Fatma Sultan was a daughter of Sultan Murad III, and his consort Safiye Sultan.[1] She had three full brothers, Sultan Mehmed III, Şehzade Selim and Şehzade Mahmud, and two full sisters Ayşe Sultan, Hümaşah Sultan. Her other possibly full sisters were Mihrimah Sultan and Fahriye Sultan.
Marriages
On 6 December 1593, Fatma, at Murad's behest, married Halil Pasha, Admiral of the Fleet.[2] The wedding took place at the Old Palace, and was celebrated in a seven-day ceremony.[3] The historian Mustafa Selaniki described the excitement of the crowds who turned out to watch the elaborate processional that carried Fatma, who was concealed behind a screen of red satin, to the palace of her new husband. Selaniki wrote that at the wedding of Fatma "skirtfulls of shiny new coins were distributed... those who did not receive any sighed with longing."[4] According to the historian Hoca Sadeddin Efendi, her dowry was 300,000 ducats.[2]
As part of the celebrations, the members of the Imperial Council were given a seven-day leave.[2]
In 1595, Halil Pasha did not sail with the fleet. This was particularly because neither Safiye nor Fatma were willing to let him leave Istanbul. Their reluctance probably stemmed from the fact that Fatma was pregnant. She gave birth to a son in October 1595, which strengthened the new Sultan Mehmed's and Safiye's affection for Halil Pasha.[5]
After Halil Pasha's death in 1603, she married Cafer Pasha in December 1604.[6] He was then in charge of securing the passes on the Danube. In order to consummate his marriage, Cafer Pasha was immediately called back to the capital and given a seat in the imperial council with the rank of full vizier.[7] Cafer Pasha became governor of Cyprus in 1608, where Fatma probably followed him. He stayed on this position until his death.
There are sources that state that Fatma was married two more times.[8] After the death of Cafer Pasha, she married in 1610 Hizir Pasha, governor of Van 1582, Karaman, and Tamashvar 1592, who was very old and died shortly after the wedding. Later, she married Kuyucu Murad Pasha (1611), who was vizier and a member of the Divan.
Death and legacy
When Fatma died, she was buried in her father's mausoleum, located at the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia Mosque, Istanbul, and recorded, among other things, as Halil Pasha's wife.[2]
She owned a translation of "The Ascension of Propitious Stars and Sources of Sovereignty" (Matali' us-sa'ade ve menabi' us-siyade).[9]
We know that in 1582 Nakkaş Osman Pasha illustrated a horoscope book for Fatma Sultan. This manuscript, in which Nakkaş Osman is named as the illustrator, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.[10]
^Blake, Stephen P. (February 11, 2013). Time in Early Modern Islam: Calendar, Ceremony, and Chronology in the Safavid, Mughal and Ottoman Empires. Cambridge University Press. p. 103. ISBN978-1-107-03023-7.
^Cuerva, Ruben Gonzalez; Koller, Alexander (August 28, 2017). A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions: Political Groups at Early Modern Centres of Power (1550-1700). BRILL. p. 105. ISBN978-9-004-35058-8.
^Tezcan, Baki (November 2001). Searching for Osman: A reassessment of the deposition of the Ottoman Sultan Osman II (1618-1622). pp. 328 n. 18.
^Börekçi, Günhan (2010). Factions and Favorites at the Courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) and his Immediate Predecessors. pp. 236 n. 70.
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