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[heroineanilem]

Until now I've thought I loved my history lessons, but now I'm seriously starting to doubt it. Well, my professor of classic history was so impressed by my work on Alexander (not the one I still have to hand in) that while they had a little nice chit-chat over a coffee he had to mention it to my professor of oriental history. So, the oriental

Comments

[coraldawn]

I just found this post. What a really fascinating story. Since my knowledge of history of any kind and era is minimal, I had no idea of this duo. What a very sad story, too! How could Suleyman betray his lifelong friend like that?

It does almost look like reincarnation, doesn't it? Except that by dying young, Alexander and Hephaistion didn't have to suffer this horrible fate. This sounds like a great topic. I hope you do get to write and expand on it. Perhaps even a comparative study with A/H?

[heroineanilem]

It's good that I'm not the only one who thinks of reincarnation

[coraldawn]

Good luck with writing this - really interesting! I did a bit of internet search on the three main players in this story. Suleyman actually had his son Mustafa (by another concubine) strangled! His son by Roxelana became Sultan. Suleyman appears to have been totally in love with his Roxelana, writing poems to her, having quite a few children with her, etc. Perhaps when he met her, he fell out of "love" with Ibrahim and besottedly in love with her. Therefore, the bonds of friendship and youthful love (Ibrahim) and filial affection (Mustafa) were not enough to overcome the demands of his new love

[heroineanilem]

Thank you. You bet I'l do my best; it's just so damn hard.
You know, it's weird how much Roxelana wanted her sons to become sultans, and yet she had known that only one could live, while the other would be killed by his own brother. Fortunately for her, she had died before that. It was Suleiman who ordered the execution of his younger son after his rebel. They had one more son, who died in childhood and a daughter whose husband became the Grand Vizier after Ibrahim Pasha. Roxelana wanted to make anew Suleyman the Magnificent from her sons, but the one that ascended the throne was extremely weak sultan and died by accident, when fell drunk and cracked his skull on marble floor in his bath. In fact, it is Roxelana's influence on other women that left its mark in the years to come, since it's said that it was her who started famous and notorious habit of harem women being the real power behind the throne.

btw.would you mind if I friend you?

[coraldawn]

Oh I don't mind at all. I just added you as a friend. My lj hardly has anything, and nothing yet that's "friends only"!

Yes, the sibling murder is quite an interesting feature of royalty. Philip II killed his half-brothers when he ascended the throne. So when he was marrying all his wives, he must have expected that after his death his sons would be trying to murder their step-brothers. At least, in Philip's case, there was cooperation between his full brothers - Alexander, Perdikkas and himself. So, the mother's influence is so, so important - even though women always stayed hidden!