HIH Princess Adile Sultana (Turkish: Adile Sultan) (1825-1898), daughter of Sultan Mahmud II and sister of the Sultans Abdulmecid I and Abdulaziz, was an Ottoman princess, a renowned female Diwan poet and a philanthropist.
She was born as daughter of Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (1785-1839) and his wife Zernigar Sultana in 1825 in Constantinople (İstanbul today). Adile Sultana lost her mother at a very young age, and was raised by Nevfidan Kadın, the chief woman in the palace. She received a high standard of education in the palace. Just as her father, she was much interested in the arts.
Adile Sultana married in 1845 the commander of the fleet Kapudan-i Derya Mehmed Ali Pasha, who afterwards served a short while as Grand Vizier to Sultan Abdulmecid (1823-1861). The happy couple had to face tragic loses with the deaths of their three children. Then, she lost her husband in 1868, and finally her daughter Hayriye Sultana died young. In deep mourning, she entered the order of Naqshbandi and devoted herself to charitable activities.
Adile Sultana had a summerhouse in Validebağ and a palace in Kandilli, both on the Asian part of İstanbul. She left her palace in Kandilli following the death of her husband and moved to Coastal Palace in Fındıklı, where she died in 1898. Adile Sultana was interned in the mausoleum of her husband in Eyüp, İstanbul. She lived 73 years and witnessed the reign of five Ottoman sultans.
Even though she was not much more successful than Leyla Hanım and Fıtnat Hanım, two renowned female poets of her era, Adile Sultana’s literary works are significant, because they shed light on the incidents in the palace and the administration of the Ottoman Empire. So, she composed a poem about the murder of her younger brother Sultan Abdulaziz (1830-1876), which was announced as suicide. She also helped the Divan of Suleiman the Magnificent (1494-1566) to be printed. Her poetry "Adile Sultan’s Divan" was published in 1996.
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