Kösem Sultan

Background

She was born around 1589. It is believed that she was Greek (possibly from Tinos) or Bosnian. Apparently, the first report of Kösem's Greek origin was in a letter by the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle. On 25 October 1615, from Istanbul he wrote about Kösem Sultan: "She was the daughter, if I understood correctly, of a Greek priest, from a distant country or city about two hundred miles from Constantinople". Her Christian name is unknown, but a popular version (as stated in unauthorized sources) is that her name was Anastasia.

In 1604, at the age of 14 or 15, she was kidnapped by Ottoman raiders and bought as a slave in Bosnia by the beylerbey (governor-general) of the Bosnia Eyalet. She was a tall, slender, and appealing girl due to her fresh complexion and the deep brown of her eyes. Her beauty and intelligence were noticed by the kızlar ağa of Sultan Ahmed I's court, who sent her to Constantinople to join a group of other slave girls marked by their striking appearance or intelligence to be trained in the harem of Sultan Ahmed I as an imperial court lady (slave concubine).

In the harem, she was taught Islam, theology, mathematics, embroidery, singing, music and literature. Ahmed was captivated by her beauty and intelligence, and in 1605, she became his haseki.

The pair apparently married at some point, as the letter to the Venetians written during Murad IV's reign states that Ahmed had wed Kösem; nevertheless surviving contemporary evidence surrounding the exact circumstances of their marriage is scarce.

According to the Italian traveler Pietro Della Valle, upon her conversion to Islam, her name was changed to Mahpeyker. After her marriage to Ahmed, he renamed her Kösem, meaning "leader of the herd,” implying her political intelligence and leadership, but it might also mean "hairless," in allusion to her smooth and hairless skin.

Kösem rose to prominence early in Ahmed's reign as part of a series of changes to the hierarchy of the Imperial Harem. Safiye Sultan, Ahmed's once-powerful grandmother and manager of the harem, was deprived of her power and banished to the Old Palace (Eski Sarayı) in January 1604, and Handan Sultan, Ahmed's mother and valide sultan, died in November of the following year. These two vacancies allowed her to rise to the top of the Imperial Harem hierarchy.

Haseki Sultan

Ahmed favoured Kösem above all his consorts, lavishing on her the finest jewels and a stipend of 1,000 aspers a day. In the early years of their relationship, she bore Ahmed three daughters: Ayşe Sultan, Fatma Sultan, and Hanzade Sultan. As the mother of several princesses, she had the right to arrange suitable dynastic marriages for them. In 1612, Ayşe Sultan, the eldest child of Kösem, was consequently married to the Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha at the age of seven, while Gevherhan Sultan was married to Öküz Kara Mehmed Pasha at the age of five.

The Venetian ambassador Simon Contarini, bailo between 1609 and 1612, mentions Kösem in his report in 1612 and portrays her as:"[A woman] of beauty and shrewdness, and furthermore ... of many talents, she sings excellently, whence she continues to be extremely well loved by the king ... Not that she is respected by all, but she is listened to in some matters and is the favorite of the king, who wants her beside him continually."

George Sandys, an English traveller who visited Constantinople in the early 1610s, believed that she was "a witch beyond beauty". He claimed that the sultan had a "passionate" love for Kösem, emphasizing that this was the result of witchcraft. Sandys went on to characterise her as a woman with "a delicate and at the same time shy nature."

Succession Transition

Kösem Sultan became increasingly involved in matters of succession following the birth of her second son, Murad, in 1612. It has been suggested that she played a role in the shift from a system of primogeniture, where the eldest son inherits the throne, to agnatic seniority, which favored the oldest male of the Ottoman dynasty. Given the Ottoman practice of fratricide, Kösem feared that if Sultan Ahmed's eldest son, Osman—whose mother was Mahfiruz Hatun—ascended the throne, her own sons, Murad, Kasım, and Ibrahim, would be at risk of execution. As a result, she sought to ensure the survival of the sultan's half-brother, Mustafa, to secure her sons' future.

In 1612, the Venetian ambassador Simon Contarini reported that Kösem lobbied to spare Mustafa from execution, ostensibly to protect her own children from the same fate. Although Contarini did not specifically name Kösem, he referred to a "queen" who intervened on Mustafa's behalf. Kösem's strategy aimed to preserve Mustafa's life in the hope that, should he ascend the throne, he would spare her sons. She also leveraged alliances with key figures such as Mustafa Agha, the Agha of the Janissaries, and Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha to extend her influence over the sultan.

