Behice Sultan

Behice Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: بهيجه سلطان‎; 26 August 1848 – 21 December 1876) was an Ottoman princess, daughter of Sultan Abdulmejid I and Nesrin Hanım. She was the half-sister of Sultans Murad V, Abdul Hamid II, Mehmed V, and Mehmed VI.

Behice Sultan
Born(1848-08-26)26 August 1848
Çırağan Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
(now Istanbul, Turkey)
Died21 December 1876(1876-12-21) (aged 28)
Kuruçeşme Palace, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Burial
Gülüstü Hanım Mausoleum, Fatih Mosque, Istanbul
SpouseHamid Bey
DynastyOttoman
FatherAbdulmejid I
MotherNesrin Hanım
ReligionSunni Islam

Early life

Behice Sultan was born on 26 August 1848 in the Çırağan Palace. Her father was Sultan Abdulmejid I, and her mother was Nesrin Hanım,[1][2] daughter of Manuçar Asemiani and Mahra Hanım.[3] She was the twenty-first child and fourteenth daughter of her father and second child of her mother. She had three brothers, Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin, two years elder then her, [1] and two twin brothers Şehzade Mehmed Nizameddin and Şehzade Mehmed Bahaeddin, two years younger then her.[4]

Marriage

Engagement

Behice Sultan fell in love with Hamid Bey,[5] the son of Mehmed Nurullah Bey, and the grandson of Halil Hamid Pasha.[1] In 1875, her uncle, Sultan Abdülaziz betrothed her to him.[6]

Illness

Tuberculosis took its victims in the palace as elsewhere in the nineteenth century. Among them was Behice Sultan. There is extant a touching letter to her from one Feleksu Kalfa, herself sick with malaria. The time of Behice's marriage was approaching, and Feleksu was happy for her that she would be going to her own palace, but at the same time, she was worried about her health. "You will be going to the country," she wrote, "where Pertev Kalfa knows many medicines." Behice was thought to be well enough to be married.[7]

Wedding

Abdülaziz had ordered her trousseaux; however, he died in June 1876, and was thus completely unable to address any more issues regarding to her wedding,[8] which, in turn, got further delayed because of the death of her younger half-brother Şehzade Burhaneddin in November 1876.[6] Finally, the wedding took place on 4 December 1876, during the reign of her elder half-brother Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The couple were given a palace at Kuruçeşme, on the Bosphorus.[9]

Death

Behice Sultan died of tuberculosis a mere two weeks after her wedding, on 21 December 1876, at the age of twenty-eight.[10] She was buried in the mausoleum of Gülüstü Hanım located at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul.[11]

See also

Ancestry

References
  1. Uluçay 2011, p. 226.
  2. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 622.
  3. Açba, Harun (2007). Kadın efendiler: 1839-1924. Profil. p. 53. ISBN 978-9-759-96109-1.
  4. Uluçay 2011, p. 215-6.
  5. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 624.
  6. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 625.
  7. Fanny Davis (1986). The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 17–8. ISBN 978-0-313-24811-5.
  8. The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem. University of Texas Press. 2010. p. 159. ISBN 978-0-292-78335-5.
  9. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 626.
  10. "S A B A H O N L I N E 14.07.2001". arsiv.sabah.com.tr. Retrieved 2019-11-12.
  11. Kahya, Özge (2012). Sultan Abdülmecid’in kızı Mediha Sultan’ın hayatı (1856-1928). p. 4 n. 24.

Sources
  • Sakaoğlu, Necdet (2008). Bu mülkün kadın sultanları: Vâlide sultanlar, hâtunlar, hasekiler, kadınefendiler, sultanefendiler. Oğlak Yayıncılık. ISBN 978-9-753-29623-6.
  • Uluçay, Mustafa Çağatay (2011). Padişahların kadınları ve kızları. Ankara: Ötüken. ISBN 978-9-754-37840-5.
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