When Suleiman came to power at the age of 25 he ruled from the embryo Topkapi Palace, built by Mehmed the Conqueror on the original 7th Century Greek settlement. Suleiman enhanced and altered the Palace to shape his own needs as did all the Sultans who came after him.

The Palace overlooks the Bosphorus on one side and is surrounded by a precipitous garden on the land side. This garden is very shaded by mature trees and has obviously seen better days but a huge heronry at the top canopy of the trees makes for interesting viewing as the great birds noisily bicker among themselves before feeding on the banks of the Bosphorus.

The White Eunuch gate

The Sultan's Divan within the harem

The harem as a concept had originally been the Turkish version of the chastity belt. While the warriors were away fighting, which was a not infrequent happening, it became common practice to lock away their women in monastic retreats until they returned. Over the years, the harem had evolved into a strict, hierarchical structured society where the lowest were slaves awaiting a call from the Sultan, those who had pleasured him but not borne children and those who had borne him a son. The latter were elevated to the position of semi-official wives and and honoured with the title of Sultana. Even among these exalted ones there was an order of precedence but in Suleiman's harem there was none more powerful than the Sultan Valideh who ruled over the whole structure with a rod of iron and whose word was law -- she also just happened to be Suleiman's mother. The irony of this arrangement which seemed to be completely overlooked was that each and every Sultan of the Ottoman Empire was the son of a slave and it is not too dramatic to state that harem politics and intrigue were eventually to bring about its downfall.

The Baghdad Pavilion commemorates the taking of that city in 1638 and all the adjoining buildings were erected around that time. The bronze baldachin overlooks Gulhane Park which was once a part of the Topkapi gardens. The frieze surrounding the baldachin contains a poem to the memory of Sultan Ibrahim who erected the edifice. The pool in the foreground leads to the Circumcision room where succeeding Sultans were circumcised.

Gulbehar

Suleiman's visits to his harem have been reported variously as quite frequent to rare but whichever is the truth he was in the habit of forming long-standing relationships in which he was comparatively faithful. The first of his great loves, if it can be described as such, was a Montenegrin slave girl called Gulbehar { Rose of Spring} who subsequently bore him his first male child and was immediately elevated to the first among the Sultanas. From that time onward Gulbehar lived a life of luxury raising their son Mustafa and basking in the security that the heir apparent brought with him. Mustafa was just beginning to take his first steps when a number of slave girls captured in Galicia were brought to swell the numbers in the harem; one of them would one day shatter his mother's contentment forever.

Ibrahim

The life of Suleiman was fated to be influenced by slaves and for many years a Christian Greek slave called Ibrahim became his closest consort. Suleiman had become close to Ibrahim as a youth when he had been a part of his Princely retinue. Ibrahim was highly intelligent and gifted and the two were inseparable in the days when they were free to hunt and life was carefree. When Suleiman succeeded to the throne it was inconceivable that Ibrahim would not join him and he began life at court in the role of Grand Falconer. Very soon Ibrahim became First Officer of the Bedchamber and a rapid succession of posts rocketed him to Grand Vizier within the unprecedented short interval of three years. Their friendship was stronger than it had ever been and Ibrahim slept at the side of his master, ate with him and went into battle with him, occasionally winning glory for himself and the Janissaries he had headed into battle. From his Palace in the Hippodrome Ibrahim commuted the few steps to the court each day and gradually he began to take up many of the duties that should have been Suleimans alone. Such was his ability that Suleiman was content to sit back and allow Ibrahim to make decisions that were far above his station and little by little he usurped power for himself. This situation might have gone on for years had not Ibrahim become victim to his own vanity and the power had not gone to his head. While Suleiman stayed in the background, Ibrahim acted out his role more and more, watched by court officials who were becoming more alarmed each day at his pretensions. Foreign envoys were astonished to be forced to greet him as if he were royalty kissing the hem of his caftan and grandiose speeches to the court became commonplace while officials watched his increasing pomposity with dismay. It is important to note that while Ibrahim acted out the role of his master he did so with no mean ability and acumen and although he affected a regal attitude at no time was there ever a suggestion that he entertained any notion of succeeding or betraying Suleiman. Be that as it may, the same nemesis that entered into the life of Gulbehar would soon threaten Ibrahim and use his usurped power against him. The capture of a bevy of slave girls in Galicia was to have have far-reaching consequences.