It was also reported that Sultan Ahmed ordered a woman to be beaten for offending Kösem, and this woman may have been Mahfiruz Hatun, who was subsequently exiled to the Old Palace (Eski Sarayı) in the mid-1610s. Following Mahfiruz's exile, Kösem and Osman reportedly became closer, and Kösem allowed him to join her on public outings. During these excursions, Osman enjoyed throwing handful of coins to the passers-by who flocked to see the young prince, while Kösem remained concealed. However, by 1616, Venetian ambassador Cristoforo Valier noted that the sultan restricted Osman's interactions with Kösem, possibly due to concerns about her ambitions for her sons.

In 1614, Grand Vizier Nasuh Pasha, who was married to Kösem's daughter Ayşe Sultan, was executed on the sultan's orders, despite Kösem's efforts to prevent the execution. With the loss of this key ally, Kösem focused her attention on protecting Mustafa.

Kösem's influence over the sultan continued to grow, and by 1616, she was regarded as one of the most powerful figures in the empire. Valier noted her pro-Venetian stance and suggested that the Venetian Republic reward her for her contributions to its interests. Despite her significant influence, Kösem took care not to overshadow the sultan, as he sought to avoid the perception of being under his wife's control, unlike his father. Simon Contarini, the successor of Valier, noted that Kösem deliberately limited her involvement in state affairs in order to retain the sultan's favor.

Death of Ahmed I

On Ahmed's early death from typhus and gastric bleeding on 22 November 1617, Kösem became the head of a faction that successfully supported his half-brother Mustafa's accession to the throne, probably out of concern for her sons' life, should their older half-brother, Osman, become sultan. She probably preferred to see Mustafa become sultan as he was less likely to see her sons as a threat.

Reign of Mustafa I

As only the second sultan (after Ahmed I) to ascend the throne with no prior experience of government, Sultan Mustafa I proved feeble and incompetent. He had spent his entire early life in the harem, learning only what the eunuchs and women could teach him, and constantly fearing execution at the hands of the ruling sultans, with several palace officials, particularly the Chief Black Eunuch Mustafa Ağa, nourishing these fears to control him. Eventually, Mustafa Ağa spread stories that he was insane and secured his deposition on 26 February 1618, just 96 days after he ascended the throne. He was replaced by Osman, the eldest son of Sultan Ahmed I and his deceased mother Mahfiruz Hatun.

Reign of Osman II

Sultan Osman's first act as sultan was to take power away from Mustafa's supporters, as well as those who had secured his accession and planned to rule over him. As a result, Kösem and her eight children and entourage were banished to the Old Palace (Eski Sarayı). Nevertheless, Kösem was able to maintain her haseki status and daily stipend of 1,000 aspers during her retirement. While at the Old Palace, she had the opportunity to meet Safiye Sultan.

In 1619, Osman acted against Ottoman convention by paying Kösem a three-day visit at the Old Palace and taking part in her festivities, thus showing his particular affection for her. He also gave Kösem the income from eight villages to the north-west of Athens; she then incorporated them into her waqf, which provided services to pilgrims traveling from Damascus to Mecca. Kösem may have cultivated this relationship hoping to use her influence over Osman to persuade him to spare her sons. His uncle Mustafa was kept alive, as were Osman's younger half-brothers, protected by Kösem, who were at this time not old enough to pose a threat to Osman's regime. However, even if their relation continued, it did not yield results for the young sultan, whose greatest weakness was not having a valide sultan to lobby on his behalf. He also felt uneasy with Kösem's involvement in state issues.

In 1622, sensing that Osman might still execute Mustafa and his younger brothers, the eunuch corps and the palace soldiery planned a counter-strike, backed by Mustafa's mother, Halime Sultan, and Kösem, who wanted her own children to ascend to the throne. Storming into the harem, they freed Mustafa from confinement in the Kafes. As for Osman, aged only seventeen, he was imprisoned in Yedikule, then strangled by members of the Janissary corps on 20 May 1622, largely through the efforts of Halime.

