When an Ottoman prince was sent out to a sanjak, he usually travelled with his lala, his tutors and his scribes, and very often with his mother as well. The daily order of the princely household, the young governor's health and upbringing, and the women who served around him were all in her care. Once succession struggles began, a mother's fate was tied to her son's: if he reached the throne she became the most influential woman in the palace, and if he did not she faced exile, poverty or mourning. From the middle of the fifteenth century to the middle of the sixteenth, Amasya was a princely sanjak where this kind of life was lived for longer than almost anywhere else, and the traces of the women who stayed in its princely palace can still be followed in the city's neighbourhoods, endowments and documents.

The Mother's Place in the Sanjak

Until the mid-sixteenth century Amasya was one of the main centres to which princes of the Ottoman dynasty were sent to gain administrative experience. Beginning with Çelebi Mehmed, Murad II, Mehmed the Conqueror and Bayezid II all served here as sanjak governors; later Bayezid II's son Şehzade Ahmed and Süleyman the Magnificent's sons Mustafa and Bayezid held the same post. Because the sanjak lay close to the eastern frontier, it fed the belief that success won along the border would count in the race for the throne. A prince sent to Amasya therefore tended to regard himself as the strongest candidate.

For a prince who sometimes arrived at barely more than a child's age, having his mother beside him was both a practical and a political necessity. The order of the harem, the relationships around her son and the balance of power within the palace were entrusted to her. The prince grew up far from his father and out of sight of the capital, and his mother acted as a kind of quiet deputy, following events on his behalf and writing to the capital when needed. The princely palace itself was not an imposing building. Dernschwam, who came to Amasya in 1555 with the Austrian embassy, describes it as a plain, single-storey brick building with gardens around it, standing at the foot of the mountain; Süleyman was staying there at the time. Very different women's lives passed through this modest house.

Gülbahar Hatun

Her Entry into the Palace and Her Origins

Little is known about the life of Gülbahar Hatun, mother of Bayezid II. She is said to have entered the Ottoman palace in 1446 and is rumoured to have been of Albanian, Serbian or French origin, but none of this is supported by documents. A deed of July 1468, drawn up in Amasya for the sale of a property in the Veled-i Kuzgun quarter, gives her name as "Gülbahar bint Abdullah." The patronymic "Abdullah" was a generic one given to converts to Islam, and it suggests that she was brought to the palace as a captive or concubine. When she was introduced to Prince Mehmed, and when she became his wife, is not known either. Since she bore Bayezid in Dimotika in 1448, the relationship is thought to have begun after 1446, when Mehmed's father Murad II summoned him back from Manisa.

Her Years in Amasya

Nothing is recorded of Gülbahar Hatun after Mehmed's accession in 1451 and the conquest of Istanbul in 1453; she most probably stayed in Edirne with her son for a time. When Bayezid, barely seven years old, was sent to the sanjak of Amasya in 1455 or 1456, his mother set out with him. Some studies give the same appointment as 1454-1455 and put Bayezid's age at nine, so the sources do not fully agree on the date. Gülbahar Hatun is known to have been present at Bayezid's circumcision festivities in Edirne in 1457. After that she lived in Amasya until 1481, a span calculated at between 25 and 27 years.

In these years she also appears as a woman with property of her own. During the Trebizond campaign of 1461, Mehmed granted her a village in Amasya as freehold. She is known to have held endowments in Tokat and Amasya, and she is recorded as assigning part of her own property to nearby foundations. In a decree of November 1479 Mehmed states that most of the property in the region had passed into her possession contrary to law, says it should be distributed as timars, and asks that a cebelü be levied in place of her share of the holdings. A political tension lies behind the order. Amasya was the gathering place of those who opposed Mehmed, and the sultan's attitude shows the distance he kept from his son Bayezid and from Bayezid's mother.

As Valide in Istanbul

When Bayezid came to the throne in 1481, Gülbahar Hatun went to Istanbul. The title of valide sultan had not yet become a formal office; some researchers note that it was first used by Hafsa Sultan, mother of Süleyman I. Even so, her influence steadily grew and she evidently took part in affairs of state. In one of two surviving letters to her son she advises against Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha, and in the other she recommends Ayas Pasha, Bayezid's lala, and Hızırbeyoğlu Mehmed Pasha. The letters show that Bayezid valued his mother's word.

After about eleven years as a powerful presence in the palace, Gülbahar Hatun died in 1492. Her tomb stands in the courtyard of the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul, opposite the tomb of Mehmed the Conqueror; damaged in the earthquake of 1766, it was rebuilt in 1767-1768. Besides Bayezid II she was the mother of Gevherhan Sultan, who was married into the Aqquyunlu house. The Hatuniye complex in Tokat is one of the endowment buildings her son had made in her name, and it is counted among the largest complexes built for women of the dynasty in Tokat and Trabzon. Whether the Gülbahar Hatun Mescidi in Edirne, whose inscription of 1451 survives, belonged to her is unknown.

