Esma Sultan (daughter of Abdul Hamid I)

Esma Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: اسما سلطان‎; 16 July 1778 – 4 June 1848), also called Küçuk Esma Sultan,[1] was an Ottoman princess, daughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid I, sister of Sultan Mustafa IV and Sultan Mahmud II. She was the adoptive mother of Valide Sultans Bezmiâlem Sultan and Perestu Kadın.

Esma Sultan
The tomb of Esma Sultan is located next to the sarcophagus of her half-sister Hibetullah Sultan in Mahmud II Mausoleum, Divanyolu, Istanbul, Turkey.
Born16 July 1778
Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
(present day Istanbul, Turkey)
Died4 June 1848(1848-06-04) (aged 69)
Constantinople, Ottoman Empire
Burial
Tomb of Mahmud II, Çemberlitaş, Fatih, Istanbul
Spouse
Küçük Hüseyin Pasha
(m. 1792; his death 1803)
IssueAdopted children: Perestu Kadın
DynastyOttoman
FatherAbdul Hamid I
MotherSineperver Sultan
ReligionSunni Islam

Early life

Esma Sultan was born on 16 July 1778 to Abdul Hamid I and his fourth consort Sineperver Sultan. She had a elder brother Şehzade Ahmed two years elder then her, a younger brother named Mustafa IV one year younger then her, and a younger sister named Fatma Sultan four years younger then her.[1][2]

When she was 11 years old, her father died. Since Mustafa was only 10 years old at the time of his father’s death. Selim III ascended to the throne as the eldest male member of the Ottoman Empire. She followed her mother to the old palace. When she was 14 her cousin Selim III married her to Küçük Huseyn Pasha.[1][2]

Esma Sultan spend her time in her childhood by reading books, musical instruments and games, her mother, Sineperver, was most likely to manage these entertainments in her apartment. [3]

Marriage

The engagement of Esma Sultan and Hüseyin Pasha took place on 29 May 1792. [4] During the wedding of Esma Sultan and Hüseyin Pasha, pirates started to disturb the coastal people and merchant ships in Algeria. Hüseyin Pasha, who stayed in the Aegean for four months, took prisoner of Karakaçan with his fifteen ships, returned to Istanbul on 29 September 1792. [5]

On 19 December 1792, the wedding of Esma Sultan Hüseyin Pasha took places. Princesses weddings as tradition, started on Wednesdays with the dowry procession being sent to the couple's seat and continued with the henna night held that evening. [5]

After the bridal procession, the guests were given a banquet as usual. She was very meticulous about Selim III asked for a banquet in accordance with his peers a month before the wedding, and in the sultan's palace, in the presence of the Darussaade, in accordance with the custom of the banquet given at the wedding of his sister Şah Sultan. [5]

Valuable gifts were also sent by Mihrişah Sultan at the wedding of Esma Sultan. The gifts of the Valide Sultan were as follows: one medium-sized and 706 small rose diamonds and a chandelier decorated with red rubies and diamonds; For the palace of the sultan's house in Divanyolu, 18 pieces of Austrian footbed pillows, 3 pieces of Polish-made striped and fringed, solid wire upper mat cushion, 3 pieces of mattress. [6]

Esma Sultan's wedding lasted three days in this way. It would also be that Sultan weddings were taking too long. The wedding of Ahmed III's daughter Fatma Sultan is one of the long-lasting weddings and festivities were held in Istanbul for fifteen days. Generally, the weddings of the first daughters of the sultans were long and governing, and those of the sultan's daughters. [6]

Widowhood

Esma Sultan entered the palace in the palace in Divanyolu, which was repaired a year ago, in the place of the current Sultan Mahmud Mausoleum. The marriage of Esma Sultan with Hüseyin Pasha lasted 11 years. Her husband died on 8 December 1803 and was buried in Mihrişah Sultan Mausoleum at Eyüp. [7] She never married again.[8][9]

Adopted children

She lived with luxury in her magnificent villa in Istanbul, but still her life passed in sadness because she could not have the one thing she wished for most; a child. At length she decided to adopt a child. After reaching satisfactory terms with the mother and father, she adopted Rahime Perestu, one year of age.[10][11]

Rahime was particularly diminutive, delicate and graceful, so she renamed her Perestu, the Persian word for swallow.[11] All the kalfas in Esma Sultan's villa behaved toward this child as though she were a daughter of an Ottoman imperial princess, and indeed her disposition and manners were so lovely that they became devoted to her.[10]

She had adopted Bezmiâlem Sultan, the ninth wife of her brother Mahmud II and the mother of Abdulmejid I. She herself educated Bezmiâlem. [12]

Relations with Mahmud

In 1807, the Janissaries revolted once more, dethroned, imprisoned, and later murdered Selim III. They placed his cousin Mustafa, brother of Esma Sultan, on the throne as Mustafa IV (1807–1808). Mustafa IV reigned briefly in an era of Janissary riots. Esma Sultan played a major role in Kabakçı revolt with her mother Sineperver Sultan for ascending her brother Mustafa to throne.[8][2] Alemdar Pasha was executed and Mustafa was executed on 16 November 1808.