Second reign of Mustafa I

In place of Osman, the weak and incompetent Mustafa was restored to the throne with the support of Kösem. While power initially went to Kösem and his mother, the Janissaries and others who had carried out the revolt then reacted violently to the regicide of Osman and killed all those whom they considered responsible while at the same time attempting to protect the remaining sons of Ahmed against the efforts of Halime to eliminate them to protect her son.

In an effort to build her own position, Kösem secured the appointment as grand vizier of Mere Hüseyin Pasha, an Albanian man who presented himself as a reformer, promising to move against the assassins. However, Hüseyin Pasha used the situation to his own advantage, raiding the state treasury for his own benefit on the pretext of punishing those responsible for the regicide of Osman.

During the closing months of Mustafa's second reign, he ordered the execution of everyone involved in Osman's death, including Kösem's sons. But before his orders could be carried out, both Kösem and the eunuch corps intervened and deposed him once more. Kösem eventually reached an agreement with the viziers to install her son Murad as sultan. Mustafa would go on to spend the rest of his life in the Kafes.

Valide Sultan

Reign of Murad IV

Kösem entered the Topkapı Palace with a grandiose ceremonial procession in front of which a thousand dervishes were marching with prayers to celebrate her forthcoming. She was once again thrust into the political arena when her son ascended to the throne on 10 September 1623 as Sultan Murad IV. Since he was a minor, she was appointed not only as valide sultan but also as official regent (naib-i-sultanat), the first in the Ottoman Empire's history.

In 1623, the Ottoman court sent a letter to the Republic of Venice, formally announcing Murad's ascension to the throne. The letter, which formally addressed Kösem, wrote: "Her Majesty the Sultana Valide [...] for the late Sultan Ahmed, whom Allah took with him, was a very important person and he loved her so much that he honoured her by marrying her." The letter further indicates that Kösem would rule in her son's name: "We have great hope and faith in the valide sultan, who - among all women enjoying the position - is distinguished by maturity and virtue of character."

Shortly after Murad's enthronement, a Venetian ambassadorial message remarked on Kösem's political experience:

"[A]ll power and authority [is with] the mother, a woman completely different from that of Sultan Mustafa, in the prime of life and of lofty mind and spirit, [who] often took part in the government during the reign of her husband."

A month before the Venetian despatch, the English envoy Thomas Roe predicted that the new sultan would be "gouemed by his mother, who gouemed his father, a man of spirit and witt."

As per Ottoman tradition, Murad had all his brothers confined in the Kafes, a part of the Imperial Harem where the palace eunuchs kept possible successors to the throne under a form of house-arrest and constant surveillance.

As regent, Kösem effectively ran the empire through her son, Murad, attending and arranging divan (cabinet) sessions from behind a curtain. She was in charge of appointing political figures and overseeing the state's administration, which allowed her to establish connections with statesmen, judges, and other court figures. She would meet with ambassadors from other countries to discuss international treaties. The leading viziers wrote letters directly to her and, in response, Kösem used her kira to compose letters to the viziers.

Reign of Ibrahim

Of Kösem's last surviving sons, the mentally unstable Ibrahim, lived in fear of being the next of his brothers to be executed by Murad. On his deathbed in 1640, Murad told his mother of his disdain for his brother Ibrahim, saying that it would be better for the dynasty to end rather than continue with an heir who was insane. Ibrahim's life was only saved by the intercession of his mother Kösem, who argued that he was 'too mad to be a threat'. She thereby saved the Ottoman dynasty from probable annihilation.

Following Murad's death from cirrhosis at the age of 27, Ibrahim was the sole surviving prince of the dynasty. When the Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha asked him to assume the sultanate, Ibrahim suspected Murad was still alive and plotting to trap him. It took the combined persuasion of Kösem and the grand vizier to make him accept the throne. For instance, Kösem ordered his brother's corpse to be displayed before him and even threatened Ibrahim with 'strangulation, not inauguration' if he refused to be crowned sultan.

Alvise Contarini, who was sent by the Venetian government to Constantinople on the occasion of Ibrahim's accession, presented letters of congratulation addressed to Kösem to Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha for delivery. However, the grand vizier, Kösem's rival for control of the weak Ibrahim, did not forward the letters, "as if scorning them", reported Contarini who also wrote that the grand vizier "told me that the queen mothers of the Ottomans are slaves of the Grand Signor like all others, not partners or heads of government, like those in Christian countries."

