Pertevniyal Sultan

Pertevniyal Sultan (, from the Persian compound پرتو + نهال partov-nihâl, literally "Descended from Radiance"; 1812 – 5 February 1883), was a consort of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, and Valide sultan (mother of Sultan) of Sultan Abdulaziz (r. 1861-1876). Early life The origin of Pertevniyal Sultan is disputed. She was of Romanian origin, but it was also written that she was Romanian, Circassian or Kurdish. Her birthname was Besime. She was rumoured to be close of Hoshiyar Qadin, the consort to Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt, and mother of his son Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879. She became a consort of Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II when he casually noticed her doing her job in one of the Costantinople's hammams, and was given the title of "Second Ikbal". She gave birth to her son Abdulaziz on 8 February 1830. Maybe she had a second son in 1833, Şehzade Nizameddin, but according to other sources he was instead the son of the consort Tiryal Hanım. As the mother of one of Mahmud's only two survived sons, she was promoted to the rank of "Fifth Kadin". As Valide Sultan Abdulaziz's accession The final illness of Sultan Abdulmejid I in 1861 started a spate of rumors that there was a group in the palace who wanted Murad to succeed to the throne instead of Abdulaziz. There seems to have been no truth in these allegations, but they nevertheless worried Abdulaziz and especially his mother, Pertevniyal. On the night when Abdulmejid died and the grand vizier, the kapudan pasha, and the commander-in-chief of the Army conducted Abdulaziz from the heir's suite to the ruler's suite in Dolmabahçe Palace, Pertevniyal thought they were taking him prisoner. They waited in the sultan's suite until the imperial cliques were ready, and then escorted Abdulaziz to Topkapı Palace, the palace of his forebears, to await the gathering of the council of ministers, some of whom had to be summoned from their homes up the Bosphorus. Pertevniyal, to reassure herself, followed him there.