Mihrimah Sultan (daughter of Suleiman I)

Mihrimah or Mihrümah[1][2] means "Sun and Moon",[3] or "Light of the Moon"[4] in Persian.[5] To Westerners, she was known as Sultana Cameria,[6] which is a variant of Qamariyyah, an Arabic version of her name meaning "of the moon". Her portrait by Cristofano dell'Altissimo was entitled Cameria Solimani.[7] She was also known as Hanım Sultan, which means "Madam Princess" or Büyük Sultan, which means "Great Princess", in reference to her prominent role during the reigns of her father Suleiman I, her brother Selim II and her nephew Murad III.[8]

Mihrimah was born in Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1522[9][10][11] during the reign of her father, Süleyman the Magnificent. Her mother was Hürrem Sultan,[9][10][11] an Orthodox priest's daughter,[12] who was the Sultan's concubine but was freed in 1533 or 1534 and became Suleyman's legal wife.[13] Mihrimah had five brothers: Şehzade Mehmed, Şehzade Abdullah, who died at the age of three, Şehzade Selim (the future Selim II), Şehzade Bayezid, and Şehzade Cihangir.[9][10] Well-educated and disciplined, she was also sophisticated, eloquent and well-read.[5]

Titian's portrait of Mihrimah, entitled Cameria, Daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent as St. Catherine, includes a spiked wheel.

In 1539, Süleyman decided that Mihrimah should be married to Rüstem Pasha,[14] probably from Croatia, who had been seized through the devshirme and rose to become Governor of Diyarbakır and later, Grand Vizier.[15] However, Hürrem believed that she should be married to the more handsome governor of Cairo.[14] Rüstem's enemies circulated a rumour that he had leprosy but the doctor dispatched to Diyarbakır to examine him found this to be untrue, although a louse was found in his clothing, despite the fact that he changed his garments daily.[16]

The marriage took place on 26 November 1539[17][18][19][20] in the Old Palace,[21] when Mihrimah was seventeen.[22] Her wedding ceremony and the celebration for her younger brothers Bayezid and Cihangir's circumcision occurred on the same day,[23][20][24] the collective festivities lasting fifteen days.[25] Five years later in 1544, Süleyman selected her husband to become Grand Vizier,[26] a post he held until his death in 1561, bar a two-year interval when he was dismissed to assuage popular outrage following the execution of Şehzade Mustafa in 1553.[27][28]

Shortly after Mihrimah's wedding she developed a rheumatoid-like condition and spent most of her life dealing with the illness.[5] In 1544 she traveled to Bursa with her mother and husband and a large military escort.[29] Although Mihrimah and her mother made efforts to promote Rüstem as an intimate of the sultan, he was actually kept at a distance from the royal presence.[16] Mihrimah and Rüstem had one daughter,[30] Ayşe Hümaşah Sultan,[31] born in 1541, and a son, Sultanzade Osman Bey, born in 1546.[30]

In 1554, Mihrimah suffered a life-threatening miscarriage which almost cost her her life. An anonymous author suggested that the couple lived in Pera, although it is more likely that they settled in Mihrimah's palace in Üsküdar.[32] In March 1558, Shaykh Qutb al-Din al-Nahrawali, a religious figure from Mecca, visited Istanbul.[33] In April, he met Mihrimah, and gave her gifts.[34] He met her again in June just before he left Istanbul for Cairo.[35]

After Rüstem's death in 1561,[36] she offered to marry Semiz Ali Pasha, who had succeeded him as grand vizier. When he declined, she chose not to marry again,[37] returning instead to the royal palace.[38]

Mihrimah had a daughter and at least a son by her marriage to Rüstem:[39]

• Ayşe Hümaşah Sultan (Constantinople, 1541 – Constantinople, 1598)
• Sultanzade Osman Bey (Constantinople, 1546 – Constantinople, 1576)

It is possible, although not certain, that she had a second son.[39]

It is also reported that, in 1554, Mihrimah suffered a miscarriage which nearly cost her life.[39]

