Şayeste Hanım

Şayeste Hanım ([ʃa̟jestʰe hanɯm]; Ottoman Turkish: شائسته خانم‎; c. 1836 – 11 February 1912) was the seventeenth wife of Sultan Abdulmejid I of the Ottoman Empire.

Şayeste Hanım was born in 1836 in Sukhumi, Abkhazia. She was a member of the Abkhazian princely family, Inalipa. Her father was Prince Tatash Bey Inalipa, and her mother was Sarey Hanım. She had three sisters, Princess Fatma Mihrifelek Hanım, Princess Hüsnidil Hanım, and Princess Faruhan Hanım. She was the maternal aunt of Bedrifelek Kadın, second wife of Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

Both of her parents died when she was a child. She had been brought to Istanbul, where her uncle entrusted her and her sister, Fatma Mihrifelek Hanım, to the imperial harem. Her name was changed according to the custom of the Ottoman court to Şayeste.

Şayeste married Abdulmejid in 1852. She was given the title of "Seventh Fortunate". A year after the marriage, on 3 February 1853, she gave birth to her first child, a stillborn son.

In 1853, she was elevated to the title of "Sixth Fortunate", in 1854, she was elevated to the title of "Fourth Fortunate", and in 1856, she was elevated to the title of "Third Fortunate". On 1 September 1856, she gave birth to her second child, a daughter, Naile Sultan.

In 1858-59, she commissioned a mosque in Üsküdar. She was widowed at Abdulmejid's death on 25 June 1861.

After Gülüstü Hanım's death in 1865, four-year-old Şehzade Mehmed Vahideddin (future Mehmed VI) was entrusted in her care. The prince had a rough time with his overbearing stepmother, and at the age of 16 he left his stepmother's mansion with the three servants who had been serving him since childhood.

In 1876, Şayeste married her daughter, Naile Sultan to a relative of hers named Çerkeş Mehmed Paşa. Naile died four years later on 7 January 1882 at the age of 25. After Naile's death, Mehmed Pasha married Esma Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdulaziz in 1889.

During the reign of Abdul Hamid II, Mehmed was given a mansion in Çengelköy. On this estate, Mehmed had another house built for Şayeste, with whom he had spent his childhood. Even though he had not got along with his stepmother in the past, he could not forget the struggle she had gone through while bringing him up.

In March 1898, Şayeste attended the wedding of Naime Sultan, the daughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Kemaleddin Pasha, the son of Gazi Osman Pasha.

Ayşe Sultan, daughter of Abdul HamidII, notes in her memoirs that during her father's reign, Şayeste would attend Ramadan celebrations, and would always sit next to Perestu Kadın.

In a letter she wrote to the sultan a month before her death, she solicited for her apartment to be repaired, but she passed away before her solicit was fulfilled.Among the longest living consorts of Abdulmejid, she died on 11 February 1912 in the Çengelköy Palace, and was buried in the mausoleum of Şehzade Ahmed Kemaleddin in Yahya Efendi Cemetery, Constantinople, today known as Istanbul.

Together with Abdulmejid, Şayeste had two children:

• A stillborn son (3 February 1853);
• Naile Sultan (Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, 30 September 1856 – 18 January 1882), married at the Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul, 6 October 1876, to Damat Mehmed Pasha (died 24 May 1909), 1st ADC to Abdul Hamid II;

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