Amina Hanim

Amina Hanim was born in 1770 at Nikiforos, Rumelia. She was the daughter of Nusretli Ali Agha,{{cite web|title=His Highness Mehmet Ali Paşa, Vali of Misir (Egypt), Sudan, Filistin, Suriye, Hicaz, Mora, Taşoz and Girit|url=http://www.oocities.org/hazemsakr/royal/mehmetali.html|access-date=25 May 2019}} the governor of Kavala,{{sfn|Cuno|2015|p=31}} and relative of the Chorbashi.{{sfn|Sayyid-Marsot|1984|p=27}} She had two brothers, Mustafa Pasha, and Ali Pasha, and three sisters, Meryem Hanim, Pakiza Hanim, and Ifet Hanim.

Amina Hanim had been earlier married to Ali Bey.{{cite book|first=David B.|last=Rosten|title= The Last Cheetah of Egypt: A Narrative History of Egyptian Royalty from 1805 to 1953|publisher=iUniverse|date=December 3, 2015|isbn=978-1-491-77939-2}} However, their marriage was never consummated as her husband had died before the pair had cohabited.{{sfn|Sayyid-Marsot|1984|p=27}}

Amina Hanim married Muhammad Ali in 1787,{{cite book|title=Folia Orientalia, Volume 37|publisher=Państwowe Wydawn. Naukowe|year=2001|pages=61}}{{cite book|first=Khaled|last=Fahmy|title=Mehmed Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt|publisher=Oneworld Publications|date=December 1, 2012|isbn=978-1-780-74211-3}} long before he became the Viceroy of Egypt, and rising to the rank of Pasha. She gave birth to four sons who survived to adulthood, Ibrahim Pasha, Ahmad Tusun Pasha, Isma'il Kamil Pasha, Abd al-Halim Bey, and two daughters, Tawhida Hanim, and Khadija Nazli Hanim.{{sfn|Cuno|2015|p=31}} Muhammad Ali had a fondness for her, and treated her with respect.{{sfn|Sayyid-Marsot|1984|p=28}}

Amina Hanim did not accompany Muhammd Ali to Egypt, and after his appointment as viceroy in 1805, she and her daughters resided for a period of some two years in Istanbul, where they became thoroughly acquainted with imperial palace culture. Upon her arrival and installation in the Harem of the Muhammad Ali dynasty of the Citadel Palace in Cairo in 1808, Amina Hanim became estranged from Muhammad Ali due to the many slave concubines he had acquired.{{sfn|Cuno|2015|p=31}}

In 1814, Amina Hanim made a pilgrimage, moving from Jeddah to Mecca with a train of 500 camels carrying her servants, entourage and goods. She was met by Muhammad Ali at Mina, a stage in the pilgrimage, in a public acknowledgment of her status as first consort. Due to the grandeur of her train and guard, and the sumptuous of her tent, the local inhabitants are said to have called her "the Queen of the Nile."{{sfn|Cuno|2015|p=32}}

When her son Tusun Pasha died of plague at the age of 23 in 1816, Amina Hanim took his wife, Bamba Qadin, and her son Abbas, to live with her, and refused to be parted from him.{{cite book|first=Emine Foat|last=Tugay|title=Three Centuries: Family Chronicles of Turkey and Egypt|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1963|pages=115–16}}

Amina Hanim died in 1824,{{sfn|Cuno|2015|p=31}}{{cite book|first=Beshara|last=Doumani|title=Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property, and Gender|pages=257|publisher=SUNY Press|date=February 1, 2012|isbn=978-0-791-48707-5}} and was buried at Hosh al-Basha, the mausoleum of Imam-i Shafi'i in Cairo.

• Muhammad Ali Dynasty family tree

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{cite book|first=Kenneth M.|last=Cuno|title=Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology, and Law in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt|publisher=Syracuse University Press|date=April 1, 2015|isbn=978-0-815-65316-5}}
• {{cite book|first=Afaf Lutfi|last=Sayyid-Marsot|title=Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=January 12, 1984|isbn=978-0-521-28968-9}}

{{Muhammad Ali Dynasty}}

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Category:1770 births

Category:1824 deaths

Category:Muhammad Ali dynasty princesses

Category:19th-century Egyptian women

Category:19th-century Egyptian people

Category:Egyptian royalty

Category:Mothers of monarchs