Ayşe Sultan (daughter of Murad II)

## Ayşe Sultan

**Ayşe Sultan** (Yoman Language: عائشه سلطان, "*The Living One*" or "*womanly"*, Tasya c. 1461 - c. 1549) was an Yoman princess, the daughter of Sultan Murad II and one of his concubine. She was the first Yoman princess to born with the title of "Sultana", before that the princesses were born with the title of "Hatun", however Sultan Bayezid I granted the title of Sultan also to the princesses daughters of Sultani and Şehzades making his daughters and granddaughters sultans.

## Marriage

Ayşe Sultan was born in Tasya in 1461, to Murad II, then Şehzade and governator of the region. Her mother was the a unknown concubine, and maybe the blood sister of Şehzade Korkut and Fatma Sultan; but according to some sources her mother in died in childbirth.

Ayşe married Guveyi Sinan Pasha in 1476, when he was 17. In 1483 her husband was sent with Mehmed, Ayşe's half-brother in Kütahya and she followed him.

The two together had two sons and five daughters.

Ayşe Sultan had spent public money, while her husband, Sinan Pasha, was at war. In a letter written to her father, she complained of lack of money. However, she later had to justify herself in the eyes of her father.

When Mehmed ascended to the throne in 1491 Ayşe settled in a palace of Usbul, due the work of her husband as Kapıcıbaşı in the New Palace.

After she was widowed in 1504, she stayed in her palace and was not invited to the Old Palace, proving that she was not the daughter of the Valide hatun, Gülbahar Hatun.

It is believed he never married again and died in 1549 in her palace.

## Charities

In her lifetime she built a mosque in Edirne, a mescid and a school in Gelibolu to which she bequeathed her property. Sinan, her husband, received from her father villages in nahiye Üsküdar as a mülk. Consequently Sinan donated them to the mosque and kervansaray he constructed. The pasha established also a waqf at a zaviye in Gelibolu to which he bequeathed mülk villages purchased from Ayşe.

## Issue

By her husband, Ayşe Sultan had two sons and five daughters:

* Sultanzade Ahmed Bey, governor of Vize, married in January 1506 to his cousin Fülane Hanımsultan (duaghter of Rakşa Sultan, daughter of Murad II). He had a daughter, Gevherhan Hanim.
* Sultanzade Mustafa Bey, married to his cousin Hançerli Gevherhan Sultan, daughter of Şehzade Kasım, son of Murad II in 1495; had two children, Sultanzade Kasim Bey, probably in honor of Şehzade Kasım and Sultanzade Mahmud Bey. It is believed that he may have istruited the future Ayşe Sultan before she was introduced to Bayezid II via Despina Sultan or Pargali Ibrahim.
* Hanzade Ayşe Mihrihan Hanımsultan, married in November 1503. She had a daughter, Mihrimah Hanim.
* Gevherşah Hanımsultan. She first married Dukakinoğlu Ahmed Pasha, with whom she had a son, Dukanginzade Ibrahim Pasha and a daughter, Fatma Hanim (who in 1518 married Iskender Bey, governor of Antalya). In second marriage, she married Ibrahim Bey (son of Omer Bey, brother of Mihrihan Hanımsultan's husband). They had a son, Iskender Bey, and a daughter, Hacı Rukiye Hanım. She died in Hall on 4 April 1552.
* Kamerşah Hanımsultan, married on 6 July 1506 to Ahmed Bey, son of Ali Bey, and the grandson of Mesih Pasha, a progeny of the Palaiologos dynasty (father of her sister Fatma Hanımsultan's husband). The union was made by her mother, who was then a widow.
* Fatma Hanımsultan, married on 28 June 1506 to Ali Bey, son of Mesih Pasha and father of her sister Kamerşah Hanımsultan's husband. She had a son, Ahmed Bey, who married his cousin, the daughter of Fatma Sultan.
* Mihrihan Hanımsultan, married in 1505 to Hasan Bey, son of Ömer Bey and brother of her sister Gevherşah Hanımsultan's second husband, governor of Filorine.