Ayşe Hatun, Mother of Selim

Another important woman of Amasya's princely palace was the mother of Selim the Grim. Selim was born in Amasya in 1470, when his father Bayezid was sanjak governor. The sources give his mother's name differently. The sixteenth-century historian Cenabî calls her Ayşe Hatun and describes her as a daughter of the Dulkadirid ruler Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey. According to the account, the Dulkadirid notables took refuge with Prince Bayezid in Amasya after Şehsuvar Bey was put to death, and Alaüddevle gave his daughter to Bayezid there; the marriage took place around 1467. Some sources give the same woman the name "Gülbahar," but Feridun Emecen writes that this naming amounts to no more than an attribution, while the name Ayşe Hatun is stated explicitly by Cenabî. The occasional confusion of two women called Gülbahar Hatun is one reason for the uncertainty.

Ayşe Hatun went with Selim when he was sent to the sanjak of Trabzon, and she died around 1505, years before her son took the throne. For that reason she never served as valide in Istanbul. The complex and tomb in Trabzon were built in her name. It is also reported that for a time in Amasya the two women, Bayezid's mother Gülbahar Hatun and Selim's mother, lived together as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

Bülbül Hatun

Entering the Harem and Her Children

Bülbül Hatun's origins are unknown. Since the consorts of the dynasty were by custom chosen from among concubines, she is thought to have entered the palace by that route. She joined Bayezid II's harem while he was still a prince and governor of Amasya, and she had three children. Hatice Sultan was born in Amasya in 1463 and Hundi Sultan around 1464; her son Şehzade Ahmed was born in the same city around 1466. Hatice Sultan married the professor Kara Mustafa Pasha and was widowed in 1483, when her husband was executed on the charge of supporting Prince Cem's claim. Hundi Sultan married Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha in 1484.

Ahmed came to be regarded as his father's favourite prince. He was sent to Çorum in 1480 and then to the sanjak of Amasya, and Bülbül Hatun stayed at her son's side. Ahmed's sanjak was closer to Istanbul than those of his brothers, which gave him a real advantage in the race for the throne. In Bayezid's last years Ahmed is said to have been treated as heir, though not officially. This gave Bülbül Hatun a political weight of her own.

The Hatuniye Mosque and Its Complex

Bülbül Hatun's most visible mark on Amasya is the Hatuniye Mosque of 1510. It stands on the north bank of the Yeşilırmak in the Hatuniye quarter, and was built together with a primary school and a soup kitchen. To its east is the Enderun Mosque, a Danishmendid work, and to its west the Seljuk-period Yıldız Bath (Çukur Hamam). The Amasya historian Hüseyin Hüsameddin records that the school was of solid masonry and was still used for the same purpose in 1882, and that the soup kitchen had large dining rooms on either side. The plain building to the east of the mosque may be this school.

The mosque lies behind a small courtyard entered through a round-arched gate and reached by descending steps. In the courtyard, within a pointed-arched niche, are a fountain with a reservoir and a latrine; old photographs also show a well. The mosque consists of two small domes, of different sizes, set one behind the other on the same axis, flanked by lower cross-vaulted bays. The side walls of the five-domed porch are extended, and the minaret stands on the right, attached to the building. The rubble-stone walls are plastered, and the dentil eaves are of brick. The mosque measures 15.70 by 12.20 metres inside, and its walls, a metre thick, were reinforced up to the level of the upper windows against floods from the Yeşilırmak, reaching 2.50 metres. In place of the inscription over the door, an Arabic phrase was painted in black oil paint on a yellow ground in 1980. This plan type is found in places such as Bursa, Alaşehir, Manisa and Dimotika in the fifteenth century, and occasionally in Istanbul in the sixteenth.

Ladik, the Endowments and Bursa

Bülbül Hatun did not confine herself to Amasya. In Ladik, a district of Amasya, she had a mosque, a soup kitchen and a bath built; in Amasya she built a fountain in addition to the mosque and school. She is also recorded as founding a madrasa in Bursa and endowing it. According to Ahmet Gündüz's study of the endowment deeds, Bülbül Hatun dedicated all her property to the upkeep of her charitable foundations in Amasya and Ladik, and set out how the endowment would run in two deeds, dated 1511 and 1513. The deeds list the endowed properties, the number of staff, their duties and wages, and the people who were to be fed at the soup kitchen. Some sources add that in 1505 she also assigned part of her property to the Enderun Mosque.

One researcher makes a striking observation about the management of the endowment. As trustee, Bülbül Hatun named first her son Ahmed, then after his death Ahmed's eldest daughter and that daughter's own daughters. This arrangement has been read as a precaution against the possibility that Ahmed would fail to reach the throne. If the reading is right, it shows a prince's mother who was at once a benefactor and a politician who planned ahead.

