and Anatolia; the chief finance ministers; and “other statesmen.”32 The Haseki foundation charter of 1540 bore an even longer list of distinguished signatures. With the signatories presumably summoned en masse, these signings were highly ceremonial occasions. The deeds themselves were probably kept in the Divan Hall’s archive annex or the inner treasury of the New Palace, with access given to the honorary eunuch supervisor if he needed to check the details of the charter’s provisions.

  Tughra, or calligraphic emblem, of Suleyman, ca. 1555–1560. Highly decorated and containing the name of the reigning sultan and his father as well as the motto “ever victorious,” the tughra was drawn at the head of imperial decrees, such as the property deeds for Roxelana’s foundations.

  The magnitude of the queen’s first public project would gradually impress itself on other elite cadres in Istanbul. Among them was the corporation of top madrasa graduates—the religious, legal, and academic backbone of the sultanate, collectively known as the ulema. Since the best jobs, the best students, and the most conducive environments for scholarly research and writing were found in the imperial foundations, endowment of any new royal madrasa was a notable event. Selim I, third sultan to rule from Istanbul, died before he could establish a foundation for his capital. Finally, a new madrasa appeared in the memorial complex Suleyman built for his father, completed in 1522. The ulema doubtless prized it and would not have been insensitive to its prime location on the fifth of Istanbul’s hills. But no royal madrasa had emerged during the long heyday of Suleyman and Ibrahim’s expensive competition with European powers.

  If the identity of the newest madrasa founder surprised aspiring professors and hopeful students, the school’s opening in 1539 could only have pleased them. The two chief justices recommended to Suleyman the first professor appointed to the Haseki, Molla Bostan. His poverty had impelled him to leave his post as a “twenty-five asper” professor in Bursa and accept the more lucrative but less prestigious job of provincial judge. Molla Bostan must have been grateful that Roxelana’s patronage brought him back to the capital, for he went on to become a chief justice himself.33 Subsequent holders of the Haseki professorship lent it even more stature: Kınalızade Ali, author of an influential Ottoman work on ethics, and Şemseddin Ahmed, son of the renowned jurist and chief mufti Ebu Suud.

  Much further afoot, the queen’s name and reputation for good works would gradually seep into the villages whose revenues belonged to her foundation by virtue of the property rights she now retained over them. Peasants on royal endowment lands might enjoy certain protections and privileges, such as lighter taxes. Inhabitants of the Bulgarian village of Bobosevo, once part of the holdings of Roxelana’s granddaughter Ismihan, still remembered in the 1970s that their ancestors had been “under the veil of a sultana.”34 By the close of her philanthropic career, Roxelana’s “veil” would cover much of the empire. Several of her endowments included waterworks, dervish lodges, and hostels for pilgrims, boons to the tired and thirsty traveler who might carry forth news of the benefactress.

  But what personal meaning might her foundation have had for Roxelana? Was her first act of philanthropy more than just a performance of royal noblesse oblige? Muslim notables in all parts of the empire were endowing similar, if more modest, foundations in their towns and cities. Let us return to Aintab for our yardstick for provincial notables: in 1548, a prominent family from the wealthy village of Sam completed construction of Aintab’s second madrasa and a primary school alongside it. To support the two institutions, they built a large commercial center that brought in 9,600 aspers annually.35

  Giving was more than just duty, however. From the waters of the Haseki’s fountain to the hospital’s cures and the mosque’s recitations, the benefits to the Avrat Pazar community also counted in God’s eyes as Roxelana’s good works. Even after her death, she would continue to earn grace, so long as her foundation’s services and the prayers for her soul endured. Aisha of Aintab took similar care of her spiritual welfare: shortly after donating her house share to her mosque, she sold a gold bracelet to her stepson for two hundred aspers and used the money to finance the recitation of the Qur`an after her death (“for my soul,” she told the judge who registered her bequest).36 The Qur`an was most likely recited in the mosque to which Aisha contributed.

  Roxelana was almost certainly a sincere Muslim believer when she undertook the construction of her mosque. Converted at a young age, she spent her formative years among the Ottomans in the company of other converts, not all of whom had yet learned to forget their Christian origins. Perhaps they never really had to in a world where every Ottoman prince and sultan had a Christian convert mother and a retinue of convert servants, consorts, and statesmen. Moreover, Muslims honored Jesus, recognized in Islam as the prophet Isa, and the nineteenth chapter of the Qur`an is devoted to his mother Maryam, the only woman mentioned by name in the holy book. Mehmed the Conqueror commissioned the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini to paint an image of the Virgin and Child to add to his collection of Christian relics, although his famously orthodox son Bayezid had the assemblage sold to the king of France.37

  If there were syncretic tendencies in the palace, they were more than balanced by the doctrinal and ritual weight of Islam. The office of the chief mufti, arbiter of the religiolegal practices of the empire, was becoming more influential, and Suleyman was developing a lifelong friendship with the future mufti Ebu Suud. For Roxelana, raising her children within the daily occupation of being Muslim—the five prayers, the calendar of fasting and feasting, the occasional visiting of graves—imbue
d her life with the culture of Islam. Suleyman’s wars might be determined primarily by strategic considerations, but they were hailed as victories for Islamic orthodoxy.

  Pursing the career of a pious Muslim benefactor apparently did not require Roxelana to mask her origins: the violent uprooting from her childhood home, the enslavement and transport to Istanbul, the forced allegiance to a new family and a new religion. The plight of slaves apparently remained on her mind (she would later demonstrate compassion toward young slaves who labored on Suleyman’s own complex), and her benevolence toward them seems to have inspired others to follow suit. Her trustee Mehmed created an endowment to provide footgear for needy male and female slaves and jugs for children and slaves who carried water from the Haseki fountain. Her own slave woman Nevbahar used materiel left over from the Haseki’s construction to renovate a small nearby mosque originally built by Mehmed the Conqueror’s head baker; it came to be called after her, noted Ayvansarayı, the eighteenth-century historian of Istanbul’s mosques, because she caused it to flourish.38

  The sensitivity to slaves and females revealed in Roxelana’s charitable work probably grew in part from the long years she spent in the Old Palace among other foreign captives and in part from the newfound power she possessed to express public sympathy with those who had suffered in one way or another. Although life in the harem generated jealousies, it must also have aroused compassion, perhaps especially for those who did not advance. If Suleyman’s support of his female relatives’ charitable endeavors had the tactical goals of improving community services around his empire and undergirding his religious agenda, it greatly facilitated his wife’s ability to reward those she deemed worthy of her support.