Sultan

And in the heart of Topkapi was the harem.

Into it came hundreds of women from all over the empire and beyond, the personal slaves of the Sultan.

But in the imperial palace, sex could equal power.

This is the story of those women and of the closed and secret world of the Ottoman harem.

In 1520, a newcomer entered the Imperial Palace in Istanbul.

Her name was Alexandra Lizovska.

She was the daughter of a priest from the Ukraine, captured by slave hunters to join the army of servants and concubines in the service of the Sultan.

They were slaves not of Turkish extraction.

Stirred by the successes of their neighbours, the Spaniards in turn sent expeditions across the Mediterranean.

in fourteen ninety six they took melilla and in fifteen o eight they occupied the penon de villes opposite badus on the hamara coast in sixteen sixty four after more than a century of anarchy the throne of morocco passed into the hands of the present aluit dynasty and mulai rashid became the first sultan of that line by sixteen eighty the rift seems to have entirely passed under the rule of the new dynasty and furnished the main part of the troops with which mulai reshid in sixteen eighty four occupied tangier after the departure of the british who had been for twenty-two years in possession of the place which formed part of the dowry of catherine of braganza on her marriage to king charles the second larache was wrested from the portuguese in sixteen eighty nine and arzila in sixteen ninety and mulai reshid's authority was sufficiently established to allow him to turn his attention to other parts of morocco a revolt of the riff occurred during the lifetime of his successor mulai abdullah ben ismail and was not repressed until seventeen forty three when the rebel leader the pasha ahmed bin ali who had succeeded in raising all the northern jabala tribes was defeated and killed at alcazar but the riffis could not long remain tranquil their hate of all authority was unquenchable and more than once in the succeeding years the sultans had to send expeditions into the country in the opening years of the nineteenth century on no less than four occasions the sultan malai suleiman was forced to invade the riff in eighteen o two eighteen ten eighteen twelve and eighteen thirteen the last of these expeditions he commanded in person it was entirely successful and the riffis were severely punished For nearly a century they remained quiet, recognising the authority of the Sultans, but at the same time asserting, to a large measure, their own independence.

It was an incident which occurred in 1893, the reported desecration of the tomb of Sidi Arash by the Spaniards, that set the rift ablaze once more, and necessitated the presence of an army of twenty thousand Spaniards at Melilla.

the riff is in its origin a geographical term although in morocco in the process of time it has acquired a wider signification in that it is now applied to all the country inhabited by the so-called riffy tribes the arabic word riff in its literal form implies an edge or a border and is still in use in other parts of morocco in that sense for instance the outer circle of the tents of the sultan's camp was always known as a rift as is so often the case among arabic speaking peoples the word has taken different meanings in different countries whereas in arabia the term rift infers cultivated land though not losing the significance of a strip or border in egypt it is used to describe the banks of the nile in morocco its geographical origin was its application to the seaboard of the mediterranean without any reference to cultivation or fertility from being originally a geographical expression it gave its name in time to the berber tribes who inhabited that region who in turn passed it on to a far larger district than its original significance warranted as the groups of coast tribes increased or migrated or federated they carried with them their acquired title of riffis thus the riff to-day is best though perhaps unorthodoxly described as being the country held by a group or groups of berber tribes speaking the riffi dialects of the tammerzirth language though technically fault may be found with this definition it is undoubtedly the best suited for all ordinary purposes and politically if not geographically correct the name riff as applied to this region of morocco has no great antiquity neither ibn hawkul nor el bakri who wrote in the tenth and eleventh centuries respectively mention it though the latter gives a list of the towns therein situated and it was probably not till the advent of european invaders and pirates that the name was introduced it has been suggested that it was applied in its military significance the rift coast being considered an outline of defence for the interior of the country the northern point of resistance against any attack on fez in any case no berber origin can be given to the name rift for it is an arabic word and could only have been introduced at the earliest in the first arab invasion of morocco in a d el bakri though not mentioning the rift writes of the neighbouring country of homara confusing them in common origin he gives the limits of the homara federation as extending from a few miles to the east of tangier to tiguasis on the mediterranean coast about forty miles south-east of tetuan the first mention of the name riff is in a book written in the fourteenth century by abdel hak el badisi who as his name implies was a native of the town of badis a town on the hamara coast he included in the riff the entire coastal region between ceuta and the present algerian frontier the road el kirtas which dates from the same period extends the rift westward as far as tangier the author of this work does however make certain though rather vague distinctions between the riff and homara ibn khaldun writing a century later is still less definite and leo africanus at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century scarcely distinguishes between them he writes a description of a reef one of the seven regions of fez westward this region beginneth near unto the straits of gibraltar and extendeth eastward to the river of nukor which distance about a hundred and forty miles northward it bordereth upon the mediterranean sea and stretcheth forty miles southward unto those mountains which lie over against oaga and the territory of fez this region is very uneven being full of exceeding cold mountains and waste deserts which are replenished with the most beautiful and straight trees here is no corn growing they have great store of vines figs olives and almonds the inhabitants of this region are valiant people but so excessively given to drinking that they scarcely reserve the wherewithal to apparel themselves head cattle they have but few howbeit upon their mountains they have great plenty of goats asses and apes their towns are but few and their castles and villages are very homely built without any planter or stories much like to the stables of europe and are covered with thatch or with the back of trees all the inhabitants of this region have the balls of their throat-pipes very great and are uncivil and rude people It will be noted that Leo Africanus in the above description does not include only Homara, but also some of the Jabala tribes inhabiting the region of Tetuan.

