Haseki sultan

Haseki Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: خاصکى سلطان, romanized: Hāṣekī Sulṭān, Turkish pronunciation: [haseˈci suɫˈtaːn]) was a title used for the favorite of an Ottoman sultan. It was created for Hürrem Sultan, the legal wife of Suleiman the Magnificent. The title lost its exclusivity under Ibrahim, who bestowed it upon eight women simultaneously, but continued to be used until the 17th century, when kadın became the highest-ranking title for imperial concubines.

The word haseki (خاصکي-خاصگی) comes from the Arabic word khassa (خاصه), which is suffixed with the Persian gi (گی) and means "to attribute something exclusively to". A haseki is, therefore, one who belongs exclusively to the ruler.

Sultan (سلطان) is an Arabic word that indicates "authority" or "dominion". Starting from the 16th century, this title was carried by both men and women, thus replacing other titles by which prominent members of the imperial family had been known (notably hatun for women and bey for men). The Ottoman ruler's formal title consisted of sultan together with han (e.g. Sultan Suleiman Han). In formal address, the sultan's children were also entitled to the sultan title, with imperial princes (şehzade) carrying the title before their given name (e.g. Şehzade Sultan Mehmed), and imperial princesses carrying it after (e.g. Mihrimah Sultan). Like imperial princesses, the living mothers and chief consorts of the ruling sultan carried the title after their given names (e.g. Hafsa Sultan and Hürrem Sultan). The evolving usage of the sultan title reflects power shifts among imperial women, especially during the Sultanate of Women.

While the Ottoman Empire never had an official empress consort, when Suleiman broke tradition by freeing Hürrem, his favorite concubine, from slavery and legally marrying her, she was elevated to an extraordinary position; thus, the haseki sultan title that had been created for her can be seen as equivalent to the title of empress consort.

Although a handful of other women held the title after Hürrem, this didn't necessarily result from legal marriages, and none enjoyed the same esteem or authority during their tenures.

Nevertheless, the haseki sultan title, which continued to be used for more than a century after Hürrem's death, conveys the great power held by concubines who had arrived at the Ottoman court as slaves, elevating their status above imperial princesses and making them equal to the wives of Europe's rulers.

As the position of the chief consort eroded over the course of the 17th century, the haseki sultan title was replaced by the less prestigious and non-exclusive kadın, a title related to the earlier hatun. Henceforth, the sultan's mother was the only woman of non-imperial blood to carry the sultan title.

The sultan title is often translated as "sultana" when referring to female members of the imperial family in order to distinguish them from the male ruler.