I have not had a chance to write over the past few days due to a family emergency.  I will write again when time and opportunity allows.

In the meantime I was recently reading about Sultan Suleiman and his wife Hurrem Sultan.  Suleiman I was known as “the Magnificent” in the West and “Kanuni” (the Lawgiver) in the East.  He was the tenth and longest reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566.

Suleiman married Roxelana, a former Christian girl converted to Islam from his harem, who became subsequently known as Hurrem Sultan.  Apparently she was a fiesty character that with her feminine wiles became extremely influential over the Sultan and over the Empire herself.  Well good on her I say.  The original Beyonce!  Daughter said he was whipped.  I now question how she knows what it means to be whipped but perhaps that should be for another day as well.

Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.
The most beautiful among the… beautiful…
My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf…
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this world…
My Constantinople, my Caraman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of mischief…
I’ll sing your praises always
I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi* of the eyes full of tears, I am happy..

*Muhibbi (Lower) is the nickname of Sultan Suleiman in his poems)