Nevvare Hanım (; "''young blessing''" or "''young child''"; born Ayşe Çıhçı, after 1926 Nevvare Leyla Sönmezler; 4 May 1901 – 13 June 1992) was the fourth consort of Sultan

Mehmed VI Mehmed VI Vahideddin ( ''Meḥmed-i sâdis'' or ''Vaḥîdü'd-Dîn''; or /; 14 January 1861 – 16 May 1926), also known as ''Şahbaba'' () among the Osmanoğlu family, was the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire and the penultimate Ottoman Cal ...

of the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

Early life

Nevvare Hanım was born on 4 May 1901 in Derbent,

. Born as Ayşe Çıhçı, she was a member of Abkhazian noble family, Çıhçı. Her father was Mustafa Bey Çıhcı, and her mother was Hafize Hanım Kap-Ipha. As a young child, she had been sent to live-in Mehmed's Çengelköy mansion when he had been a prince, where after sometime she became a lady-in-waiting to her aunt

Müveddet Kadın Müveddet Kadın (; "''Duration''"; born Şadiye Çıhçı, after 13 June 1949 Müveddet Çiftçi; 12 October 1893 – 20 December 1951) was the third consort of Sultan Mehmed VI of the Ottoman Empire. Early life Müveddet Kadın was born o ...

. Here her name according to the custom of the Ottoman court was Nevvare. She was also a close friend of princess

Leyla Achba Leyla Gülefşan Achba (10 August 1898 – 6 November 1931) was an Abkhazian princess. She was a lady-in-waiting to Nazikeda Kadın, wife of Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. She is known for writing memoirs, which give det ...

. Nevvare was very beautiful and tall, with green eyes and long black hair.

First marriage

Mehmed noticed Nevvare among the ladies of Müveddet and fell in love with her. Nevvare married Mehmed on 20 June 1918 in the

Dolmabahçe Palace Dolmabahçe Palace ( ) is a 19th-century imperial palace located in Istanbul, Turkey, along the European shore of the Bosporus, which served as the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1887 and from 1909 to 1922. Histor ...

, although Müveddet was opposed in every way. Mehmed was fifty-seven, while Nevvare was seventeen years old. Nevvare remained childless. After Mehmed's accession to the throne on 4 July 1918, She was given the title of "Senior Ikbal", although she would have been entitled to the title of Third

Kadın Kadin or Kadın may refer to *KADIN, Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry *Kadin (name) *Kadın (title), for an imperial consort of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire *Kadin Island in southeastern Alaska *Kadin Jelovac, a village in Bosnia an ...

. He probably did not receive the title so as not to further offend Müveddet. She was given a mansion on the grounds of the Yıldız Palace. Her close friend Leyla described her as kind but very proud. After Mehmed's deposition in 1922, he was sent into exile in San Remo. She, like rest of the family members, was imprisoned in

Feriye Palace The Feriye Palace () is a complex of Ottoman imperial palace buildings along the European shoreline of the Bosphorus strait in Istanbul, Turkey. Currently, the buildings host educational institutions such as a high school and a university. Histo ...

. During their stay in the Feriye, Nevvare became so sick that she had to be taken to a hospital. She wasn't issued a passport, and it was decided that she should join the others once she felt a little better. Nevvare managed to sneak out disguised as

Kalfa Kalfa ( Turkish for 'apprentice, assistant master') was a general term in the Ottoman Empire for the women attendants and supervisors in service in the imperial palace. Novice girls had to await promotion to the rank of . It was a rank below th ...

. And so on 6 March 1924, her parents took her to her hometown in Derbent. After she regained her health, she wrote to the Sultan, and asked him for a divorce. And so she was granted divorce on 20 May 1924.

Second marriage

In 1926, Nevvare married a trader named Mevlüd Bey Sönmezler and changed her name to Leyla Hanım, in honor of her old friend Leyla Achba. They first settled in Ferenyolu, then in Derbent. In 1940, widowed, she settled in Şişli.

Death

In the 1970s she bought a house in Derbent, where she had been born, and lived there until her death. Nevvare died on 13 June 1992 at the age of ninety-one in Derbent, and was buried in a cemetery in Derbent.

References

Sources