Asporça Hatun

Asporça Hatun
The burial place of Asporça Hatun is located within the tomb of Osman I in Bursa
BornByzantine Empire[1]
Diedafter 1362
Bursa, Ottoman Empire
Burial
Spouse
(m. 1310; died 1362)
Issue
  • Ibrahim Bey
  • Şerefullah Bey
  • Selçuk Hatun
  • Fatma Hatun
ReligionOrthodox Christian (birth)
Sunni Islam[2](conversion)

Asporça Hatun (Ottoman Turkish: اسپورجہ خاتون; died after 1362) was a Byzantine noblewoman and the first legal wife of Sultan Orhan of the Ottoman Empire.[3]

Biography

Asporça Hatun was born a Greek-Byzantine noblewoman, but other details about her origins are not known.[4][5][6]

Contemporary rumors said she was a Palaiologos princess, a daughter, probably illegitimate, of the emperor Andronikos II or Andronikos III[4][5][7][8][9][10] but most modern historians reject this version.[4][5][6][11] It's impossible that Asporça was Andronikos III’s daughter, because he was born in 1296 and Asporça had a son around 1310. Also, Byzantine princesses married to Muslim rulers usually kept their own names and Christian faith, but Asporça took an Ottoman name and converted to Islam.[4][5][6][11]

Another thesis is that Asporça was the daughter of the Byzantine tekfur of Bilecik, who in 1298/1299 was kidnapped by the Ottomans and given to Orhan as a consort, but this wife is usually identified with Bayalun Hatun, and if the kidnapped girl was Asporça, this would mean that her firstborn was born over a decade later.[6]

Marriage

Since one of Asporça's children, the only one whose birth date is known, was born in 1310, Asporça married Orhan in or shortly before that year.[11] She was the first of Orhan's two legal wives (the other was Theodora Kantakouzene, married in 1346) and she gave birth to two sons and two daughters. She was highly esteemed by her father-in-law, Osman I, who gave her the revenues of numerous lands and villages, including Narlı and Kiyaklı.[4][5][6][12]

In September 1323, Asporça signed a waqf which assigned the revenues of her lands to his descendants. The document cites the vizier Alaeddin Pasha as a witness and Asporça's eldest son, Ibrahim Bey, as administrator. The waqf of Asporça is the oldest known Ottoman document, and together with the waqf of Orhan of the following year constitutes a valuable source of information on the composition of the Ottoman dynasty in that period.[4][5][6] In the 17th century, a woman named Saliha Hatun presented herself at the court of Bursa, declaring herself a descendant of Asporça and asking that the income guaranteed by the waqf be paid to her.[13]

Death

Asporça survived Orhan, who died in 1362.[5][6][11] Shortly thereafter, in the same year, her son Ibrahim was executed by order of the new sultan Murad I, son of Orhan and the concubine Nilüfer Hatun.[11]

Upon her death, she was buried in Bursa, in the türbe of Orhan.[14][15][16] However, the imperial burials of Bursa were restored in the 19th century due to centuries of earthquakes and fires, and currently the Asporça sarcophagus is located in the türbe of Osman I.[17]

Issue

By Orhan, she had two sons and two daughters:[4][5][6][11][18]

In the 2025 Turkish historical fiction TV series Kuruluş: Orhan, Asporça Hatun is portrayed by Russian-Turkish actress Alina Boz.[28][29]

See also

References

  1. ^ Çağatay Uluçay (2011). Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları. Ötüken Neşriyat. p. 19. ISBN 9789754378405.
  2. ^ Nazım Tektaş (2004). Harem'den Taşanlar. Çatı Kitapları. p. 18. ISBN 9758845020.
  3. ^ Uluçay, Çağatay (2011). Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları (in Turkish). Ötüken Neşriyat. p. 19. ISBN 9789754378405.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Uluçay 1980, pp.4-5
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sakaoğlu 2008, pp.42-43
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Peirce 1993, pp.34-35
  7. ^ Ödekan 1987, p.39
  8. ^ Tektaş 2004, p.18
  9. ^ Atalar 1981, p.429
  10. ^ Uzunçarşılı 1988, p.145
  11. ^ a b c d e f Alderson 1956, XXII
  12. ^ İnalcık, Halil. "OSMAN I". TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ^ Peirce 1993, pp.295-296
  14. ^ Peirce 1993, p.51
  15. ^ Finkel 2012, pp.39-40
  16. ^ Önkal 1992, p.297
  17. ^ Peirce 1993, p.300
  18. ^ Encyclopedia of Ahılık - Vol. II. Şekerbank. 2017. pp. 190, 199
  19. ^ a b İnalcık, Halil. Kuruluş Dönemi Osmanlı Sultanları (in Turkish). İsam.
  20. ^ a b Alderson, Anthony D. The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Greenwood Press.
  21. ^ a b Said Öztürk, and Ahmet Akgündüz. Ottoman History - Misperceptions and Truths. IUR Press.
  22. ^ Yurt, Ekrem Habil. "Orhan Gazi Dönemi Mimarisinde Sultan Yapıları". Academia.
  23. ^ Uzunçarşılı, İ. H. (2023). Osmanlı Tarihi 1 (in Turkish). Türk Tarihi Kurumu Yayınları. p. 160. ISBN 978-975-16-0011-0.
  24. ^ Sakaoğlu, Necdet. Bu mülkün kadın sultanları: vâlide sultanlar, hâtunlar, hasekiler, kadınefendiler, sultanefendiler (in Turkish). Alfa Yayınları.
  25. ^ Tektaş, Nazım. Padişahlar'ın Bütün Kadınları -Harem'den Taşanlar (in Turkish). ÇATI KİTAPLARI.
  26. ^ Uluçay, Çağatay. Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları (in Turkish). Ötüken Neşriyat.
  27. ^ Eraslan, Sibel. Osmanlı Sarayında Kadın Sultanlar (in Turkish). Selis Kitaplar.
  28. ^ "Kuruluş Orhan Asporça Hatun kim? Alina Boz oynayacak". 11 December 2025.
  29. ^ "Kuruluş Orhan'a yılın transferi! Alina Boz (Asporça Hatun) kimdir?". 11 December 2025.

Sources