Valide Sultan (or
Sultan Valide) (literally "Mother Sultan") was the title held by the mother of a ruling
SultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
in the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
. The
TurkishThe phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish. One characteristic feature of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that distinguishes between front and back vowels. The majority of words in Turkish adhere to a system of...
pronunciation of the word
Valide is . The title is sometimes translated as
Queen MotherQueen Mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that marriage is the reigning monarch. The term has been used in England since at least 1577...
, although the position of Valide Sultan was quite different.
The position was arguably the most important position in the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
, after the Sultan himself. As the mother to the Sultan, by the
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic tradition ("A mother's right is God's right"), the Valide Sultan would have a significant influence on the affairs of the Empire.
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Valide Sultan (or
Sultan Valide) (literally "Mother Sultan") was the title held by the mother of a ruling
SultanSultan is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power"...
in the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
. The
TurkishThe phonology of the Turkish language describes the set of sounds and their relationships with one another in spoken Turkish. One characteristic feature of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that distinguishes between front and back vowels. The majority of words in Turkish adhere to a system of...
pronunciation of the word
Valide is . The title is sometimes translated as
Queen MotherQueen Mother is a title or position reserved for a widowed queen consort whose son or daughter from that marriage is the reigning monarch. The term has been used in England since at least 1577...
, although the position of Valide Sultan was quite different.
The position was arguably the most important position in the
Ottoman EmpireThe Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman State (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِیَّهِ عُثْمَانِیَّه Dawlet-il ʿAliyyat-il ʿOs̠māniyye, Modern Turkish:...
, after the Sultan himself. As the mother to the Sultan, by the
IslamIslam Islam Islam ( al-’islām,
[There are ten pronunciations of Islam in English, differing in whether the first or second syllable has the stress, whether the s is or , and whether the a is pronounced as in father, as in cat, or (when the stress is on the i) as in the a of sofa...]
ic tradition ("A mother's right is God's right"), the Valide Sultan would have a significant influence on the affairs of the Empire. In particular, during the 17th century, in a period known as the
Sultanate of WomenThe Sultanate of Women was the near 130-year period during the 16th and 17th centuries when the women of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence...
, a series of incompetent or child sultans raised the role of the Valide Sultan to new heights.
Nurbanu Sultan was the
VenetianVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
-born wife of
Selim IISelim II Sarkhosh , also known as "Selim the Sot ", was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death...
, and the mother of
Sultan Murad IIIMurad III
was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1574 until his death....
of the Ottoman Empire and the de facto co-regent as the Valide Sultan in 1574-1583. Nurbanu managed the government together with the
Grand VizierGrand Vizier, in Turkish Sadr-ı Azam or Serdar-ı Ekrem , deriving from the Persian word vizier , was the greatest minister of the Sultan, with absolute power of attorney and, in principle, dismissable only by the Sultan himself...
Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and became the first Valide Sultan who acted as co-regent with the sultan in the Sultanate of Women. The most powerful of all Valide Sultans in the history of the Ottoman Empire was Kösem Sultan.