Muhtesem Yuzyil Imagines ♡

Halime Sultan

For many years the life of Halime Sultan had been a mystery. Not only her place of birth,but even her period in harem and tenure as Valide was unknown. Many thought the mother of Mahmud was killed along with him, some said she survived, but was banished. Even her Muslim name was unknown and was mentioned as fulane sultan for quite a long time, until it was found that she was called Halime sultan.

Like almost everything about her life her origin was mostly a mystery, However today it is accepted that she was from Caucasia, particularly from Abkhazia. However, that doesn't make everyone clear about her ethnicity. Confusion mainly comes because the term "Abkhazian" might include several people: Native Abkhazians, who settled here in ancient times, there were two major tribes in Abkhazia ubykh-abkhazs(genetically closer to Circassians) and Georgian-abkhazs(almost genetically identical to western Georgians). However, the number of people in each tribe varied from time to time, however generally Georgian-abkhazians were more loosely-settled, mainly because during the rise of civilization during iron age,pre-classical and classical antiquity, when Abkhazia was part of first Kingdom of Colchis and then kingdom of Egrisi(lazica), both were kartvelian kingdoms, created after unification of native Kartvelian tribes that lived there, two kingdom covered teritories from todays Abkhazia to some parts of eastern Anatolia. Therefore, Georgian-abkhazs promoted that time. In 697, the kingdom of Egrisi devided, into the de-facto kingdom of Abkhazia from 697-780's and the official kingdom of Abkhazia from early 780's to 1008 that included not only modern Abkhazia,but whole teritories of modern eastern Georgia and parts of Turkey and Russia . The official language of the pre 780's kingdom was Georgian, was ruled by Georgian-abkhaz Nobel families and was almost entirely settled by Georgians. After the 780s it was even more dominated by Georgians and that was time, when on the territories of the modern days republic of Abkhazia along with Georgian-abkhazs and ubykh-abkhazs western Georgians actively started to settle. From 1008 to 1490's it became part of the united kingdom of Georgia. After the 1490s it was invaded by Mongolians and divided into western and eastern parts. That is a period when Circassians slowly started to enter Abkhazian territories. Now back to the topic, up until late sixteenth century Abkhazia was Georgian dominated land, in 1570's same time as ottomans, many Circassian tribes started infiltrating Abkhazia and unlike peaceful natives, started to invade homes of weakened Georgians and as a result during the climax of invasion in 1580-90's mass slave trade burst out and thousands of Georgian-abkhaz and mingrelian girls found themselves in ottoman slave market.

Halime sultan was born around 1568-70, therefore in 1580-90's she could have been anywhere from 10-12 to 20-22 years old, considering Mehmed III received his sanjak in 1583, Halime was likely gifted to him that or next year, at very least she was already favourite in 1586, so she was bought quite before that time. So perhaps she was freshly brought little Georgian in the Ottoman slave market? Everything in this theory fits, her age, statistics, fact that slave markets were flooded by Georgians suggest that when we say that Halime was Abkhaz, it means Georgian-abkhaz, not Ubykh-abkhaz and definitely not non-native Circassians. 

(CREDS TO ORIGINAL AUTHOR VIA TUMBLR)