Mihrengiz Kadın

Mihrengiz Kadın was born on 15 October 1869. Official records state that she was born in Adapazarı but Harun Açba believes that she was born in Sochi instead and that she had fled to the Ottoman Empire with her family during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Her real name was Fatma. In any case, she received a good education in the palace, where she learned to play the piano.{{cite book|author=M. Metin Hülagü|title=Yurtsuz İmparator: Vahdeddin : İngiliz gizli belgelerinde Vahdeddin ve Osmanlı hanedanı|year=2008|publisher=Timaş|isbn=978-975-263-690-3|page=351}} Mihrengiz had a brother named Ibrahim Bey, who served as the third chamberlain to the sultan.{{cite book|title=Toplumsal tarih|year=2003|publisher=Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı|page=10}}

Mihrengiz married Mehmed as his third consort, when he had been a prince, on 4 April 1887. After Sultan Abdul Hamid II's accession to the throne in 1876, Mehmed became the crown prince, after which they settled in the crown prince's apartments located in the Dolmabahçe Palace. On 2 March 1886, she gave birth to her only child, a son, Şehzade Ömer Hilmi.{{sfn|Brookes|2010|p=287}} On 27 April 1909, after Mehmed's accession to the throne,{{cite book|first=Suraiya|last=Faroqhi|title=The Cambridge History of Turkey|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2008|pages=79|isbn=978-0-521-62096-3}} she was given the title of "Third Kadın". At the end of 1909, after death of Dürriaden Kadın, she became "Second Kadın".{{sfn|Uluçay|2011|p=260}}

Safiye Ünüvar, a teacher at the Palace School, whom she met in 1915, noted in her memoirs that unlike the other wives, Mihrengiz was slim, while the others were quite heavier. This was because she had been suffering from illness from the past few years.{{sfn|Brookes|2010|p=208}}{{sfn|Sakaoğlu|2008|p=702}}

On 30 May 1918, Mihrengiz met with the Empress Zita of Bourbon-Parma in the harem of Yıldız Palace, when the latter visited Istanbul with her husband Emperor Charles I of Austria.{{cite book|first=Leyla|last=Açba|title=Bir Çerkes prensesinin harem hatıraları|year=2004|publisher=L & M|pages=56|isbn=978-9-756-49131-7}}

In 1912, the "Hilal-i Ahmer Centre for Women" was organized within the "Ottoman Hilal-i Ahmer Association", a foundation established in 1877 to provide medical care in Istanbul and surrounding communities.{{cite book|first1=Barton|last1=Hacker|first2=Margaret|last2=Vining|title=A Companion to Women's Military History|publisher=BRILL|date=August 17, 2012|pages=199|isbn=978-9-004-21217-6}} Mihrengiz was a member of this organization.{{cite book|author1=Ahmet Zeki İzgöer|author2=Ramazan Tuğ|title=Padişahın himayesinde Osmanlı Kızılay Cemiyeti 1911-1913 yıllığı|year=2013|publisher=Türkiye Kızılayı Derneği|isbn=978-605-5599-14-0|pages=49}}

In May 1915, Mihrengiz visited the soldiers at the Haydarpasha Hospital together with some other women from the imperial harem. During her visit she also addressed the soldiers:

{{quote|How are you, my soldier sons, my soldier brothers! What do you wish for? We are all at your service! If I knew how to bandage your wounds, I would pay great attention and devotion to you and circle around your head end like a capable nurse. You are very precious to us.{{cite book|first=Nicolina Anna Norberta Maria van|last=Os|title=Feminism, Philanthropy and Patriotism: Female Associational Life in the Ottoman Empire|publisher=Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS), Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University|date=2013-10-31|pages=438}}}}

After Mehmed's death, she settled with her son. At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Mihrengiz, her son, Ömer Hilmi and his two children, Emine Mukbile Sultan, and Şehzade Mahmud Namık, settled firstly in Beirut, Lebanon, then in Nice, France,{{cite book|first1=Ali|last1=Vâsıb|first2=Osman Selaheddin|last2=Osmanoğlu|title=Bir şehzadenin hâtırâtı: vatan ve menfâda gördüklerim ve işittiklerim|publisher=YKY|year=2004|pages=204, 210, 224|isbn=978-9-750-80878-4}} and finally settling in Alexandria, Egypt, where Ömer Hilmi died in 1935.{{sfn|Brookes|2010|p=287}} She died on 12 December 1938 at Alexandria at the age of sixty-nine, having outliving her son by three years. She was buried in the mausoleum of Khedive Tewfik Pasha in Cairo.{{sfn|Uluçay|2011|p=260}}

• Kadın (title)
• Ottoman Imperial Harem
• List of consorts of the Ottoman sultans

{{Reflist|2}}

• {{cite book|first=M. Çağatay|last=Uluçay|title=Padişahların kadınları ve kızları|year=2011|publisher=Ötüken|isbn=978-9-754-37840-5}}
• {{cite book|first=Necdet|last=Sakaoğlu|title=Bu Mülkün Kadın Sultanları: Vâlide Sultanlar, Hâtunlar, Hasekiler, Kandınefendiler, Sultanefendiler|publisher=Oğlak Yayıncılık|year=2008|isbn=978-6-051-71079-2}}
• {{cite book|first=Douglas Scott|last=Brookes|title=The Concubine, the Princess, and the Teacher: Voices from the Ottoman Harem|year=2010|publisher=University of Texas Press|isbn=978-0-292-78335-5}}

{{Ottoman Dynasty|state=collapsed}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mihrengiz Kadin}}

Category:1938 deaths

Category:19th-century consorts of Ottoman sultans

Category:20th-century consorts of Ottoman sultans