Thread by @Delafina777

Gather 'round, cats and kittens, for a tale of Ye Olde-Timey Gals Being Pals, Turkish edition.

Meet Safiye Sultan (or rather, Safiye as played by Hülya Avşar in a spinoff of The Magnificent Century).

Safiye became the concubine of Sultan Murat III, who took the throne during a period known as the Sultanate of Women, a period in which a number of different women ruled the Ottoman Empire from inside the harem.

She was Albanian, and she bore the future Mehmet III, Murat's first son, in 1566. At the time, she was Murat's only wife/concubine.

So right away, she became a rival to Murat's powerful mother, Nurbanu, who was the valide sultan (mother of the sultan, and ruler of the harem). So Nurbanu and her daughters started plotting to limit Safiye's power.

They offered Murat all kinds of gorgeous women, but he was smitten with Safiye and completely uninterested in other women. So naturally, rumors started that she was a witch.

The bailo, or Venetian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, said she was the power behind the throne, intervening in affairs of state, and characterized her as "sensible and wise."

But her favorite pen-pal was none other than Queen Elizabeth. The two of them started corresponding because England was setting up a trading company in Turkey, and carried on from there.

Murat eventually died. Safiye kept his death secret until her son Mehmet could get to Istanbul and take the throne. There was a Rabbi Salomone who made reports to the English ambassador (would like to know more, but can't find info), who said Mehmet went straight to his mom.

Then he had his nineteen half-brothers strangled so they couldn't be rivals to the throne. Being a royal in the Ottoman Empire was a bit of a dicey business.

So now Safiye was the valide sultan, pretty much the most powerful position a woman could hold.

She seems like she was pretty cool in a lot of regards. Like, one day she heard wailing and saw boats full of women going down the Bosphorus. She inquired as to what was going on and found out they were sex workers who the chief eunuch had ordered to be drowned.

So she to the chief eunuch to stop that bullshit or she'd have him executed.

So Queen Elizabeth sends Mehmet an organ as a diplomatic gift, but along with it, she sends Safiye a super-cool carriage that cost way more than the organ. Safiye uses it to ride around town, which was apparently scandalous.

The ordinary people adore her, but of course the Old Male Religious Authorities are back on their bullshit about her being a witch and controlling the sultan (this time, her son rather than her husband).

Okay, but now for the great part: the valide sultans had a lot of money, but they weren't really allowed to leave the harem (Safiye's carriage rides notwithstanding). So they needed agents who could operate outside.

For this, they used agents called kiras--Jewish women who acted as their hands and eyes outside the harem. Given that the highest goal for Jewish men was to spend all day studying Torah, their wives were often skilled businesswomen.

So Safiye's kira was a woman named Esperanza Malchi. (Assuming her last name is Hebrew-derived, her name basically translates to "Hope Queen," which is badass.) Her name suggests she was probably a descendant of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492.

Esperanza ably managed Safiye's finances, getting rich herself, and the two of them were basically inseparable best friends.

And, according to the secretary to the English ambassador, also lovers.

So, the emperor's mother is banging her personal banker, and Jewish lady who got kicked out of Spain is now shtupping the emperor's mother.

THAT'S SUCH A POWER MOVE ON BOTH THEIR PARTS.

The secretary to the English ambassador, Paul Rycaut, clearly a prudish old fribble, calls her "a young audacious woman" who "exercised an unnatural kind of carnality with the said Queen."

Esperanza was also, apparently, "the first to receive approbation and authority" from the valide sultan, and "the cabinet councels were held in the secret apartments of the women...as were most proper to advance the interest of this Feminine Government."

Of course, Esperanza was Jewish and this was Ye Olde Times, so her story has a tragic ending. The imperial cavalry wasn't happy with what they were being paid, so they mutinied and murdered Esperanza and her eldest son.

Mehmet, being a dude, of course told his bros sorry about all that, I'll get my mom in line."

FUCK YOU, MEHMET.

He banished Safiye to the old palace where the wives of dead sultans got sent. She spent her time and money resettling the city's Jewish population and building a mosque in what had been the Jewish Quarter.

In my head-canon, she did it as tribute to Esperanza, and I will not be dissuaded.

While banished, she intercepted a letter to one of Mehmet's other wives (he eventually got a bunch) from a seer, saying that Mehmet would die within six months and this other wife's son, Mahmut, would become sultan.

She told Mehmet to have the wife and son strangled, which he did. But, he did indeed die about six months after the letter, so the seer was right.

Safiye's ungrateful git of a grandson, Ahmet I, banished her back to the old palace, and she had to halt construction on her mosque (a later valide sultan would finish it).

Safiye managed to live until the reign of her great-grandson, Osman II, and died in 1619. All of the sultans in the Ottoman line after this were her descendants.

So yeah, complete badass and I would like a movie about her romance with her personal banker, thank you very much.

More lady-couples running empires, please.