Adile Sultan

It is a cool May morning of the year 1870 in Findikli Palace. The golden
rays of the rising sun are dissolving the last traces of a fine fog that had
engulfed the Bosphorus. Istanbul’s splendid skyline begins to sparkle on the
horizon. Inside the palace the bright sunlight turns the golden ornaments of
the hall into gleaming diamonds. Sultan Mahmud II’s hazel-blue eyed daughter,
the middle-aged Âdile Sultana is focused on mastering a Hicaz Hümâyun song
that she loves. A sorrowful rustling of leaves draws the Sultana’s attention
away from the notes to the alabaster silhouette of Leander’s Tower. Tiny
clouds chase each other near the shore driven by the strong wind. The
Sultana’s mind travels back in time... Âdile was all of four years-old when
her mother died. Only nine years after that, her father the Sultan followed
his wife to the grave. Meanwhile the young princess was being well educated
in literature, lettering and music, and in 1845 she was introduced to Mehmet
Ali Pasha. Their wedding lasted seven days and seven nights and was widely
celebrated by all the citizens of the capital. Several years of happiness
were hers at Neşetâbat Palace, but darkness would soon descend on the
Sultana. First her older brother Abdülmecid passed away, then the sun of her
life, her beloved husband, and soon afterwards her only daughter Hayriye.
Âdile’s world had turned upside down but this would not diminish her desire
to live nor her ambition to improve the lives of her people. This
all-suffering woman is the only person in the royal family to have published
a volume of her collected poems as well as being an accomplished
music-composer and a master calligrapher. She is an enthusiast of the fine
arts. She arranges for the publication of ‘Muhibbî’, the poems of Suleyman
the Magnificent. She is generous and altruistic. She establishes fourteen
charitable foundations, and uses all the means within her considerable power
to serve the public. She grants trousseaus to brides who cannot afford them,
gives homes to the poor, and finances waterworks for fountains that have gone
dry. She commissions a complex of charitable buildings in Bâlâ and founds a
school in Silivrikapı... Âdile Sultana’s teary eyes slowly return to the
notes of Hicaz Hümâyun.