The Queen, or Prophetess -- for she is endowed with supernatural attributes -- is a little dark old woman of about sixty, with nothing of the amazon in her appearance, although she wears what seems to be intended for male attire, and bestrides her steed like the warriors of her train. She is attended by two handmaids, like herself in masculine costume, and was brought across the Bosphorus, with a select band of followers, to a species of barrack in Stamboul.Fatima Khanum arrived in Constantinople at the beginning of the Crimean war with a retinue of 300 horsemen "to request an audience with the padishah to show support and offer assistance." One German observer described her as having a "manly look". Fatima Khanum's exact dates appear uncertain, however, and scholar Michael Gunter has suggested that she fought in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877. In 1887 the Chicago Tribune described Kara Fatima as 'The Redoubtable female warrior of Kurdistan'. The newspaper notes that the Ottoman government provided her with a monthly stipend and describes her as 'tall, thin, with a brown, hawklike face; her cheeks are the colour of parchment, and her face is reamed with scars. Wearing the national dress of the sterner sex, she looks like a man of 40, not like a woman who will never again see 75.'
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kara Fatima Khanum Kurdish female military and paramilitary personnel Kurdish people from the Ottoman Empire Ottoman military personnel of the Crimean War Women from the Ottoman Empire in warfare People from Kahramanmaraş Kurdish people 19th-century people from the Ottoman Empire Women in 19th-century warfare