Behice Sultan


Behice Sultan was an Ottoman princess, daughter of Sultan Abdulmejid I and Nesrin Hanım. She was the half-sister of Sultans Murad V, Abdul Hamid II, Mehmed V, and Mehmed VI.

Early life

Behice Sultan was born on 26 August 1848 in the Old Çırağan Palace. Her father was Sultan Abdulmejid I, and her mother was Nesrin Hanım, the daughter of Manuçar Asemiani and Mahra Hanım. She was the twenty-first child and fourteenth daughter of her father and second child of her mother. She had three brothers, Şehzade Mehmed Ziyaeddin, two years elder then her,, and two younger twin brother Şehzade Mehmed Nizameddin and Şehzade Mehmed Bahaeddin, two years younger then her.

Marriage

Engagement

Behice Sultan had been in love with Hamid Bey, the son of Mehmed Nurullah Bey, and the grandson of Grand Vizier Halil Hamid Pasha. And so in 1875, her uncle, Sultan Abdulaziz betrothed her to him.

Illness

took its victims in the palace as elsewhere in the nineteenth century. There is extant a touching letter to Behice from one Feleksu Kalfa, herself sick with malaria. The time of Behice's marriage was approaching, and Feleksu was happy for her that she would be going to her own palace, but at the same time, Feleksu worried about Behice's health. "You will be going to the country," she wrote, "where Pertev Kalfa knows many medicines." Behice was thought to be well enough to be married.

Wedding

Abdulaziz had ordered her trousseaux; however, he died in June 1876, and was thus unable to address any more issues regarding to her wedding, which, in turn, got further delayed because of the death of her younger half-brother Şehzade Burhaneddin in November 1876. Finally, the wedding took place on 4 December 1876, during the reign of her elder half-brother Sultan Abdul Hamid II. The couple were given a palace at Kuruçeşme, on the Bosphorus.

Death

Behice Sultan died of tuberculosis a mere two weeks after her wedding, on 21 December 1876. She was buried in the mausoleum of Gülüstü Hanım located at Fatih Mosque, Istanbul.

Ancestry