Letter written by Mihrimah Sultan to Sigismund II Augustus in 1548

Although there is no proof of Hürrem or Mihrimah's direct involvement in her half-brother Şehzade Mustafa's downfall, Ottoman and foreign accounts suggest that it was widely believed that Mihrimah worked with Hürrem and Rüstem to eliminate Mustafa to ensure the throne for Hürrem's son and Mihrimah's full brother, Bayezid.[40][41][42] The rivalry ended when Mustafa was executed at his own father's command in 1553 during the campaign against Safavid Persia. Although these accounts were not based on first-hand sources,[43] a fear of Mustafa was not unreasonable: had he ascended to the throne, all Mihrimah's full brothers (Selim, Bayezid, and Cihangir) would probably have been executed, according to the fratricidal custom of the Ottoman dynasty, which required the brothers of a new sultan to be executed to avoid feuding.[26][40] Mihrimah, Rüstem and Hürrem were also blamed for the execution in 1555 of the Grand Vizier Kara Ahmed Pasha, whose elimination cleared the way for Rüstem's return as Grand Vizier.[44]

Hürrem sent letters to Sigismund II, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, the contents of which were mirrored in letters written by Mihrimah, and sent by the same courier, who also carried letters from the sultan and her husband Rüstem Pasha the Grand Vizier.[45] After Hürrem's death, Mihrimah also became Süleyman's advisor and confidant,[46] urging him to undertake the conquest of Malta in 1565,[47] and sending him news and forwarding letters for him when he was absent from the capital.[46] She enlisted the help of the Grand Vizier Semiz Ali Pasha, and promised to outfit four hundred ships at her own expense. However, Süleyman and his son Selim prevented the campaign from proceeding so that the admiral, Piyale Pasha, could stay in Istanbul with his new wife, Gevherhan Sultan, Selim's daughter.[48] It is also likely that she encouraged Süleyman's decision to launch a campaign against Hungary in 1566, where he met his death at Szigetvár.[47]

Temporary closures of the western and/or eastern grain markets, food shortages and poor harvests led to several crises in the sixteenth century. The citizens of the Dalmatian Republic of Ragusa managed to survive thanks to supplies of Ottoman grain which Mihrimah helped to facilitate.[49] The Ragusans' decision to approach Mihrimah for help may have been the result of tensions between the Republic and the kapudan pasha, Piyale Pasha. During the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, several Ragusan ships sailed in the Christian fleet, as Piyale Pasha reported to the Porte. To Ragusan horror, his ships sailed into their waters and raided the island of Mljet. However, true problems emerged in 1566, leading Ragusan ambassadors to petition Mihrimah to act as their protector.[47]

In later years Mihrimah retired to the Eski Saray.[50] As soon as he came to power, Selim turned to her for help as he needed money, after which she lent him fifty thousand gold coins.[37] She then continued to act as his advisor.[5] In 1571, the Ragusans asked her to speak to the sultan on their behalf, and to "spare a couple of kind words for their love's sake".[51]

In 1575, during the reign of her nephew Sultan Murad III, her daily stipend consisted of 600 aspers.[52] When the French refused to return two Turkish women who had been captured at sea by Henry III's brother-in-law and made members of Catherine de' Medici's court, Mihrimah and her niece, Ismihan Sultan intervened on their behalf.[53] When Cığalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha married her granddaughter in October 1576. Mihrimah provided him with a huge dowry including gold and valuable clothes. She also supported him against his rivals inside the court such as Safiye Sultan, Ferhad Pasha, Damat Ibrahim and Halil Pashas.[54]

Mihrimah Sultan Mosque at Edirnekapı, İstanbul, Turkey.

Endowment Deed of Mihrimah Sultan. This document concerns the endowment of properties in Anatolia and Rumelia, from which revenues were to be used to meet the expenses of the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque complex. April–March 1550. Sadberk Hanım Museum

Mihrimah also sponsored a number of major architectural projects. Her most famous foundations are the two Istanbul mosque complexes that bear her name, both designed by her father's chief architect, Mimar Sinan.