With the accession of Ibrahim, Kösem once again became politically active as his principal advisor. However, she enjoyed a less compatible relationship with the Grand Vizier Mustafa Pasha than she had with the grand viziers of Murad's early reign. Now entering her fourth decade of political involvement, Kösem was a shrewd and experienced politician. The competition between them was reported by the Venetian ambassador Alvise Contarini:

"In the present government, to the extent that this son's capabilities are less, she is held in greater esteem [than at the end of Murad's reign]. And thus, with her commanding affairs within the palace and the grand vizier [commanding] those outside, it happens quite often that these two rulers come up against each other and in doing so take offense at each other, so that one can say that in appearance they are in accord, but secretly each is trying to bring about the downfall of the other."

Büyük Valide Sultan

Reign of Mehmed IV

When some government official insisted that Mehmed be sent to be enthroned and receive the Janissaries' and sipahis' (cavalryman) oath of allegiance at the Blue Mosque out of concern for the young sultan's safety, Kösem demanded that they instead come to the palace, pointing out that no sultan had ever been enthroned in a mosque before. Her purpose was undoubtedly in part to force the situation so that she could have some influence over the outcome.

Ten days after Ibrahim's dethronement, one of the first imperial decrees issued in the name of the child sultan declared that Ibrahim, living under house arrest, was stirring insurrection with the assistance of his loyal followers, including harem eunuchs and palace guards, some of whom wished to reenthrone him. The newly appointed Grand Vizier Mehmed Pasha asked the Şeyhülislam Abdürrahim Efendi for a fatwā sanctioning Ibrahim's execution which was granted, with the message: "If there are two caliphs, kill one of them." Kösem, weeping while praying before the mantle of Muhammad, responded to the decision by asking, "Who gave this man the evil eye?" She also articulated the fact that only she could make the final decision whether the sultan lived or died: "They said my son Ibrahim was not suitable for the sultanate. I said 'depose him.' They said his presence is harmful, I said 'let him be removed', then I said 'let him be executed.' If anyone is under my protection, it is my son."

The extent in which Kösem was involved in Ibrahim's execution has always been a source of debate. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, an Austrian historian, believes that, to the extent that she was involved, it was motivated by concerns for the Ottoman state. Nevertheless, she was forced to give her consent to Ibrahim's execution. As officials watched from a palace window, Ibrahim was strangled on 18 August 1648. His death was the second regicide in the history of the Ottoman state.

According to Ottoman customs, the mother of the deceased sultan would retire to the OId Palace and give up her office upon the accession of a new sultan. Kösem herself requested to retire from politics, but her request was denied by the political and religious leaders who deposed Ibrahim, forcing her to reconsider her decision and continue her career as Sultan Mehmed IV's regent because she had more expertise and knowledge of the state's running than Mehmed's own twenty-one-year-old mother, Turhan Sultan. According to Abdülaziz Efendi, then the chief justice of Rumeli and a central figure in the dynastic upheavals of the time, it was considered prudent to appoint the more experienced female as regent in contravention of tradition:

Assassination

On the 16th day of Ramadan, the night of 2 September 1651, the Chief Black Eunuch Lala Süleyman Agha and his armed men, consisting of over 120 armed black and white eunuchs, descended on the palace in support of the sultan, proceeded to Kösem's quarters where they encountered over 300 armed Janissaries and loyal black eunuchs. With Süleyman Ağa's outnumbered forces launching an assault, the opposing party fled. Hearing the commotion, Kösem thought the Janissaries had arrived, so she called out from behind the door, "Have they come?" Süleyman Ağa replied, "Yes, they have come," hoping to deceive her. Kösem, on the other hand, recognised his voice and went mad, stuffing her precious jewels into her pockets and fleeing along the Golden Way and through the Court of the Black Eunuchs to the Dome with Closets, probably hoping to escape from the palace through the Carriage Gate. The gate was locked, so she crept into a small cabinet, hoping that Turhan's eunuchs would pass her by and that the Janissaries would come to her rescue. When Süleyman Ağa's men stormed into her chamber, they encountered an elderly woman who served as Kösem's buffoon. The woman, who was armed with a pistol, pointed at them when they questioned her about Kösem's whereabouts, to which she replied "I am the valide sultan", but Süleyman Ağa cried "It is not she", and pushed her aside.

