Fitnat Hanım

Fitnat Hanım (died 1780) was the pen name of the Ottoman Turkish woman poet Zübeyde, "considered the most important woman poet of the Ottoman school".[1]

Zübeyde
BornIstanbul, Turkey
Died1780
İstanbul
Pen nameFitnat
OccupationPoet
NationalityOttoman Turkish

Biography

Her birth date is not known, but she was probably younger than her brother, who was born in 1723/4.[2]

She is known by her pseudonym, Fitnat, where "Hanım" is the Turkish word "lady". Fitnat came from a family of religious scholars. Her father was Ebu İshakzade Mehmet Esad Efendi (died 1752), a Sheik ul-Islam, the highest religious authority, under Mahmud I. Her grandfather, Ebuishakzade İshak Efendi (1679-1734), and her brother Mehmed Şerif Efendi were also scholar poets. Her husband was Derviş Mehmet Efendi, a kazasker (judge) of Rumeli (the European portion of the Empire). He was a grandson of Feyzullah Efendi, Sheik ul-Islam under Mustafa II. However, Fitnat was a more accomplished scholar than her husband, and the marriage was not a success.[3]

Fitnat was able to be admitted to the literary circles of the era,[4] and she was known to read poems to Koca Ragıp Pasha, the grand vizier.[5] However, little is known about her later years. "Her story is in many respects one of stifled promise, with the nurturing latitude of the parental home reined in by the strictures of marriage and an unsympathetic mate."[4]

Some of her poems were translated to Western languages in the 19th century.[2] Muallim Naci, a well known poet of the 19th century calls her "queen of the poets".[6]

References
  1. Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah, eds. (2006). "Fitnat-Khanim (c. 1725–1780)". Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages.
  2. Antoloji (in Turkish)
  3. Aynur, Hatice (2006). "Ottoman literature". In Kate Fleet; Suraiya N. Faroqhi; Ibrahim Metin Kunt; Reşat Kasaba (eds.). The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 514–5. ISBN 9780521620956.
  4. Zilfi, Madelne C. (2006). "Muslim women in the early modern era". In Kate Fleet; Suraiya N. Faroqhi; Ibrahim Metin Kunt; Reşat Kasaba (eds.). The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 252–3. ISBN 9780521620956.
  5. Turkish language and literature page Archived 2013-03-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Turkish)
  6. Turkish history page Archived 2016-09-17 at the Wayback Machine (in Turkish)


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