Hurrem Sultan was the wife of Suleyman the Magnificent. One of the most outstanding examples of powerful women in the Ottoman Empire, Hürrem initiated the era of the "Sultanate of Women".
Like other members of the Harem from which she rose to power, Hurrem was originally a foreign girl, named Aleksandra Lisowska, born in Rohatyn city of the Kingdom of Poland back then which is in Ukraine today. She was abducted as a slave girl after one of Suleyman's expeditions in the 1520's. Soon after she entered the Harem, she routed her competition for Suleyman's affections, and persuaded him to marry, after which her influence grew increasingly. Her son Selim (The Sot), became the next Sultan, one of the Ottoman Empire's worst. Some have even speculated the Selim sprang not from Suleyman's loins, but from a passionate indiscretion on the part of the Hurrem. Besides Selim, she mothered three children who survived to adulthood; Bayezid (son), Mihrimah (daughter), and another son Cihangir (who was physically handicapped, which prohibited his ascension to the throne by law).
When she died in 1558, she was buried in a large mausoleum next to her husband in the Suleymaniye Mosque complex in Istanbul.