Valide Sultan

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Valide Sultan (or Sultan valide) was the title held by the mother of a ruling sultan in the Ottoman Empire. The title can also be translated as Queen Mother. The Turkish pronunciation of the word valide, rendered in IPA, is [valiˈde].

The position was arguably the most important position in the Ottoman Empire, after the Sultan himself. As the mother to the Sultan, by the Islamic 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 seventeenth century, in a period known as the Sultanate of women, a series of incompetent or child sultans raised the role of the valide sultan to new heights.[1]

[edit] List of Valide Sultans

[edit] References

  1. ^ Peirce, Leslie P., The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-508677-5 (paperback)
  2. ^ Christine Isom-Verhaaren, "Royal French Women in the Ottoman Sultans' Harem: The Political Uses of Fabricated Accounts from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century", Journal of World History, vol. 17, No. 2, 2006