Meyliservet Kadın

Meyliservet Kadın (21 October 1854 - 20 October 1891) was the Empress consort of the Ottoman Empire as the fourth wife of Sultan Murad V.

Biography

Meyliservet was born on 21 October 1854 to a Circassian noble family in Batumi, Georgia. She came to Istanbul with her family, where she was delivered at the court of the Ottoman Sultan. She was renamed Meyliservet and was given a thoroughly Turkish and Muslim education in the harem department of Çırağan Palace. Receiving her education in the palace, Meyliservet also went unto court service. When she entered her twentieth year she was noticed by Şehzade Murad (future Sultan Murad V).

Murad proposed her and Meyliservet consented to the will of their parents in the marriage proposal of the Şehzade. At the age of twenty, Meyliservet married Murad on 8 June 1874 in the Ortaköy Palace. A year after the marriage she gave birth to her only daughter, Fehime Sultan. On 30 May 1876, Meyliseret became Dördüncü Kadın (The Fourth Imperial Lady Consort) when her husband ascending the throne as Murad V. Reigning for three months, Murad was deposed due to mental instability and his whole family was imprisoned in the Çırağan Palace.

Once Meliservet got over a fever but was still in a delicate state. One evening she gathered around her the kalfas of whom she was fond and had them read aloud to her the novel Hasan the Sailor. She fainted for some time, and became so ill that she became unable to speak. After three days she made it known that she wanted pen and paper. She wrote the following testament and showed it to Murad: "I shall not recover from this illness. I entrust my daughter into your care." She died on 20 October 1891 and was buried in Eyüp Cemetery, Istanbul.^[1]

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