ABSTRACT
This chapter looks closely at the political dealings of Nurbanu, both in the domestic and in the international sphere, building upon research concerning Ottoman royal women and power dynamics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Nurbanu’s political, diplomatic and charitable endeavors are explicated using a variety of primary Ottoman and European accounts. The attitudes and reactions gleaned from these narratives intimate a telling account of Nurbanu’s life trajectory, from her first station as a rank-and-file concubine up to her position as the Queen Mother, the highest rank a woman could attain in the Ottoman Empire. The chapter focuses on the competitive aspects of Nurbanu’s struggle for supremacy, elaborating on the dynastic friction caused by her domination of the Ottoman House.
