Gulbahar Hatun

Real Life of Gulbahar Hatun

Biography of Bahar Khatun: Gulbahar Hatun or Emine Gulbahar Hatun is also known as Mukrime Hatun and Ottoman Turk. Walid of the Ottoman Empire as the first wife of Sultan Mehmed II and mother of Bayezid II 

Hatun was Gulbahar Hatun is a Turk by birth. She was the daughter of Hamza Bey or Halil Bey and the sister of Mustafa Pasha. Perhaps he was born in an ancient Tokat family. Because Bayezid built a mosque and school there in 1485 in his memory.

Marriage: Gulbahar married Sultan Mehmed II in 1446 when he was a prince and administrator of Amasya. His two children were Shahzada Bayzid (later Sultan Bayzid II) born in Demotica in 1447 and Shahzada Geverhan Hatun. who married Ughurlu Muhammad, son of Ak Koyunlu Sultan Uzun Hasan in 1474.

After Mehmed’s accession to Sison in 1451, Gulbahar accompanied him to Edorni. According to Turkish tradition, all princes were appointed as provincial administrators (sanjak-bey) as part of their training. In 1455 or 1456 Shahzada Bayzid was appointed administrator of Amasya and Gulbahar accompanied him where they both remained until 1481 except in 1457 when he came to the capital to attend the circumcision ceremony of his son Baizid.

Gulbahar was obviously quite concerned about his son’s future and with it his own property. In 1444 he took the revenues of a few villages and the fields of Inderun Masjid to secure his property. Among the properties taken was the village of Aghilchik, which was later converted into a village of Timeriots (Ottoman horse soldiers) during the land reform of 1479.

Mehmed Baglucha gave the village to Gulbahar in 1468. Six years later, in 1473, the Baizids sold the village to Tajeddin Bey, son of Hamza Bali (d. 1486), the court accountant. In 1478, probably due to the land reform, the exemption of this village was abolished and it was returned. This order was reissued a year later at the request of one Maulana Shemseddin Ahmed, according to which the village was no longer returned to Gulbahar Hatun and he was probably the victim of a legal dispute. 

Walid Khatun Rank:When Gulbahar Hatun’s son Baizid ascended the throne in 1481, Bahar Khatun was traditionally given the title of Walid Sultan (Walide Hatun), the highest honor in the royal family, which he retained until his death. With the Baizid’s ascension to power, Gulbahar Hatun played the equivalent role of a Walid Sultan as the title and duties of the Sultan’s mother in Ghadinasin were not officially defined at that time. The title Walid Sultan did not come into use at that time as the title Hatun was used for women in the Ottoman dynasty. 

Leslie P. According to Peirce, in the 16th century (during the reign of Suleiman I), the title sultan was replaced by the title sultan in the case of the walid, the sultan’s mother, the shahzadi, and the sultan’s chief consorts. As a result, the title Walid Hatun, a pre-sixteenth-century title used by the living mother of the Gdinasin sultan, was transformed into Walid Sultan, which Hafsa Sultan used first officially. Gulbahar Hatun and other members of the royal family all lived in the old palace, also known as Saray-ı Atık (Turkish: saray-ı atık), during the reign of his son Bayezid II.

A mother’s letter to her child: Sultan Bayezid II used to come to meet his mother who paid his respects to her at every meeting. In one incident Gulbahar wrote in a letter to his son complaining about his son’s irregular visits:

My goodness, I miss you, if you don’t miss me, I miss you too… Come and see me. My dear King, if you soon set out on your expedition, come at least once or twice so that I may catch a glimpse of your blessed face before you go. It’s been forty days since I last saw you. My Sultan, please forgive my fearlessness. Who else do I have but you…?

Gulbahar had considerable influence over Bayezid as he had a good understanding of the situation of some state diplomats.  Bayezid also gave importance to his mother’s words. In one of Gulbahar’s letters to Bayezid, he advises Bayezid against Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha but his teachers Ayaz Pasha and Hijirbeoglu Mehmed Pasha. In 1485, Bayezid endowed a mosque and a school in Tokat in memory of his mother Gulbahar Hatun. Read Urdu Articles

Death: Gulbahar Hatun died in 1492 and was buried in the Fatih Mosque in Istanbul.

In the 2012 film, Fetih 1453, Gulbahar Hatun was played by Turkish actress Shahika Koldemir.

In the 2012 Turkish series Fatih, Gulbahar Hatun was played by Turkish actress Seda Akman. Read More History