Esma Sultan exercised great influence over her brother Mahmud during his reign of 31 years. Mahmud II loved his sister very much and Esma Sultan also esteemed him. They always visited each other and sometimes. Esma Sultan was respected by both Mustafa IV and Mahmud II.[8][9] Esma Sultan became the empire’s richest woman at that time. She had three revenues Eyüp Palace, Maçka Palace and Tirnakçı Palace.[13][14] She lived their with her large staff, there were some land assigned to Esma Sultan in Crete, Kemer, Edremit and Biga.[13][15]

Palaces and revenues

Esma Sultan, bought many farms around Istanbul, built palaces in Eyüp, Maçka, and Tirnakçı and Kuruçeşme mansions in Boğaziçi.[16]. Esma Sultan's dressing styles, her passion for entertainment, her journey to the places with her journeymen have set an example for Istanbul women.[17] Thanks to the high position of her husband, she had important influence over Ottoman society. She owned a palace in Divanyolu, kiosks in Çamlıca, Maçka and Eyüp and a waterfront mansion in Kuruçeşme at Bosporus.

The waterways of the palace in Divanyolu were broken because it has not been repaired for a long time. The water was given to the palace from three different places. The water supplied to the adjacent fountain was brought around the Bayezid Mosque, the water supplied to the kitchen was brought from Süleymaniye, and the water supplied to the bath was brought from Nuruosmaniye. [18]

As the guest of Esma Sultan, Miss Julia Pardoe, who went to Tirnakçı, gave detailed information about the mansion. Miss Pardoe described the mansion as follows: After the waiting hall leading up the stairs, after passing several rooms and a hall with twelve windows on one side overlooking the Bosphorus and on the mansion gardens, the harem apartment was coming. There was a large, dome-shaped, domed hall with marble stairs. There were forty porphyry columns with gilded heads in the hall; the walls are covered with cast glass; the doors were covered with silk curtains. [19]

Esma Sultan was interested in British culture; she was said to have furnished her palace with Western furniture, putting all of the traditional Ottoman furniture in a storage room. After her death, all of her English furniture was put away in the same storage room and the old oriental ones taken out once again.[20]

Death

Esma Sultan died on 4 June 1848 in Istanbul, nine years after the death of Mahmud, she was buried the Mausoleum of Mahmud at Divanyolu Street, Istanbul, Turkey.[13][15][21]

  • In 2018 Turkish historical fiction TV series Kalbimin Sultanı, Esma is portrayed by Turkish actress Emel Çölgeçen. [22]

See also

Ancestry

References
  1. Uluçay 2011, p. 166.
  2. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 502.
  3. Duran 2007, p. 12.
  4. Duran 2007, p. 14-5.
  5. Duran 2007, p. 15.
  6. Duran 2007, p. 17.
  7. Duran 2007, p. 23.
  8. Uluçay 2011, p. 167.
  9. Uluçay 1992, p. 167.
  10. Brookes 2010, p. 130.
  11. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 586.
  12. Schiffer, Reinhold (1999). Oriental Panorama: British Travellers in 19th Century Turkey. Taylor & Francis. p. 191.
  13. Uluçay 2011, p. 168.
  14. Uluçay 1992, p. 168.
  15. Sakaoğlu 2008, p. 503.
  16. Sakaoğlu 2015, p. 356-57.
  17. Sakaoğlu 2015, p. 357.
  18. Duran 2007, p. 47.
  19. Duran 2007, p. 60.
  20. Philip Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World's Desire (London, 1995), pp. 257–258.
  21. Duran 2007, p. 89.
  22. Kalbimin Sultanı (TV Series 2018), retrieved 2020-04-26

Sources
  • Mustafa Çağatay Uluçay (2011). Padişahların kadınları ve kızları. Ankara, Ötüken.
  • Sakaoğlu, Necdet (2008). Bu mülkün kadın sultanları: Vâlide sultanlar, hâtunlar, hasekiler, kadınefendiler, sultanefendiler. Oğlak Yayıncılık. ISBN 978-9-753-29623-6.
  • Sakaoğlu, Necdet (2015). Bu Mülkün Sultanları. Alfa Yayıncılık. ISBN 978-6-051-71080-8.
  • The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem. University of Texas Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-292-78335-5.
  • Duran, Türkan (2007). I. Abdülhamid’in Kızı Esma Sultan’ın Hayatı (1778–1848).
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