In his struggle with his brother Selim, Ahmed took Konya, but he was defeated near Yenişehir on 24 April 1513, captured and executed soon afterwards. His son Şehzade Osman was also killed in Amasya in April of the same year and was buried at the Sultan Bayezid Mosque. After this catastrophe Bülbül Hatun went to Bursa. When she died around 1515 she was buried in the octagonal tomb that Selim the Grim had built for Ahmed within the Muradiye complex. It is also recorded that she secured the pardon of her granddaughter Fatma Sultan and Fatma's husband Mehmed Çelebi, who had been placed under house arrest in 1513 for Qizilbash leanings; it is one of the few details showing that a mother who had lost her son could still make her voice heard before the new sultan.

Mahidevran Sultan

The woman who paid the heaviest price for being a prince's mother in Amasya was Mahidevran, mother of Süleyman the Magnificent's son Şehzade Mustafa. Mahidevran had entered the harem at Manisa while Süleyman was still a prince; she took this name after bearing Mustafa in 1515 and became Süleyman's first favourite. When Süleyman took the throne in 1520 she came to Istanbul with her son. Hürrem Sultan's rise in the palace, the new sons she gave the sultan and Mahidevran's fall from favour unsettled Mustafa's position. In 1534 Mustafa was sent to Manisa as governor of Saruhan and his mother went with him. He spent eight years there and left a good impression among the people.

On 21 Safer 948 (16 June 1541), through Hürrem Sultan's intervention, he was removed from this sanjak near the capital and sent to Amasya. In both Manisa and Amasya his mother was always at his side. In a report of 1553 the Venetian ambassador Bernardo Navagero describes Mahidevran's efforts to protect her son and speaks of the prince's boundless love for his mother. From Amasya Mustafa repeatedly petitioned his father for permission to come to Istanbul and apologise; none of his petitions, including his letter of complaint of 27 January 1551, received a favourable answer. During preparations for the Iranian campaign, when Rüstem Pasha reported that the prince was preparing to seize the throne, Süleyman obtained a fatwa from the mufti Ebüssuûd Efendi and decided to have his son killed. On 6 October 1553, in the camp near Konya Ereğlisi, Şehzade Mustafa was strangled in his father's tent. His body was sent to Bursa.

According to a document in the Bursa court registers, Mahidevran was exiled from Amasya to Bursa with a retinue of eight or ten people. Her pasmaklık revenues were cut, and for about ten years she could not pay the rent of the house in which she lived and fell into debt. After Hürrem Sultan's death in 1558 Süleyman had her debts paid through the Bursa judge and granted her an allowance; the following year he had a house bought for her. The Mustafa-i Cedid Tomb was built over Mustafa's grave in the Muradiye complex (1573), and Mahidevran endowed two mills and one hundred thousand silver dirhams for its upkeep. She died on 3 February 1581 and was buried beside her son. Her origins are also disputed; some sources call her Circassian, others Albanian, Crimean or Montenegrin. In some sources her name is also given as Gülbahar.

The End of the Sanjak System

After Şehzade Mustafa was put to death, the princely sanjaks nearer Istanbul grew in importance, and Amasya, far from the capital, lost its standing. From the mid-sixteenth century the city was governed by sanjak governors appointed from the centre, and Manisa came to the fore as the princely sanjak. The arrival of princes' mothers in Amasya thus came to an end as well. Even so, the Hatuniye Mosque, Bülbül Hatun's endowments and the grave of Şehzade Osman in the Sultan Bayezid Mosque remain standing for anyone who wants to follow the traces these women left in Amasya. Gülbahar Hatun's deeds in Amasya, Bülbül Hatun's endowment deeds and the record of Mahidevran's exile form the documented part of their lives; the rest is rumour and conjecture.

Chronology

1446: Gülbahar Hatun is thought to have entered the Ottoman palace.

1448: Bayezid is born in Dimotika.

1455 or 1456: Bayezid is sent to Amasya as sanjak governor; Gülbahar Hatun goes with him (1454-1455 in some studies).

1461: During the Trebizond campaign, Mehmed the Conqueror grants Gülbahar Hatun a village in Amasya as freehold.

1463-1466 (approximately): Bülbül Hatun's children Hatice, Hundi and Ahmed are born in Amasya.

1468: The deed naming "Gülbahar bint Abdullah" is drawn up in Amasya.

1470: Selim is born in Amasya.

1479: Mehmed the Conqueror issues a decree concerning Gülbahar Hatun's property around Tokat and Amasya.

1481: Bayezid takes the throne; Gülbahar Hatun goes to Istanbul.

1492: Gülbahar Hatun dies and is buried in her tomb in the courtyard of the Fatih Mosque.

1510: Bülbül Hatun's Hatuniye Mosque is built in Amasya.

1511 and 1513: Bülbül Hatun's two endowment deeds are drawn up.

1513: Şehzade Ahmed is defeated at Yenişehir and executed.

1515 (approximately): Bülbül Hatun dies in Bursa and is buried in Şehzade Ahmed's tomb in the Muradiye complex.

16 June 1541: Şehzade Mustafa is sent to Amasya; his mother Mahidevran is with him.

6 October 1553: Şehzade Mustafa is killed near Konya Ereğlisi.

3 February 1581: Mahidevran dies in Bursa.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Online sources