Set in the glittering Ottoman Renaissance of the 15th century — the period immediately following Sultan Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople and his extraordinary project to transform the city into the new Islamic center of civilization — İpek ve Demir follows Zehra Karaçay, 26, a Black woman raised by the Karaçay family, one of the oldest and most distinguished administrative families of the Ottoman court. Zehra is a woman of the Ottoman Renaissance at its most magnificent: she speaks Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Greek, is a poet and calligrapher of genuine accomplishment, and manages the Karaçay household's significant charitable endowments with intelligence and compassion. She is entirely, profoundly Ottoman in every facet of her identity — her full Turkish name reflecting her family's love for her. Her arranged marriage to Sinan Yıldırım, the court's most brilliant young architect commissioned by Sultan Mehmed to design mosques and public buildings for the new Constantinople, creates an extraordinary partnership: Zehra's scholarship and administrative brilliance with Sinan's architectural vision. Three seasons track their marriage from formal arrangement through intellectual partnership through genuine love, against the backdrop of one of the most culturally extraordinary moments in world history.
