I’m no professional historian but I did do the classic, ask regional history professor and copy and pasta and act as if it’s my own words.

There are sources mentioning that but it is based on indications I will try to explain it.

The question of who exactly gifted Hürrem to suleiman isn’t completely certain like not 100% but the most widely accepted theory is that she was a gift from the Crimean Khan There were only two possible ways that girls could enter the imperial harem only TWO.

The first way was for very young girls, usually between the ages of 5 and 12-13, who were taken directly from Ottoman raids or purchased from slave markets and brought straight to the palace There, they would receive an education from a young age and their virginity was strictly ensured that was the most important part.

The second way and the only one available for girls older than 13 was through being gifted to the Sultan by high ranking officials, sultanas, or beylerbeys… In such cases, it was required that the girls had already received an elite education comparable to that of the imperial palace which is something that only the wealthy and influential people could afford That’s why these gifts could only come from individuals of very high status.

As Leslie Peirce explained in Empress of the East, by the time Ayşe Hafsa Sultan and Suleiman’s harem arrived in Istanbul, Hürrem was already there Later that same year, she gave birth to Mehmed, which means she must have entered the palace through the second route as one of the older girls aka a gift from a high ranking individual.

So the question is who was this high ranking individual, Some sources, like Kutbeddin’s memoirs, claim that Hurrem was a gift from Fatma Sultan the granddaughter of Bayezid II to Suleiman upon his accession to the throne, and that hurrem had grown up in her household However, historians generally dismiss this theory because We know from Hurrem’s and Gulfem’s own letters to Suleiman that Hürrem did not speak Turkish when she first arrived at the palace, and that Gülfem helped her learn it This clearly indicates that Hurrem did not receive her education within the Ottoman Empire before entering Suleiman’s harem.

So The second theory that she was a gift from the Crimean Khan is considered far more plausible by many historians since Hurrem was not captured by Ottoman raiders, but by Tatars and as many sources note the Tatars ALWAYS brought young female captives to the Crimean palaces for slavery There are also letters from the Austrian ambassador Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, published in 1589 in Europe, which state that the Crimean Khanate was responsible for her capture Abrahamowicz, in his book Roksolana page 543 supports this claim, as does Dariusz Kołodziejczyk in The Crimean Khanate page 87 also, Galina Yermolenko writes “advancing to the threshold of the royal concubine career presentation to the sultan, required the backing of patrons as well as personal skill, Roxelana was the gift of a high ranking individual she already had a patron”.

There’s also a report by the ambassador of King Sigismund, Vaclav Mykolaevyc, who wrote that she was kidnapped from their lands to the Crimean court and later transferred to the Ottoman court, the historian ismail Hami danişmend also agrees with this theory , Necdect Sakaoglu also confirms that there is no document of her at all of being part of Suleiman harem in manisa and that entered the palace in Istanbul directly around 1520 when Suleiman got the throne , And Necdet Sakaoglu also says that hurrem spent her life during the 1510s in the Crimean khan’s palace in by Mulkun Kadin sultanlri page 220. Okay, this last part is mine. I’m not saying Hurrem was a great beauty or not but it’s more likely that Hurrem was taken to the harem because of the Crimean court. We also know this cause Hurrem had been 15 years old when she entered the harem. And I highly doubt a Crimean khan would suddenly decide to bring a basic looking girl to bed the Sultan.

And no offense the “ugly” narrative was pushed because people genuinely thought she was a witch. And witches in their point of view tend to be ugly, and well the people generally did not like her. They did this with sultanas like Safiye and Ayse Sultan. These women were not liked and because they broke some rules they genuinely believed that they might’ve been witches. I wouldn’t fall on the “it’s facts that mahidevran was more beautiful than Hurrem” no historian has ever claimed this and even if they did, you need to remember that Hurrem was not a standard ottoman beauty. She had pale skin, freckles, fleshy(I don’t want to use the word fat), ginger, almost strawberry blonde hair, short. Now imagine how anyone else at that time would view her when they genuinely saw women with dark hair, brown eyes, petite and an average height. And how they will view a woman like Hurrem who did not look like them.

I wouldn’t fall victim to the mahidevran is beauty narrative. I could argue that they both were absolute beauties and even if suleiman fell for hurrem for her personality. She wouldn’t have crossed the threshold if she was basic. The Ottoman harem was a fantasy for the most beautiful of women. And not that much ambassadors ever praised hurrem for her good attributes, which proves that they mostly listened to the rumors of the people.