#naksidil sultan

[ottomanladies]

Valide Sultans with the longest tenures

[ottomanladies]

𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 | insp by @winterhalters

[ottomanladies]

Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire + the women in his life

[ottomanladies]

VALIDE SULTANS: Nakşidil was the eighth Imperial Consort (sekizinci kadın) of Abdülhamid I and the mother of Mahmud II. For centuries, she was thought to be Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, a French heiress and a distant cousin of Empress Joséphine, who went missing at sea. It seems that this legend had been carefully crafted to create a connection to another royal house; sultan Abdulaziz, fifty years later, would say that his and Napoleon III's grandmothers were related. In reality, she was a Georgian slave who was born around 1766 and who gave birth to the future Mahmud II in 1785. 

When Abdülhamid I died in 1789, she was sent to the Old Palace, where she lived until her son's accession on 29 July 1808. Her entrance ceremony to Topkapi Palace was the last Procession of the Valide Sultan to be performed in the Ottoman Empire.

In the first years of his reign, Mahmud II would consult his mother frequently and, upon her recommendation, the Dynasty left Topkapi Palace for Beşiktaş Palace.

Nakşidil was plagued by a long illness, maybe tuberculosis, in the last years of her life and died on 22 August 1817. // fahriye evcen as nakşidil valide sultan

(requested by anon)

[ottomanladies]

Hi 🌸 Was Nakşidil Sultan really the favorite consort of Abdulhamid I and Selim III too (both were so in love with her) ? And I heard that she was a Christian till she died ?! I also heard that Mahmud wasn't her really her son, like she adopted him since his real mother died

Hi! That is the plot of a book, I am afraid.

Nakşidil was a consort of Abdülhamid I’s, not even an important one, and she was the actual mother of Mahmud II

[ottomanladies]

What was Naksidil Sultan's relationship with her husband, Abdul Hamid I, the first like? I once saw a gifset that said she knew how to influence him and hold his heart. Also, he wrote love poetry to her and called her a nickname that meant "Great Soul." Is that all true?

Hello! Sakaoğlu says that there is nothing that suggests a special relationship between Nakşıdil and Abdülhamid I. We have no information about her time as consort, except that she gave birth to Mahmud in 1785, and that she left for the Old Palace in 1789, after Abdülhamid I’s death.

Uluçay says that his favourite consort was Ruhşah Hatice Kadın and that not even Süleyman and Hürrem were as in love as Abdülhamid and Ruhşah.

[ottomanladies]

Hi,your ask about Bezmialem got me curious and interested did Naksidil sultan get along like Turhan Hatice Sultan and Emetullah Rabia Gulnus Sultan did,or is there no record of this.

Hi! There’s nothing about this, unfortunately. 

I think they were similar in their interests and, of course, in their love for European goods, so maybe they got along?

Unfortunately Nakşidil wasn’t valide sultan for long and she wasn’t even alive when Bezmialem gave birth to Abdülmecid, so I don’t know how much time they could have spent near each other in the harem.

It’s possible that the valide sultan had inspired young Bezmialem, though.

[ottomanladies]

On this day, 11 February, in Ottoman history

11 February 1708 - birth of Ümmügülsüm Sultan; daughter of Ahmed III, she was the twin of Zeynep Sultan. She was engaged to Abdurrahman Paşa at an early age but he died before the wedding could be celebrated so she married Genç Ali Bey, the Grand Vizier’s nephew. They were married for six years and, in 1730, during the revolt of Petrona Halil,  Genç Ali Paşa was killed. Ümmügülsüm Sultan died two years later, at 24 years old.

11 February 1708 - birth of Zeynep Sultan; twin sister of Ümmügülsüm Sultan, she unfortunately died only 8 months later, on 5 October 1708. She was buried in the tomb of Turhan Hatice Sultan.

11 February 1824 - birth of Atiye Sultan; daughter of Mahmud II and Pirüzifelek Kadın, a three-day celebration was held to celebrate her birth. She was described as intelligent and talented and she supposedly was closest to her half-brother Abdülmecid, who was only 10 months older than her. According to Rıza and Galib, Atiye, in boy’s clothes, followed her brother Şehzade Abdülmecid outside where they heard Serasker (Koca) Hüsrev Paşa talk to the sultan. At 15 she lost her father and it was her brother Abdülmecid - now the sultan - who arranged her marriage to Ahmed Fethi Paşa. The wedding celebrations lasted a whole week and foreign diplomats were among the guests. The marriage produced two daughters: Seniye Hanım Sultan and Feride Hanım Sultan. Atiye Sultan died at the age of 26 on 11 August 1850, and was buried in her father’s mausoleum.

11 February 1854 - allegations that Nakşıdil Sultan is actually Aimée Dubuc de Rivery are renewed; inside La Turquie Actuelle, it is told that she was born in 1763 in Martinique, where she had a happy childhood. Her closest friend was Joséphine Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie, the future Empress Josephine of the French. One day the two girls met with a fortune teller who told them they would both marry important men. Aimée was told that she would be captured by pirates and that her child would become a great ruler. Aimée studied in a monastery in Nantes for eight years and while she was going home, her ship sank. She was saved by a Spanish ship but that fell under the control of pirates and Aimée was taken to Istanbul to the harem of the sultan.

11 February 1867 -  Mehmed Emin Âli Paşa is appointed Grand Vizier for the fifth and last time; one of the most prominent statesmen in the Ottoman Empire, he was the architect of the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856. He served under Abdülmecid and Abdülaziz. 

[ottomanladies]

what are your thoughts on nakshildil sultan? also can you please do more edits of her? i love learning about underrated ottoman women and i think she is one!

Hi! Yes, of course. I still need to finish my requests for the 500 followers celebration, but I will definitely make more edits about her.

I really like her, actually. She’s a very interesting figure, also considering that her son was one of the last good sultans of the dynasty-- I wonder how much he took after her or how much she influenced him while she was alive. It is true that Mahmud II’s more radical innovations happened after her death, but maybe it was something that he had talked over with his mother before her death? 

[ottomanladies]

can i request an edit of naksidil sultan and how she influenced the empire and the iconic things she's done? :)

Hi! I’m not taking requests at the moment but I will surely make another edit about Nakşidil :)

[ottomanladies]

can you do a Naksidil Sultan edit? :) the edit of her and the other women in the gifset was lovely and i'd like to learn more about her!

absolutely!! i’ve actually been working on her paragraph for quite some time so you can definitely expect a gifset about her soon. i made other gifsets first because i just couldn’t find a fancast for her, but i think i’ll use fahriye evcen again :D

[ottomanladies]

high-ranking georgian concubines in the ottoman harem -- requested by anon

*in total, about twenty georgian women became consorts of sultans, of princes or of other members of the dynasty, says Ibrahim Pazan in his book “Padişah Anneleri”.

[ottomanladies]

That story about naksidil being josephine's relative, is it accurate?

Hi! No, it’s not, unfortunately (?)

It’s a story that started circulating in British newspapers but it has no foundation. Also, if we follow the given dates in this story, Nakşıdil would have entered the harem at 8 years old and given birth to Mahmud II at 9 years old.

She was almost certainly Georgian and, while she loved the Baroque style and she was the one who pushed for Topkapi Palace to be abandoned in favour of Beşiktaş Palace, she had no ties with France or Europe.

About this, I’d suggest the essay Royal French Women in the Ottoman Sultans’ Harem: The Political Uses of Fabricated Accounts from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-first Century by Christine Isom-Verhaaren