In spite of all the disagreements, the Muslims... course disagreed with the Jewish people theologically and politically.

The Jewish people never had political power unless they were influencing a Sultan or a king or a ruler or a governor and they were very close to some of the Sultans and this is across the board.

This is in Al-Andalus The most powerful Sultan or the ruler in Al-Andalus was Abd al-Rahman III who declared himself to be Khalifatullah.

He became the Caliph of Al-Andalus in 929 CE.

for those who would like the sort of full explanation exploration of that, Thomas does cover that in some detail in the book.

I'd like to move now to some of the larger military context, the sort of technology they're using, but I'd like to start especially with the side that doesn't get discussed so much in any narrative of the Crusades, oddly enough, which is in this case the Egyptians, or as history knows them, the Ayyubid dynasty of Sultans.

So Let's rewind slightly to when the Crusaders are landing on the shores of the Nile Delta, attacking Damietta.

They're attacking an Egyptian city that is part of an Egyptian kingdom, although part of a larger sultanate and political economic network that stretches across the Middle East.

And again, I was talking to my son about it last night.

Like this is just fascinating how he's laid it out here that it's the story of Tancred and was it Sultan Munkid? And as they were going at it after the battle, right.

Tancred was so like impressed with the horsemanship and, And he asked, you know, I'm really curious about this certain horse.

So the sultan gives him the horse, sends this servant with him, this representative, who then impresses him with horse races and winning and all that.

Most of those who remained went home.

So it could be that we're looking at no more than a couple of thousand in Antioch or Jerusalem, possibly 1,000 in Edessa, which compared to the five-figure numbers of armies deployable by their neighbors means that their position is not promising.

But The Turkish dynasties to their east are weakened by these rebellions, but also by the fact they're fighting a big civil war over who's going to be the next Sultan over the Seljuk Empire, which again, it plays to their interests.

Egypt, the Fatimid Empire in Egypt is much more resistant to the Crusaders in the aftermath of the First Crusade.

Little wonder he is known as the Albanian Braveheart.

Arguably his greatest victory came in 1450, when Sultan Murad II himself led a gargantuan army of 160,000 men into Albania, straight for Skanderbeg's stronghold, the White Castle of Croia, which the Sultan put to siege on May 14th.

Day after day, Ottoman cannons rocked the White Castle with projectiles weighing as much as 400 pounds.

Although Skanderbeg only had 18,000 Christian defenders, he performed remarkable deeds to quote a contemporary.

In 1458, they had landed at Alcazar Seria on the Angera coast of the Straits of Gibraltar, and in 1471, Tangier and Arzala had fallen into their hands.

stirred by the successes of their neighbours the spaniards in turn sent expeditions across the mediterranean in fourteen ninety six they took melilla and in fifteen o eight they occupied the peon de villes opposite badis on the jamara coast in sixteen sixty four after more than a century of anarchy the throne of morocco passed into the hands of the present aluit dynasty and mulai rashid became the first sultan of that line by sixteen eighty the rift seems to have entirely passed under the rule of the new dynasty and furnished the main part of the troops with which mulai reshid in sixteen eighty four occupied tangier after the departure of the british who had been for twenty-two years in possession of the place which formed part of the dowry of catherine of braganza on her marriage to king charles the second larache was wrested from the portuguese in sixteen eighty nine and arzila in sixteen ninety and mulai reshid's authority was sufficiently established to allow him to turn his attention to other parts of morocco a revolt of the riff occurred during the lifetime of his successor mulai abdullah ben ismail and was not repressed until seventeen forty three when the rebel leader the pasha ahmed bin ali who had succeeded in raising all the northern jabala tribes was defeated and killed at alcazar but the riffis could not long remain tranquil their hate of all authority was unquenchable and more than once in the succeeding years the sultans had to send expeditions into the country in the opening years of the nineteenth century on no less than four occasions the sultan malai suleiman was forced to invade the riff in eighteen o two eighteen ten eighteen twelve and eighteen thirteen the last of these expeditions he commanded in person it was entirely successful and the riffis were severely punished For nearly a century they remained quiet, recognising the authority of the Sultans, but at the same time asserting, to a large measure, their own independence.

