Seljuki Khatun

Seljuki Khatun (Arabic: سلجوقي خاتون) or Saljuqi Khatun was a Seljuk Turkish princess of Rum, daughter of sultan Kilij Arslan II and wife of Abbasid caliph al-Nasir.

Biography

Seljuki Khatun was a daughter of sultan of Rum, Kilij Arslan II. She had eleven brothers,including future sultan Kaykhusraw I, and two older sisters. She spent her childhood at her father's court in Konya.

She married caliph al-Nasir (r. 1180–1225) in 1186. Right after her betrothal to him, he sent an escort to bring her to Baghdad, consummated the marriage, and gave her priceless jewels and gifts.

Seljuki died two years later in 1188. Caliph al-Nasir was so grief-stricken at her passing that he could not eat or drink for days. For many years her house was left just as it was, with all of its draperies and furnishings intact; it was never opened, nor was anything ever taken from it.

Sources

• El-Hibri, Tayeb (2021). The Abbasid Caliphate: A History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-18324-7.
• Ibn al-Sāʿī (2017). Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. Translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa and the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature. Introduction by Julia Bray. Foreword by Marina Warner. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-0477-1.
• Peacock, A.C.S.; Yildiz, Sara Nur (2015). The Seljuks of Anatolia: Court and Society in the Medieval Middle East. I.B. Tauris.