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.
