Rabia Sultan

Rabia Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: رابعه سلطان‎; before 1680 - 14 January 1712) was a consort to Sultan Ahmed II of the Ottoman Empire.

Biography

Rabia Sultan, whose original name is unknown, was captured during one of the raids by Tatars and sold into slavery. It were probably one of Ahmed's sisters, who gave Rabia to Ahmed as a concubine, as his own mother, Hatice Muazzez Sultan, had died before his accession to the throne. The women of the Ottoman sultan lived in the Imperial Harem, one of the most important elements of the Ottoman court. According to Ottoman tradition, she was given an Arabic name. Very little is known about Rabia Sultan, principally because neither sultans left sons who survived their father's death to reach the throne, thereby bringing their mothers to public attention as Valide Sultan.

On 6 October 1692 she gave birth to two sons, Şehzade Ibrahim and Şehzade Selim, followed by Asiye Sultan in 1693. After Ahmed's death in 1695, Rabia along with her daughter Asiye Sultan and other members of Ahmed's entourage were permanently exiled to the Old Palace. Her son, Şehzade Ibrahim, was given to the new Valide Emetullah Rabia Gülnuş Sultan.

Rabia Şermi Kadınefendi

Rabia Şermi Kadınefendi (née Ida) (ca. 1698 – 1732) was the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III and mother of Abdul Hamid I.

Râbi'a Şerm-î (Sharmî) was born as Ida in France or Circassia, initially the third and then the second French or Circassian spouse of Ottoman Sultan Ahmed III. She was the mother of Sultan Abdul Hamid I. However, she was never Valide Sultan to her son because she died in 1732, forty-two years before Sultan Abdul Hamid I's accession to the Ottoman throne. Her name "Şerm-î" "(Sharmî)" simply means "belonging to gift". All the remaining Ottoman Sultans are the descendants of Râbi'a Şerm-î (Sharmî) Kadın Effendi.

The burial place of Rabia Şermi is located inside the tomb of Turhan Hadice Valide Sultan, the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV, in Yeni Mosque, Eminönü, Istanbul.

See also

Further reading