#rahime perestu sultan

[ottomanladies]

(OTTOMAN) WOMEN’S HISTORY MEME | 5 valide sultans: Rahime Perestu

The lady Perestû Kadınefendi raised my father as her adoptive child, since his own mother died while he was but a boy. When he ascended the throne she took the title Mehd-i Ulyâ-yı Saltanat-ı Seniyye [Most High Mother of the Exalted Sultanate]. Even in her old age one could see that she had been strikingly beautiful in her youth. She was Circassian, as were all the ladies of my grandfather, and from the Ubykh clan. She was a beautiful woman, possessing a petite and slender figure with translucent white skin, blue eyes, golden blonde hair, and truly lovely hands and feet. One could see how worthy she was of the rank of Princess Mother from her refined comportment as well as her dignity and charming disposition. This esteemed lady’s luminous face, graciousness, delicate manner, and elegance inspired respect and affection in everyone’s heart, so that all those living in the palace loved her deeply. Hers was a most melodious voice, though she spoke softly and infrequently. — Ayşe Osmanoğlu, My father, Sultan Abdülhamid

[historicwomendaily]

good stepmother - stepdaughter relationships

requested by anonymous

[awkward-sultana]

(Almost) Every Costume Per Episode + Rahime Perestu’s brown gown and brown fur kaftan in 1x08

[ottomanladies]

Alliances within the Ottoman Imperial harem -- requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

Notable Ottoman consorts hailing from the Caucasus -- requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

Valide Sultans with the longest tenures

[ottomanladies]

OTTOMANLADIES’ 2ND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

ottoman women famous for their beauty – requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

OTTOMANLADIES’ 2ND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

ottoman consorts who took other women’s children into their care – requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

OTTOMANLADIES’ 2ND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

ottoman women + foreign royals – requested by @startingthecase

[ottomanladies]

1) can a concubine reach the rank of baskadin or senior imperial consort ? . 2) can a concubine be at level of kadin and the legal wife be a hanim or ikbal i think that would be kinda unfair.

I'm not sure what you mean by concubine because they all were. Do you perhaps mean slaves? Then, of course, anyone could be promoted. Wedded wives did not get the highest ranks, it depended on when they married the sultan: Rahime Perestu married Abdülmecid I but stayed Fourth Imperial Consort during his whole reign. Likewise, when Abdülmecid I married Bezmiara, his Imperial Consorts were already four so she was given the honorary title of Fifth Imperial Consort, but technically she should have been an ikbal.

[ottomanladies]

OTTOMANLADIES’ 2ND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS

(some) marriages for love* in the ottoman dynasty – requested by anon

*one-sided or not

[ottomanladies]

Did anyone of the dynasty adopt children?

It happened, yes. The problem is that sometimes they weren't adopted in the sense we mean; Atike Sultan "raised" the future Mihnea III of Wallachia when he was in Istanbul and she is called his "spiritual mother" but we don't exactly know what this means.

In any case, the most famous case of adoption is Rahime Perestu's. She was adopted by Esma Sultan the younger, who raised her from the age of 2. She later married Abdülmecîd I and was Valide Sultan for 30 years.

An interesting case was Bezmiara V. Kadınefendi's who herself had been adopted. She had been adopted by the wife of a Pasha, and therefore was a free Muslim woman when she married Abdülmecîd I.

[ottomanladies]

Known fair-haired women in Ottoman history -- requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

Ottoman Imperial women + firsts and lasts -- requested by anon

[ottomanladies]

Rahime Perestü was the last woman of the Ottoman Empire to be given the title Valide Sultan, even though the title was honorary, for she did not give any child to Abdülmecid. Nevertheless, because she had cared for Abdülhamid II upon his own mother Tirimujgan’s death, she was awarded the honorary title and she occupied the seat of queen mother symbolically for the first 28 years of Abdülhamid II’s 33-year-long reign. However, she did not actively perform this role. Her reign started with important events indicative of the death throes at the end of the long life of the Empire. These events included the announcement of the First Constitution, the establishment of the Ottoman parliament in 1876 and its immediate suspension in 1877 upon the outbreak of Russian–Ottoman War. The Russian–Ottoman War resulted in catastrophic loses and the secession of the Balkan states from the Empire. The rest of Abdülhamid II’s reign was known as a period of oppression which lasted until the 31 March Incident, which precipitated his dethronement and the reestablishment of the Ottoman Parliament in 1909. Perestü left only two modest examples of architectural patronage, despite her long tenure, which perhaps points to the limits of her power as merely a symbolic Valide Sultan. She built two water dispensers and a fountain in front of the Bala Complex in Silivrikapı in 1896.

Muzaffer Özgüleş, The Women Who Built the Ottoman World: Female Patronage and the Architectural Legacy of Gülnüş Sultan

[ottomanladies]

VALIDE SULTANS: "The lady Perestû Kadınefendi raised my father as her adoptive child, since his own mother died while he was but a boy. When he ascended the throne she took the title Mehd-i Ulyâ-yı Saltanat-ı Seniyye [Most High Mother of the Exalted Sultanate]. Even in her old age one could see that she had been strikingly beautiful in her youth. She was Circassian, as were all the ladies of my grandfather, and from the Ubykh clan. She was a beautiful woman, possessing a petite and slender figure with translucent white skin, blue eyes, golden blonde hair, and truly lovely hands and feet. One could see how worthy she was of the rank of Princess Mother from her refined comportment as well as her dignity and charming disposition. This esteemed lady’s luminous face, graciousness, delicate manner, and elegance inspired respect and affection in everyone’s heart, so that all those living in the palace loved her deeply. Hers was a most melodious voice, though she spoke softly and infrequently." -- Princess Ayşe Sultan in Babam Sultan Abdülhamid, translated by Douglas Scott Brookes