Nilüfer Hatun (, ''water lily'', called also Lülüfer Hatun or Ülüfer Hatun, died 1363), was a concubine of

Orhan Orhan Ghazi (; , also spelled Orkhan; died 1362) was the second sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1323/4 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman I. In the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering mos ...

, the second Ottoman sultan, and the mother of

Murad I Murad I (; ), nicknamed ''Hüdavendigâr'' (from – meaning "Head of state, sovereign" in this context; 29 June 1326 – 15 June 1389) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1362 to 1389. He was the son of Orhan Gazi and Nilüfer Hatun. Mura ...

, Orhan's successor. She was the first slave of Christian origin to become the mother of an Ottoman Sultan.

Biography

Nilüfer Hatun was an enslaved concubine of

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

origins, who entered Orhan's

harem A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic Domestic worker, servants, and other un ...

in 1325, where she was converted to Islam and given the

name A name is a term used for identification by an external observer. They can identify a class or category of things, or a single thing, either uniquely, or within a given context. The entity identified by a name is called its referent. A person ...

Nilüfer. The following year, she bore Orhan a son, the future

. After 1331, she was transferred to Iznik together with her son. In March 1362, Orhan died and was succeeded as sultan by Nilüfer's son, Murad I. Nilüfer, thus, became the first woman of Christian slave origins to be the mother of an

Ottoman sultan The sultans of the Ottoman Empire (), who were all members of the Ottoman dynasty (House of Osman), ruled over the Boundaries between the continents, transcontinental empire from its perceived inception in 1299 to Dissolution of the Ottoman Em ...

and the first Valide Hatun 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 ...

. During her lifetime, Nilüfer commissioned the construction of an imaret, an

hammam A hammam (), also often called a Turkish bath by Westerners, is a type of steam bath or a place of public bathing associated with the Islamic world. It is a prominent feature in the culture of the Muslim world and was inherited from the model ...

, a

caravanserai A caravanserai (or caravansary; ) was an inn that provided lodging for travelers, merchants, and Caravan (travellers), caravans. They were present throughout much of the Islamic world. Depending on the region and period, they were called by a ...

and eighteen other buildings for various uses, especially charitable. The date of Nilüfer's death is not known with certainty and is variously estimated between 1363 and 1383. She died in

Bursa Bursa () is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the Marmara Region, Bursa is one of the industrial centers of the country. Most of ...

and was buried in the same city, in the Orhan's

türbe ''Türbe'' refers to a Muslim mausoleum, tomb or grave often in the Turkish-speaking areas and for the mausolea of Ottoman sultans, nobles and notables. A typical türbe is located in the grounds of a mosque or complex, often endowed by the ...

. In 1388, Murad I commissioned the construction of the Nilüfer Hatun Imaret, at Iznik, dedicated to his mother's memory and financed by her ''

waqf A (; , plural ), also called a (, plural or ), or ''mortmain'' property, is an Alienation (property law), inalienable charitable financial endowment, endowment under Sharia, Islamic law. It typically involves donating a building, plot ...

'' inheritance. Originally a convent for dervishes, it was restored in 1950 and opened to the public in 1960 as the Iznik Museum.

Issue

By Orhan, Nilüfer had a son: *

(1326-1389). Sultan of the Ottoman Empire after his father.

Historical controversies

The traditional narrative on Nilüfer is extremely confusing and conflicting because, being the mother of a reigning sultan but of slave origins, subsequent historians took care to "ennoble" her, attributing origins and stories to her that were actually fictitious or concerning other consorts of Orhan, a process involving several Ottoman consorts over the centuries. An example of this is the way in which Nilüfer was described as a Byzantine noblewoman named Holofira, daughter of the ''

tekfur ''Tekfur'' () was a title used in the late Seljuk and early Ottoman periods to refer to independent or semi-independent minor Christian rulers or local Byzantine governors in Asia Minor and Thrace. Origin and meaning The origin of the title is ...

'' of

Bilecik Bilecik is a city in northwestern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the seat of Bilecik Province and Bilecik District. a narrative that actually merges the stories of the Orhan's consorts Bayalun and Asporça: in fact, the abduction of Bilecik's daughter occurred in 1299, more than twenty years before Nilüfer's entry into the harem. Likewise, tradition wrote that Nilüfer was the consort of Orhan whom

ibn Battuta Ibn Battuta (; 24 February 13041368/1369), was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar. Over a period of 30 years from 1325 to 1354, he visited much of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, Ibn ...

met in Bursa in 1331, while this woman was, again, Bayalun or Asporça. An other example is the fact that tradition attributed to Nilüfer the motherhood of Süleyman (1306-1357), the eldest and favorite of Orhan's sons and his presumptive heir until his death in 1357, in a hunting accident. In reality, Süleyman was the son of the consort Efendize Hatun and was born in 1306, twenty years before the appearance of Nilüfer in the harem and the birth of Murad I.

Biography

Issue

Historical controversies

See also

Notes and references

Further reading