Eventually Kösem was betrayed to a halberdier by a piece of her dress that protruded from under the cabinet door. Dragged out by one of her assailants, she told him, "O brave man, be not cruel unto me", while trying to divert their attention by tossing gold coins onto the floor, but they were not deceived. She was then held by one of the men as they seized her garments, jewelry, bracelets, garters, and other valuables. Her earrings, two chestnut-sized diamonds with a ruby beneath each diamond that had been given to her by her husband Ahmed, were torn apart by an Albanian man called Bostanci Ali Ağa; their estimated worth was thought to equal Egypt's entire annual income. Rycaut also mentioned the theft of a beautiful locket engraved with the names of her late sons Murad and Ibrahim.

Kösem was then dragged by her feet to the gateway leading from the harem into the Third Court, where Süleyman Ağa ordered his men to kill her. A group of four men, all of them young and inexperienced, attempted to strangle her with a piece of cord ripped from the curtains since they were forbidden from using a bowstring. While the others drew the cord, one assassin climbed on her back and gripped her neck, but stopped when Kösem bit his thumb. In retaliation, he struck her forehead, causing her to fall unconscious. Then, assuming she was dead, they screamed out, 'She is dead, she is dead!' and went to notify the sultan and the grand vizier. Once they were out of sight, she miraculously lifted herself up again, hoping to escape through a secret passageway, but as soon as her disappearance was discovered, the assassins were called back again and she was caught.According to Rycaut, the assassins then applied the cord for the second time, although the Ottoman renegade Bobovi, relying on an informant in the harem, claimed that she was strangled with her own hair. She is believed to have resisted with such force that blood from her ears and nose soaked the murderer's clothes. Once she had died, her body was dragged outside and shown to the remaining Janissaries, before being moved into a room in the corridor of the Kuşhâne Kapısı (Aviary Gate).

Aftermath

When news of Kösem's murder spread the following morning, a large crowd was said to have gathered in front of Topkapı Palace's gates. There, they are claimed to have accused the Janissaries of murdering Kösem and pledged to take revenge. The Grand Vizier Siyavuş Pasha responded by proposing that the Sacred Standard of Muhammed, which was typically brought out at the beginning of campaigns against Christian or Shia nations, be displayed above Topkapı Palace's main gate. To implement a levy of all able-bodied men for the public defence, the grand vizier ordered criers to pass through the streets of Constantinople shouting, "Whoever is a Muslim, let him rally around the banner of the religion. Those who do not come are rendered infidels and they are divorced from their [Muslim] wives." Three days of spontaneous mourning were observed by the people of Constantinople, during which the city's marketplaces and mosques were closed. Kösem's murder also allegedly began a custom of lighting candles "for her soul" at the Topkapı Palace every night, which lasted until the palace's closure in the nineteenth century.

That same day, the Agha of the Janissaries Şahin Ağa exhorted his troops to exact revenge on Kösem, declaring, "We want only the Valide's expiation!" A voice asked, "Are you then the Valide's heir, son, or husband?" The long silence that followed proved that the Janissaries disagreed with their commander's position. Later, once Şahin Ağa's troops deserted him out of fear, he and the other rebel commanders were hunted down and put to death.

Contemporary Ottoman chroniclers did not welcome Kösem's murder and recorded it as an injustice committed against a woman of great accomplishments and stature, and a harbinger of greater social disorder. Evliya Çelebi, a famous Ottoman traveler, writer and admirer of Kösem, described the murder: "The mother of the world, wife of Sultan Ahmed (I); mother of Murad (IV), and Ibrahim; the Grand Kösem Valide—was strangled by the Chief Black Eunuch Div Süleyman Agha. He did it by twisting her braids around her neck. So that gracious benefactress was martyred. When the Istanbul populace heard of this, they closed the mosques and the bazaars for three days and nights. There was a huge commotion. Several hundred people were put to death, secretly and publicly, and Istanbul was in a tumult." Dervish Abdullah Efendi, a late 17th century writer, recalled: "Those black infidel eunuchs martyred the Senior Mother [Kösem], Mother of the Believers"—a term usually reserved for Muhammad's wives—"and plundered most of her jewels." While lauding her charity, Naima also criticised Kösem for her greed and political interference. As regards the events leading up to her murder, he stated: "It was divine wisdom that the respected valide, philanthropic and regal as she was, was martyred for the sake of those unjust oppressions." Although Naima felt some regret over her death he also blamed it on the corrupt Janissary aghas and other officials who enjoyed her patronage. In other words, he implicitly supported Sultan Mehmed IV's decision to order her murder and the punishment of her political faction.

