Hatice Halime Hatun

Hatice Halime Hatun (Ottoman Turkish: خديجة حليمة خاتون‎; before 1415, Devrekani - after 1500) was the wife of Sultan Murad II.

Family

Hatice Halime Hatun was born as a Jandar princess, the daughter of Taceddin Ibrahim II Bey,^[1] the eighth ruler of the Isfendiyarids. She was the granddaughter of the previous ruler, Izzeddin İsfendiyar Bey^[2] and subsequently the niece of Mehmed the Conqueror's mother Hüma Hatun. She was the sister of Kemaleddin Ismail Bey and Kızıl Ahmed Bey (Ahmed the Red), the ninth and tenth rulers of the dynasty.

Marriage to Murad II

Sultan Murad II married Hatice Halime around 1425,^[3] at Edirne,^[4] giving in marriage two of his sisters,^[5] Selçuk Hatun to Halime's father and Sultan Hatun to Halime's brother, Kıvameddin Kasım Bey. On the same occasion he also married his five other sisters, Hatice, Fatma, Hafsa, İIaldı and Şehzade Hatun as well.^[6] By this dynastic union, Murad established an alliance with a powerful tribe against his most formidable enemy in Anatolia, the Karamanid Türkmen, who blocked the expansion of the Ottomans to the east. The good relations were preserved during the reign of the next sultan Mehmed II who endowed members of the dynasty with mülks in the region of Plovdiv and Didymoteicho, later transformed into waqfs.^[7]

In 1425, Hatice Halime gave birth to her first son Şehzade Alaeddin Ali. When Alaeddin came of age Murad made him provincial governor of Manisa. He was transferred to Amasya after the death of his elder brother, Ahmed. In 1435 Murad married Mara Branković. In the beginning Mara was warmly accepted, and Hatice Halime who was the Sultan's favourite wife, was expelled from the court and sent to Bursa. It seems that something occurred at the Ottoman Porte between the autumn of 1435 and spring of 1436. It was during this time that Mara fell out of favour and was exiled while Hatice Halime was once again returned.^[8]

In 1439, Kara Hizir Pasha was sent to Amasya after Alaeddin. Creeping into the palace at night, he strangled the prince in his bed. The prince's two sons aged six months and eighteen months were also killed and buried, first together in the Turumtay Türbe in Amasya, later probably in Bursa. Alaeddin was replaced as governor of Amasya by Mehmed Pasha, son of Lala Şahin Pasha, the conqueror of Plovdiv. The news of the sudden death of Alaeddin, said to be Murad's favourite son, filled Murad with profound grief and consternation. As a result of Alaeddin's death the eleven-year-old Mehmed in Manisa became the heir to the throne and was recalled at once to Manisa.^[9][10][11] In 1450 Hatice Halime gave birth to her second son, Ahmed, nicknamed Küçük, or little,^[12] to distinguish him from the late Prince Ahmed, the Sultan's first son. Thus Mehmed now had a half-brother younger than his own sons, who would be a possible rival for the throne.

Marriage to Ishak Pasha

Murad died in 1451, and his son Mehmed ascended the throne as Mehmed II. Directly after Mehmed's coronation, he went to the harem of Edirne Palace, where he received the congratulations of the all the women there, who also gave him their condolences on the death of his father. The highest-ranking of the decreased sultan's wives at the time of his death was Hatice Halime Hatun, who fifteen months before had given birth to Murad's last son, Küçük Ahmed. Succession had often been a matter of contention in the Ottoman dynasty, and had led two civil wars. So Mehmed decided that in this case he would settle the matter at once by ordering the execution of Küçük Ahmed. Hatice Halime was in the throne room imparting to the new Sultan her grief at the loss of her husband, Mehmed dispatched Ali Bey, the son of Gazi Evrenos to the Women's quarters to drown the baby.^[13][14] Mehmed justified the murder of his half-brother as being an accordance with the Ottoman code of fratricide, which on several occasions had been practiced by his ancestors to prevent wars of succession. Mehmed the Conqueror later obliged Ishak Pasha, one of his father, Murad II's officials and the new beylerbeyi of Anatolia, to take Hatice Halime as his wife.^[15][16][17]

Kücük Şehzade Ahmed

Some Historians claimed that Kücük Ahmed survived, because Yusuf Adil Shah was the son of Murad II. After the Sultan's death and succession to throne by the crown prince, all other sons were executed. However, Yusuf's mother Hatice Halime Hatun secretly replaced him with a slave boy and sent him to Persia. After many romantic adventures, Yusuf reached the court of the Bidar Sultanate. His bravery and personality raised him rapidly in Sultan's favor, resulting in his appointment as the Governor of Bijapur. He built the Citadel or Arkilla and the Faroukh Mahal. Yusuf was a man of culture. He invited poets and artisans from Persia, Turkey and Rome to his court. He married Punji, the sister of a Maratha warrior. When Yusuf died in 1510, Ismail, his son, was still a boy. Punji in male attire valiantly defended him from a coup to grab the throne. Ismail Adil Shah thus became the king of Bijapur.^[18]

Later years and burial

Ishak Pasha died in 1497 and Halime became widow by his death. Hatice Halime Hatun is last known in the registration of an endowment in Iznik in 1500.^[19][20] She was buried in the Mausoleum of Sultan Bayezid II's daughter Hatice Sultan, Bursa.^[21]

Notes

References

• Necdet Sakaoğlu (2007). Famous Ottoman women. Avea. 
• Steven Runciman (March 26, 2012). The Fall of Constantinople 1453. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-60469-8. 
• John Freely (February 28, 2009). The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople, Master of an Empire and Lord of Two Seas. I.B.Tauris. ISBN 978-0-857-73022-0. 
• Bruce D. Thatcher (June 25, 2011). Adamant Aggressors: How to Recognize and Deal with Them. Xlibris Corporation. ISBN 978-1-462-89195-5. 
• Franz Babinger (1992). Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01078-6. 
• John Jefferson (August 17, 2012). The Holy Wars of King Wladislas and Sultan Murad: The Ottoman-Christian Conflict from 1438-1444. BRILL. ISBN 978-9-004-21904-5. 
• Narodna biblioteka "Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodiĭ. Orientalski otdel, International Centre for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, Research Centre for Islamic History, Art, and Culture (2003). Inventory of Ottoman Turkish documents about Waqf preserved in the Oriental Department at the St. St. Cyril and Methodius National Library: Registers. Narodna biblioteka "Sv. sv. Kiril i Metodiĭ.  CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
• M. Çağatay Uluçay (2011). Padişahların kadınları ve kızları. Ötüken. ISBN 978-9-754-37840-5. 
• Mehmet Süreyya Bey (1969). Osmanlı devletinde kim kimdi, Volume 1. Küğ Yayını. 
• Roger Crowley (August 6, 2009). Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453. Faber & Faber. ISBN 978-0-571-25079-0. 

External links

• Biography of Mehmed the Conqueror