Afife Kadın (1682-after 1718), was a consort of the Ottoman sultan Mustafa II.[1][2][3][4]

Her origin is not confirmed, but she is believed to have fallen victim to the Crimean-Nogai raids and came to Constantinople via the Crimean slave trade, where she was purchased by minister Ebu Bekir Efendi for the Ottoman Imperial Harem, and given as a gift to the sultan in cirka 1695, at the age of ten.[5] She was the only concubine the sultan brought with him during all his three campaigns. She is documented several times when she received gifts from the sultan.[6] She was the mother of five sons and one daughter with the sultan.[4] All her five sons died in infancy.

When Mustafa II died in 1703, she was legally manumitted as an umm walad, since she had children with her master, and Mustafa II's successor Ahmed III ordered her to leave the Imperial harem by marriage, and choose her husband among the officials of the Porte. She reportedly asked Ahmed III not to force her to marry, but to kill her instead, with the argument that she had given birth to five sons with the former sultan. Ahmed III replied that while she had indeed given birth to six children with Mustafa II, all her sons were dead and only a daughter were alive, and repeated his demand for her to choose a husband. She finnally chose the 80 years old minister Ebu Bekir Efendi. Her choice was said to be gratitude to Ebu Bekir because he had once brought her to the Imperial harem,[4] but she also stated that the marriage was not to be consummated because she wished to be faithful to Mustafa II.[4]

In March 1718, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu visited Afife Kadın in Edirne.[4][7] She described her in her letters as the favorite of the former sultan.[4]

References

  1. ↑ A. D. Alderson (1956). The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Clarendon Press.
  2. ↑ "Turkey: The Imperial House of Osman". Archived from the original on 2006-05-02. Retrieved 2014-02-06.
  3. ↑ "Consorts Of Ottoman Sultans (in Turkish)". Ottoman Web Page.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The Turkish Embassy Letters / ed. Teresa Heffernan, Daniel O'Quinn. — Broadview Press, 2012. — С. 154. — 328 с. — ISBN 1554810426, 9781554810420.
  5. ↑ Edirne: Gateway to the Balkans. (2021). (n.p.): ASLAN Izabela Sobota-Miszczak.
  6. ↑ Osmanlı araştırmaları. (1991). Turkey: Enderun Kitabevi.
  7. ↑ Isin, P. M. (2018). Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine. Storbritannien: Reaktion Books.
    Sources
    • Alderson, Anthony Dolphin. The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. — Oxf.: Clarendon Press, 1956.
    • Mandel, Gabriele. Storia dell'harem. — Rusconi, 1992. — 246 p. — ISBN 8818880322, 9788818880328.
    • Leslie Peirce. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. — Oxford University Press, 1993. — ISBN 0-19-508677-5.
    • Yavuz Bahadıroğlu. Resimli Osmanlı Tarihi. — Nesil Yayınları, 2009. — ISBN 978-975-269-299-2.
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