For the vast majority of early modern Europeans, the Ottoman Empire was a distant land of the “other” — a society whose religion, culture, and customs were assumed to be alien, even antithetical, to those of Europe. This perspective should not surprise us, given the long history of conflict between Christianity and Islam and the almost complete ignorance of most Europeans about actual conditions in the Islamic world. At the same time, the Ottomans were too near and too powerful to ignore. Ottoman expansion, most notably their penetration into the Balkans and capture of Constantinople, brought Turks and Europeans into direct conflict. With control over the eastern Mediterranean and a foothold in Europe, the Ottomans were in a position to block European access to trade with Asia and to launch new attacks still deeper into Europe. Thus, the major states of Europe all maintained diplomatic contact with the Ottomans, seeking to turn Ottoman policy to their own advantage.

It was in this context that, in 1554, the diplomat and scholar Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq was dispatched to Constantinople by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Busbecq’s mission was to convince the Ottomans to end their raids into Hungary, thereby easing the strain on the Habsburgs’ overstretched military resources. Busbecq spent most of the next six years in Constantinople, during which time he made considerable diplomatic progress. His impressions of the Ottoman Empire and the Court of Suleiman the Great were captured in four long letters Busbecq wrote to his friend and fellow scholar Nicholas Michault. Published in 1581, these letters would have a major influence on Western views of Hürrem. As you read these excerpts, ask yourself what forces shaped Busbecq’s depiction of the Ottoman sultana. To what extent was he influenced by common European cultural assumptions? How was his viewpoint shaped by his diplomatic objectives? By events in Europe? By his training as a scholar?