Mahfiruz Hatun

Hatice Mahfiruz Hatun[1] or Mahfiruze Hatun (Ottoman Turkish: ماه فروز خاتون, "Glorious moon"[a] or "Daytime moon" or "Turquoise Moon"; c. 1590 - before 1618) was a consort of Ottoman Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603–17) and the mother of Osman II (r. 1618–22).

Mahfiruz Hatun
Bornc. 1590
DiedBefore 1618
Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
Burial
Eyüp Cemetery, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
SpouseAhmed I
IssueOsman II
Names
Turkish: Hatice Mahfiruz Hatun
Ottoman Turkish: ماہ فروز خاتون
ReligionSunni Islam

Biography

Due to the preeminence of Kösem Sultan during Ahmed's reign, there aren't many records about her life. She was a concubine, who may have been of Circassian origin.[2] She was Ahmed's first concubine, and on 3 November 1604 she gave birth to Ahmed's firstborn, the future Osman II, making Ahmed I the youngest Ottoman sultan to have fathered a child.[3]

Despite this, she was not given the title of Haseki Sultan, which instead was given to Kösem, the most beloved consort of Ahmed and mother of at least four other sons and three daughters, which deprived Mahfiruz of all power. However, she received the title of Başkadin (mother of the Sultan's firstborn-male).

She disappears from the harem records shortly after Osman was born. While it was initially believed that she was disgraced and exiled, it is now believed that she died between 1608 and 1613, maybe in childbirth, and therefore was never her son's Valide Sultan, who ascended the throne in 1618.[3]

Indeed, records indicate that, during Osman's reign, she was not in any of the Imperial Palaces, not even in the provinces, and that the duties and salary of the Valide Sultan were instead attributed to Osman's wet nurse, the Daye Hatun.[3][4]

Mahfiruze was buried in the Ëyup cemetery, in a mausoleum built around 1610, which reinforces the theory that she died prematurely.[5][3]

Issue

By Ahmed I, Mahfiruze had only one known child, the Sultan's firstborn and first son:

  • Osman II (3 November 1604, Istanbul, Topkapı Palace – murdered during a janissary revolt on 20 May 1622, Istanbul, Topkapı Palace, buried in the Ahmed I Mausoleum, Sultan Ahmed Mosque).[6][7] 16th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

In addition to Osman, many historians speculate that she may have had a second child with Ahmed, even if they disagree on the identity of this one and don't exist a certain proof for this.

So, Mahfiruze may also have been the mother of one between:

  • Gevherhan Sultan (b. 1605 or 1608, generally believed to be a daughter of Kösem Sultan).
  • Hatice Sultan (born in 1608, died in 1610; unknown motherhood).
  • Şehzade Bayezid (born in December 1612, unknown motherhood).
  • Şehzade Süleyman (born in 1613 or 1615, generally believed to be a son of Kösem Sultan).
  • Şehzade Hüseyin (born on 14 December 1613, unknown motherhood).

In the 2015 Turkish television series Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem, Mahfiruze was portrayed by actress Ceyda Olguner. Historical advisors to the series noted that Mahfiruze was a Circassian by birth. In the fifth episode of the first series, the character was recast with actress Dilara Aksüyek and introduced as "Çerkes güzeli Raşa" (Circassian beauty Rasha) before being renamed to Mahfiruze.[4]

See also

Annotations
  1. ^
    Her name is also spelt Mahfiruz and Mâh-ı Feyrûz.[8]
  2. ^
    There was an earlier theory of her being Greek named Eudoxia,[9] but this has been refuted, as it was based on an imaginative 18th-century French novel.[2][10]

References
  1. Sakaoğlu, Necdet [in Turkish] (2008). Bu mülkün kadın sultanları: Vâlide sultanlar, hâtunlar, hasekiler, kadınefendiler, sultanefendiler. Oğlak Publications. p. 238. ISBN 978-9-753-29623-6.
  2. Tezcan 2007, p. 350.
  3. Baki Tezcan (13 September 2010). The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World. Cambridge University Press. pp. 115–. ISBN 978-0-521-51949-6.
  4. Fındık, Nida (10 December 2015). "Muhteşem Yüzyıl Kösem". Noluyo.tv (in Turkish). Istanbul. Archived from the original on 11 February 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  5. Peirce 1993, p. 233.
  6. Şefika Şule Erçetin (28 November 2016). Women Leaders in Chaotic Environments:Examinations of Leadership Using Complexity Theory. Springer. p. 77. ISBN 978-3-319-44758-2.
  7. Mustafa Çağatay Uluçay (2011). Padışahların Kadınları ve Kızları. Ötüken, Ankara. p. 78. ISBN 978-9-754-37840-5.
  8. Çakıroğlu, Ekrem (1999). Osmanlılar ansiklopedisi. Yapı Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık. p. 53. ISBN 978-975-08-0071-9. Hatice Mâhferūza, Mâhferūz, Mâh-e Fay'rūz (Mâh-ı Fey'rûz in Persian means Mâh=Moon and Fay'rūz=daytime shadow.)
  9. İsmail Metin (2010). Osmanlı sarayında cinsel sapkınlıklar. Parşömen Yayınları. p. 179. ISBN 978-605-4452-20-0. Birinci Ahmet'in gözdelerinden ilki Evdoksia idi.
  10. Tezcan, Baki (2002). "The 1622 Military Rebellion in Istanbul : A Historiographical Journey". International Journal of Turkish Studies. University of Wisconsin: 40. Stanford Shaw, the author of an Ottoman history that has been widely used as a textbook and reference work, claims, on the basis of information from an eighteenth-century French novel,84 that the sultan was "[t]rained in Latin, Greek, and Italian by his Greek mother, as well as Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian."85

Sources
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