In the male-dominated history of Muslim tradition, most women are not considered influential, powerful, or even important, no matter the role they played. However, Roxelana, referred to as Hürrem Sultan within the Ottoman Empire, broke this trend in Muslim history. She occupied a very unique and extensive role beyond that of the typical woman in the court of her husband, Suleiman the Magnificent, gained significant status, and subsequently managed to singled-handedly exert a stronger influence over the administration of the Ottoman Empire than any other women in the 300 years before her.
Roxelana was born somewhere in Eastern Europe, most likely near Ukraine, at the beginning of the 16th century. Her birth name remains a point of contention, but Ukrainian tradition believes her born under the name Anastasia Lisowska. However, the name most commonly used in reference to her is Roxelana or some variant thereof because of her Russian or Ruthenian ancestry, though her Ottoman nickname, Hürrem Sultan, is also often used. Abducted during her teenage years and taken to a Turkish slave market,…show more content… Her burial site, a domed mausoleum close to Suleiman’s own burial site, gives her even more prestige over other Ottoman women, since no other woman ever received such an honor. Her legacy lived on after her death in in the extensive real estate given over to her control and the community work she founded (Singer: 97), another unique privilege granted to her as Suleiman’s legal wife, as well as in the subsequent series of stronger women controlling easily manipulated sultans. Many historians attribute the surprisingly quick decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 1600s and 1700s to the negative aftershock on the political system that Roxelana’s upending of the traditional Muslim power structure