Selçuk Hatun
Selçuk Sultana is the middle of the seven daughters of Çelebi Sultan Mehmed. It is autumn and the yellow leaves of chestnut trees are falling to the ground one by one. Selçuk is wearing a fur cape which is lined in brown-striped silk. She is still beautiful despite the fine wrinkles on her creamy-white neck and the dark circles around her black eyes. She leans out of the arched windows of the palace, her gaze lost on the lazily rolling waters of the Golden Horn.
She is remembering the old days... It is the year 1421 and Selçuk is only fourteen years old. She weeps inconsolably, hidden in a corner. Her father has passed away. Her oldest brother Sultan Murad, who now sits on the throne, has given her hand to Candaroğlu Ibrahim Bey, the wedding to take place in four years.
This comes to pass and the seductive black eyed girl, now a queen, is living in Kastamonu Palace. Her happy marriage lasts eighteen years and segues into widowhood when Ibrahim dies. She retreats to the ancient palace in Bursa with her son Ishak and her daughter Hatice. Selçuk Sultana smiles brightly at the sight of the seagulls flying bravely close to the windows of the harem, as her reveries continue. She is re-living the magnificent wedding of her nephew Sultan Mehmed II, the Conqueror of Istanbul, who married Sitti Sultana in Edirne.
Sadly, new sorrows were not far behind. The sudden death of Sultan Mehmed II, which shocked the nation, led to the disastrous in-fighting between his sons for the right to accede to the throne. Selçuk, one of the most respected elders of the royal household, served as mediator to the brothers, the first woman in the Ottoman Empire to be entrusted with such a position. Finally, destiny chose Bayezid who was crowned Emperor. Selçuk Sultana, who lived to be seventy-eight years old, constructed three elegant mosques, one in each of the three capitals of the Ottoman Empire: Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul, at her own expense.
She is also the benefactor of numerous other architectural masterpieces, such as fountains, bridges, alms houses and schools. She now rests in peace next to her Sultan father in Bursa’s Yeşil Türbe (Green Mausoleum).