It was an incident which occurred in 1893, the reported desecration of the tomb of Sidi Aresh by the Spaniards, that set the rift ablaze once more, and necessitated the presence of an army of twenty thousand Spaniards at Melilla.

the riff is in its origin a geographical term although in morocco in the process of time it has acquired a wider signification in that it is now applied to all the country inhabited by the so-called riffy tribes the arabic word riff in its literal form implies an edge or a border and is still in use in other parts of morocco in that sense for instance the outer circle of the tents of the sultan's camp was always known as a rift as is so often the case among arabic speaking peoples the word has taken different meanings in different countries whereas in arabia the term rift infers cultivated land though not losing the significance of a strip or border in egypt it is used to describe the banks of the nile in morocco its geographical origin was its application to the seaboard of the mediterranean without any reference to cultivation or fertility from being originally a geographical expression it gave its name in time to the berber tribes who inhabited that region who in turn passed it on to a far larger district than its original significance warranted as the groups of coast tribes increased or migrated or federated they carried with them their acquired title of riffis thus the riff to-day is best though perhaps unorthodoxly described as being the country held by a group or groups of berber tribes speaking the riffi dialects of the tammerzirth language though technically fault may be found with this definition it is undoubtedly the best suited for all ordinary purposes and politically if not geographically correct the name riff as applied to this region of morocco has no great antiquity neither ibn hawkul nor el bakri who wrote in the tenth and eleventh centuries respectively mention it though the latter gives a list of the towns therein situated and it was probably not till the advent of european invaders and pirates that the name was introduced it has been suggested that it was applied in its military significance the rift coast being considered an outline of defence for the interior of the country the northern point of resistance against any attack on fez in any case no berber origin can be given to the name rift for it is an arabic word and could only have been introduced at the earliest in the first arab invasion of morocco in a d el bakri though not mentioning the riff writes of the neighbouring country of homara confusing them in common origin he gives the limits of the homara federation as extending from a few miles to the east of tangier to tiguesas on the mediterranean coast about forty miles south-east of tetuan the first mention of the name riff is in a book written in the fourteenth century by abdel hak el badisi who as his name implies was a native of the town of badis a town on the hamara coast he included in the riff the entire coastal region between ceuta and the present algerian frontier the road el kirtas which dates from the same period extends the rift westward as far as tangier the author of this work does however make certain though rather vague distinctions between the riff and homara ibn khaldun writing a century later is still less definite and leo africanus at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century scarcely distinguishes between them he writes a description of a reef one of the seven regions of fez westward this region beginneth near unto the straits of gibraltar and extendeth eastward to the river of nukor which distance about a hundred and forty miles northward it bordereth upon the mediterranean sea and stretcheth forty miles southward unto those mountains which lie over against oaga and the territory of fez this region is very uneven being full of exceeding cold mountains and waste deserts which are replenished with the most beautiful and straight trees here is no corn growing they have great store of vines figs olives and almonds the inhabitants of this region are valiant people but so excessively given to drinking that they scarcely reserve the wherewithal to apparel themselves head cattle they have but few howbeit upon their mountains they have great plenty of goats asses and apes their towns are but few and their castles and villages are very homely built without any planter or stories much like to the stables of europe and are covered with thatch or with the back of trees all the inhabitants of this region have the balls of their throat-pipes very great and are uncivil and rude people It will be noted that Leo Africanus in the above description does not include only Homara, but also some of the Jabala tribes inhabiting the region of Tetuan.

It follows Naime, who is the daughter of the current sultan.

So the setting is Ottoman Turkish inspired.

So you're going to hear things like Sultan and viziers.

Her father is battling basically the magical equivalent of dementia.

And she is trying to hide this fact from his court while also trying to maintain her own power and not get married off to somebody's son in the council.

I mean, it goes hand in hand with really the setting of the book.

And it really helps to immerse you in that very, for me at least, new setting.

Because as you mentioned in your summary, it's a Sultanate.