Charities and patronage

Kösem's philanthropic career is notable for the many charitable acts she undertook. According to the Turkish historian Muzaffer Ozgules, her chief concern was to avoid public censure. Every year in the Islamic month of Rajab she would leave the palace in disguise to arrange the release of imprisoned debtors and other offenders (excluding murderers) by paying their debts or compensation for their crimes. She was also known for seeking out poor orphan girls and endowing them with a mahr, a home and furnishings; women of all religious persuasions, across both Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire, bequeathed money to provide dowries for poor women, including special funds for noble girls whose families had fallen on hard times. She also visited hospitals, mosques, and schools to boost her popularity, and established soup kitchens capable of feeding nearly all of Constantinople's starving people. In Egypt, she financed irrigation works from the Nile into Cairo.

According to Naima, "She would free her slave women after two or three years of service, and would arrange marriages with retired officers of the court or suitable persons from outside, giving the women dowries and jewels and several purses of money according to their talents and station, and ensuring that their husbands had suitable positions. She looked after these former slaves by giving them an annual stipend, and on the religious festivals and holy days she would give them purses of money." Her pages, who were entrusted with guarding her apartment, only worked for five days a week.

In 1640 she paid for the construction of the Çinili Mosque (Tiled Mosque), copiously decorated with the tiles that gave it its name, and the nearby school in Üsküdar. The construction of this modest complex was probably an attempt to boost the popularity of her sons at a time when the Ottoman dynasty faced extinction, with no heir apparent to inherit the throne. She also paid for fountains in Anadolukavağı, Yenikapı, Beşiktaş and Eyüp, as well as other fountains outside the capital, and converted the madrasa of Özdemiroğlu Osman Pasha into a mosque with a grand fountain beside it. Additionally in 1651 she funded the construction of the Büyük Valide Han in Constantinople, which was used to provide accommodation for foreign traders, store goods and merchandise, house artisan workshops, and provide business offices (an urban legend claims that she hid most of her precious jewels in the depths of one of its towers). Following the capture of Rethymno in Crete in 1646, one of its many converted churches was renamed the Valide Sultan Mosque in Ortakapı in her honour, making her the first Ottoman noblewoman whose name was given to one of a conquered city's converted religious structures.

Wealth

Kösem accumulated a massive fortune through Iltizām (tax farming), owning and leasing commercial buildings, and investing extensively in diverse economic activities. In his memoirs, qadi Karaçelebizade Abdülaziz Efendi, a prominent member of the ulama, described a meeting of the imperial council at which the subject of crown lands held by royal women was being discussed. When it was reported that Kösem held lands whose annual income was three hundred thousand kuruş, Karaçelebizade protested, "A valide with so much land is unheard of!" He also contended that those who opposed him only did so out of enmity toward him or because they were recipients of the valide sultan's largesse.

The historian Şarih ül-Menarzade argued that Kösem's extensive charities were also misconceived since they were financed from her immense personal fortune, viewing her wealth as an abuse of the empire's fiscal management, especially at a time when the treasury was in dire straits, the peasantry impoverished, and the military unpaid. A century later, however, the historian Naima defended Kösem from such criticisms, arguing that, had her substantial fortune remained in the treasury, it might have been squandered rather than spent for the benefit of the populace.

Critics of Kösem also recorded the depredations of her "violent tax collectors", who, in an effort to increase their own take, were responsible for her huge income. Naima relayed the criticism of Şarih ül-Menarzade: "The valide sultan's stewards... collected incalculable amounts of money. The peasants of the Ottoman domains suffered much violence and disaster on account of the excessive taxes, but because of their fear of the stewards, they were unable to inform the valide sultan or anyone else of their situation." Besides the annual taxes that she collected from Lesbos, Euboea, Zile, Menemen, Gaza, Kilis and other places, she operated farms in Cyprus, Rumelia and other locations in Anatolia. The port city of Volos was also her property.