Roxelana

Among the slave girls from the Galician expedition who entered the harem in 1523 there was one whose infectious good humour singled her out from all the rest. They called her KHURREM, the LAUGHING ONE at first but later RUSSOLANA because of her Russian origins and finally she came to known as ROXELANA. Almost immediately, Suleiman was drawn to the good natured slave girl and within a year she had presented him with a son { the first of her 5 children } they named Selim. Right away, Roxelana was assumed the heady rank of Second Sultana behind Gulbehar and was thus the third influential woman of the harem. Suleiman's interest in Roxelana proved to be not just mere novelty and he spent most of his time walking and talking and enjoying the company of Roxelana, gradually forming an abiding attachment to her. Gulbahar, Rose of Spring, was not slow to realise that she had been displaced by a new favourite and there was a scandal which rocked the court when the First and Second Sultana's differences culminated in a bitter fist-fight within the sitting rooms of the harem. It was rumoured that Roxelana had come off worst in the encounter but if Gulbehar thought that was the end of the matter then she had badly underestimated the patience and guile of her opponent. Over the years her influence over Suleiman never waned and so compliant was he to her wishes that it was generally thought that Roxelana had put a spell on him and she earned a new epithet--the witch. Her vaunted good humour had by this time been replaced by an overweening ambition for herself and her children and in particular for Selim. So that when Mustafa reached his majority it was Roxelana who persuaded Suleiman to make him Governor of Magnesia and for his mother to accompany him.

When the Sultan Valideh died and in the absence of Gulbehar, Roxelana's influence over Suleiman became even more pervasive and her demands became even more outrageous with each wish that was fulfilled. The day that she asked for the ultimate prize, marriage to Suleiman, the court was rocked to it's very foundations; no Sultan had been married for the previous 6 centuries. Nevertheless, Roxelana was granted her wish and she became Empress amid wedding celebrations which lasted for a week in the city. All trace of the laughing slave girl had by this time disappeared and been replaced by a cunning and ambitious woman whose life was dedicated to the furtherance of her first-born. She was implacable in her malevolence toward anything or anyone that she perceived as a threat to her aims and the vanity of Ibrahim had not escaped her attention; in fact Ibrahim's actions almost invited some kind of reprisal. And so Roxelana began to engineer the downfall of the Sultan's favourite with a subtle campaign of whispers and insinuation that Ibrahim was about to usurp the throne. The rumours grew to a crescendo and Suleiman could not fail to be appraised of a situation he had tried to avoid. Suleiman was stricken with a bout conscience; he never really believed that his old friend would betray him and also he had once sworn an oath to never cause any harm to come to Ibrahim. The Legal Counsellor of the Divan absolved him of any blame decreeing " He that sleeps doth not truly live so that you may punish his disloyalty and not violate your oath". Ibrahim was subsequently strangled in the usual manner by deaf mutes using a bow-string. He died in 1536 and was said to have fought desperately for his life.

Nine years after the death of Ibrahim, Roxelana finally revenged herself upon Gulbehar and at the same time succeeded in her overriding ambition to preserve the throne for Selim. Her methods were precisely as before and never had innuendo and insinuation been used so successfully in the campaign against Gulbahar's son. By all accounts Mustafa was a handsome, successful and capable natural successor to the throne but Roxelana used these assets against him. Suleiman's great strength and great weakness was that he would brook no threat to his power and his suspicious nature was aroused just as it had been before. Once again he received an absolution before acting but once this had been done Mustafa's fate was sealed. Mustafa was called to Suleiman's tent but had been warned about what was to happen. He remarked " If he was to lose his life then he could wish no better than to give it back to him from whom he had received it " His words had no effect upon the deaf mutes who strangled him with a silken cord while Suleiman looked on from behind a curtain. When it was all over he emerged " without the slightest remorse or pity ".

The Murder of Mustafa

There was nothing Magnificent at all about the acts that Suleiman had perpetrated upon his friend and his son. They revealed the truly black side to his character. Capricious and cruel over the years, Suleiman was to become even more paranoid as he grew older.

Within five years of the death of Mustafa, Roxelana was dead but she had manipulated Suleiman into granting all of her ambitions. Her obsessive aim to make Selim Suleiman's successor would one day come true but his reign was marked by drunkenness and licence and he was called Selim the Sot.

It is no exaggaration to state that Roxelana's ambitions and Suleiman's supine compliance had put into motion a chain of events that would eventually bring about the fall of the Ottoman Empire.