The first Mihrimah Sultan Mosque (Turkish: Mihrimah Sultan Camii), also known as the İskele Mosque (Turkish: İskele Camii), is one of Üsküdar's most prominent landmarks and was built between 1543 or 1544[55] and 1548.[56] The twin-minaret mosque complex consisted of a mosque, a medrese, a soup kitchen to feed the poor, a clinic and a primary school. The primary school, library and medrese are now used as an outpatient clinic.

The second Mihrimah Sultan Mosque beside the Edirne Gate (Turkish: Edirnekapı) in the western wall of the old city of Istanbul was built between 1562 and 1565.[57] It consists of a fountain, medrese and hamam. Unlike its namesake, it features a single minaret.[5][36][58]

She also commissioned the repair of the 'Ayn Zubaydah spring in Mecca and established a foundation to supply wrought iron to the navy.[5]

Mihrimah Sultan was buried next to her father Süleyman the Magnificent inside his türbe behind the Süleymaniye Mosque.

Mimar Sinan, a sixteenth-century architect, was allegedly in love with Mihrimah[5] after supposedly seeing her for the first time while she was accompanying her father on his Moldova Campaign.[5] To impress her, Sinan built a bridge spanning the Prut River in just thirteen days. He asked for her hand in marriage only to have his proposal rejected by her father. He is then said to have poured his heart into his architecture. Some claim that he built the Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Üsküdar to resemble the silhouette of a woman with her skirt sweeping the ground.[5]

Mihrimah Sultan died in Istanbul on 25 January 1578[59][60][61] having outlived all her siblings. She is Süleyman's only child[62] to have been buried in his tomb in the Süleymaniye Mosque complex.[5][63][36][61]

• In the 2011–2014 TV series Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) she was portrayed by Pelin Karahan.[64]
• She appears as a central character in The Architect's Apprentice, a 2014 novel by Elif Shafak.[65][66]
• She is one of the central characters in the book Hürrem ve Mihrimah Sultan: Haremin Gülü ve Goncası (Turkish: Hürrem and Mihrimah Sultan: The Rose and the Rosebud of Harem) by Muhterem Yüceyılmaz.[67]

• Peirce, Leslie (1993). Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508677-5.
• Yermolenko, Galina (2005). "Roxolana: The Greatest Empress of the East". The Muslim World. 95 (2): 231–248. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2005.00088.x.
• Isom-Verhaaren, Christine (11 April 2016). "Mihrimah Sultan: A Princess Constructs Ottoman Dynastic Identity". In Christine Isom-Verhaaren; Kent F. Schull (eds.). Living in the Ottoman Realm: Empire and Identity, 13th to 20th Centuries. Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253019486.
• Uluçay, Mustafa Çağatay (1992). Padışahların kadınları ve kızları. Türk Tarihi Kurumu Yayınları.
• Miović, Vesna (2 May 2018). "Per favore della Soltana: moćne osmanske žene i dubrovački diplomati". Anali Zavoda Za Povijesne Znanosti Hrvatske Akademije Znanosti i Umjetnosti U Dubrovniku (in Croatian). 56 (56/1): 147–197. doi:10.21857/mwo1vczp2y. ISSN 1330-0598.
• Atçıl, Zahit (2020). "Osmanlı Hanedanının Evlilik Politikaları ve Mihrimah Sultan'ın Evliliği". Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergis (34): 1–26.
• Nahrawālī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad; Blackburn, Richard (2005). Journey to the Sublime Porte: the Arabic memoir of a Sharifian agent's diplomatic mission to the Ottoman Imperial Court in the era of Suleyman the Magnificent; the relevant text from Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nahrawālī's al-Fawāʼid al-sanīyah fī al-riḥlah al-Madanīyah wa al-Rūmīyah. Orient-Institut. ISBN 978-3-899-13441-4.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mihrimah Sultan.

• Photos of Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Edirnekapi
• Photos of Iskele Mosque (aka Mihrimah) in Uskudar
• Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Edirnekapi
• Mihrimah Sultan – an Ottoman princess' legacy survives