Ayşe Sultan (Haseki of Osman II)

Ayşe Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: عایشه سلطان; "the living one" or "womanly", died c. 1640) was a consort of Sultan Osman II of the Ottoman Empire.[1][2][3]

Ayşe Sultan
Haseki Sultan of the Ottoman Empire
(Imperial Consort)
Tenurec. 1619 – 20 May 1622
PredecessorKösem Sultan
SuccessorAyşe Sultan
Diedc. 1640
Topkapı Palace, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire
ConsortOsman II
Names
Turkish: Ayşe Sultan
Ottoman Turkish: عایشه سلطان
HouseHouse of Osman (by marriage)

Life edit

Her name appears in privy purse registers from 1619 on,[4] but nothing is known about her except her name.[3][1] Her origin is unknown, but the consorts of the Ottoman sultans were by custom normally concubines who came to the Ottoman Imperial harem via the Ottoman slave trade.[5]

According to Peirce, Ayşe was Osman's haseki sultan. But according to Piterberg, Osman II did not have a haseki and Ayşe was just "a politically insignificant consort." Even though her status was debatable, it is clear that Ayşe could not become a prominent female figure like other haseki sultans, so much so that, during his reign, Osman II favored other concubines over her, for example Meylişah Hatun, who bore him his firstborn, Şehzade Ömer. Also, a governess (daye hatun, lit. wet-nurse) who was appointed as a stand-in valide, could not counterbalance the contriving of Mustafa I's mother in the Old Palace. This condition made the conspious absence of a female power basis in the harem during her spouse's reign, the basic and exceptional weakness from which Osman II suffered.[6]

After Osman's death in 1622 she stayed in the Old Palace.[1] Privy Purse records her presence lastly in 1640.[4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c Peirce 1993, p. 106.
  2. ^ Gabriel Piterberg (2003). An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. University of California Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-0-520-93005-6.
  3. ^ a b Uluçay 2011, p. 88.
  4. ^ a b Peirce 1993, p. 311.
  5. ^ Peirce, Leslie (1993). The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-508677-5.
  6. ^ Piterberg, Gabriel (2003). An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play. California: University of California Press. p. 18. ISBN 0-520-23836-2.

Sources edit

Ottoman royalty
Preceded by Haseki Sultan
January 1620 – 20 May 1622
Succeeded by