Åživekar Sultan

Åživekar Sultan (; died 1693) was the seventh Haseki of Sultan Ibrahim I (reign 16401648) of the Ottoman Empire.

Life

She was of Armenian descent. Her real name was Maria, and she was the daughter of a wealthy Armenian merchant.

Şivekar Sultan was morbidly obese. In 1646, Ibrahim appointed his servants to look for the "fattest woman" in Constantinople. Upon this order, they started to search for palace officials and eventually found an Armenian woman in Üsküdar. Maria became his consort and he gave her the name ''Şivekar'', meaning "flirty". She was then given the title of Seventh Haseki. She had a good relation with Cinci Hoca Pasha and later with the Eighth Haseki Hümaşah Sultan.

She was politically active during Ibrahim's last years. Ibrahim soon became mentally ill, and Åživekar helped sooth his tensions. She was among the strongest consorts of Ibrahim in the Ottoman Harem's politics. She gave birth to a son, named Åžehzade Cihangir, in 1646, who died in infancy. In addition, all Damascus revenues were donated to Åživekar Sultan.

After Ibrahim's deposition in 1648 she moved to the old palace along with other consorts of Ibrahim, when she died in 1693.

According to some source, in 1647 Şivekar was responsible for the death of all the members of Ibrahim's harem. Şivekar spread the gossip that one of the Sultan's concubines had been in an affair with an outsider of the palace. Ibrahim believed her and tortured many members of the harem to say a name, but to no avail. Ibrahim ordered that all two hundred eighty of his low-ranked concubines be put in sacks and thrown in the Bosporus. He only spared his Haseki Sultans. Only one concubine was saved by a passing ship. Kösem Sultan was furious when she knew about the incident, and summoned Şivekar to her rooms where she would have dinner with Kösem. Kösem killed Şivekar by poisoning her and told an inconsolable Ibrahim that Şivekar died of natural causes.

However, It seems that this story, whose source is in any case unreliable, actually concerns another woman of the harem Şekerpare Hatun, and it is denied by many historians, who argue that Kösem, if she was really behind the woman's death, may have poisoned her rather for her influence on Ibrahim and the threat to her own power, as she risked raising the son against the mother.

Åživekar Sultan founded some foundations and vakfs in her lifetime.

Today, she is buried inside the Ibrahim I Mausoleum at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Issue

By Ibrahim, Åživekar Sultan had a son:

* Şehzade Cihangir (14 December 1646 – 1 December 1648). Born and died in Topkapi Palace, Constantinople.

In popular culture

*In the 2015 Turkish historical fiction TV series '' Muhteşem Yüzyıl: Kösem'', Şivekar Sultan is portrayed by Turkish actress Gümeç Alpay Aslan.

References

Sources

*
*
*
*

{{authority control
17th-century deaths
17th-century consorts of Ottoman sultans
People from the Ottoman Empire of Armenian descent
Burials at Hagia Sophia
Concubines of Ottoman sultans
Royal favourites
Haseki Sultan