When the Cretan War broke out in 1645, the Venetian bailo of Constantinople reported that the valide sultan was highly benevolent while also being extremely wealthy.

Upon her death in 1651, her chambers were looted, and it was reported that twenty boxes loaded with gold coins were discovered in the Büyük Valide Han. In 1664, the profit on Kösem's cash investments accounted for nearly two-thirds of the revenue of the endowment established for Safiye Sultan's Karamanlu mosque. In fact, her riches and business transactions were so broad that her agents also became very wealthy and enjoyed popular esteem. When recording the death of Kösem in his history, Naima commented of her steward: "The afore-mentioned Behram Kethiida enjoyed great prestige and distinction and wealth. As the manager of all the affairs of the valide sultan and the pious institutions she had established, and as an extremely trustworthy man, he acquired a great deal of wealth and property. But his children and his grandchildren did not maintain the high stature he had enjoyed, and his wealth and property were squandered." Her wealth was so vast and spread across so many different enterprises that, according to Naima, it took fifty years for the state treasury to confiscate it all.

Legacy

Despite her notoriety as a woman who showed no mercy or compassion for the sake of government and power, Kösem was known among Ottoman citizens for her charitable work, which succeeded in securing the image that she desired. The chronogram that appears on the gate of the Çinili Mosque's courtyard reads:

"Mother of Sultan Ibrahim Khan, her Majesty of the Sultana, the most munificent mother of the sultan: She constructed this divine edifice as an act of charity. Lo, let it be a house of prayer for the servants of God! May they be summoned to God's mercy at the five times [of prayer]! May it be a halting place for worshippers and ascetics! She built a school, fountain, bath and fountain, for which let God grant her favor and benevolence! Philanthropists and those who worship in it, O God, take them into the eternal Paradises! The charitable work of the sultan's mother was completed in [the Islamic year] one thousand fifty [1640-41]."

Among her contemporaries, the writer Michel Baudier depicted her as a female politician "enjoying authority" while his French counterpart Jean-Baptiste Tavernier described her as "a woman very wise and well-versed in state affairs." In 1649, Johann Georg Metzger (1623–1698), secretary to Austrian ambassador Johann Rudolf Schmid zum Schwarzenhorn, expressed inferior masculinity through the alleged dominant behavior of Kösem. According to Metzger, Kösem is "a fraudulent person, who dominates the whole empire."

Both Alphonse de Lamartine and Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall praised her charitable works, with Hammer describing her as: "A magnanimous, high minded queenly woman, of high spirit and noble heart, but with a mania for power. She, the mother of the greatest tyrant Murad IV, and the greatest wastrel, Ibrahim I, the Greek Kosem who was named Moonfigure because of beauty, through the commanding glance of four emperors—her husband, two sons, and her grandson—was revered more in history than Agrippina, Nero's mother, through her kindness, her desire for power and the tragic finish in Osman history of a female Caesar."

In the introduction to the English translation of the novel Histoire d'Osman premier du nom, XIXe empereur des Turcs, et de l'impératrice Aphendina Ashada by Madame de Gomez in 1736, describing the life of Osman II, Kösem is said to have been "one of the most active in politics and enterprising women of her time, which she achieved by insidious intrigues from ambitious motives."

In popular culture

Genç Osman ve Sultan Murat Han (1962) movie, starring Muhterem Nur as Kösem Sultan

IV. Murat (1980) TV series, starring Ayten Gökçer as Kösem Sultan

Istanbul Kanatlarımın Altında (Istanbul Under my Wings, 1996) movie, starring Zuhal Olcay as Kösem Sultan

Ankara Theatre (2013–2014 season) Özlem Ersönmez as Kösem Sultan.

Mahpeyker: Kösem Sultan (2010), starring Damla Sönmez (as young Kösem) and Selda Alkor (as old Kösem)

Tims Production produced a follow-up to the smash-hit historical-fiction television Muhteşem Yüzyıl (Magnificent Century), entitled Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem, starring Anastasia Tsilimpiou as the teen Kösem and Beren Saat as young Kösem in season one. In season two, old Kösem was portrayed by Nurgül Yeşilçay.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), featuring Zerrin Tekindor as Kösem Sultan