Hatice Halime Hatun

Tacünnisa Hatice Halime Sultan Hatun (Ottoman Turkish: خديجة حليمة خاتون, "respectful lady" and "the gentle/patient one", c. 1410 - 1440), also known as Alime Hatun or Sultan Hatun, was a princess of the House of Candar as daughter of İsfendiyar Bey, ruler of the Beylik of Candar. She was a consort of Sultan Murad II of the Ottoman Empire.^[1][2]

Following her death in 1440, her place as consort was taken by her niece Hatice Hatun, daughter of her brother Tâceddin Ibrâhim II Bey.

Born Tacünnisa Hatice Halime Sultan Hatun of the princely House of Candar, she was the daughter of Isfendiyâr, eighth bey of the Candar Beylik.

When Murad II, the Ottoman sultan, sided against Isfendiyar and alongside his rebellious son Kıvameddin Kazım Bey, to whom he betrothed one of his sisters, Fatma Sultan Hatun, Isfendiyar offered Murad peace and proposed to seal the deal with a double marriage. Murad accepted and in 1425, in Edirne, he married Isfendiyar's daughter, Halime Hatun, while another of Murad's sisters, Selçuk Hatun, married Tâceddin Ibrâhim II Bey, Isfendiyar's son and heir. In the same year, Halime bore Murad a son, Şehzade Isfendiyar, who died as newborn.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

With this dynastic union between the two houses, Murad II established an alliance with a powerful tribe against his most formidable enemy in Anatolia, the Beylik of Karaman, who had blocked his eastward expansion. The good relations between the two were preserved during the reign of the next sultan, Mehmed II, who endowed members of the Candar dynasty with mülks (land grants) in the region of Plovdiv and Didymoteicho, which were later transformed into waqfs.^[8]

Hatice Halime Hatun was known as Murad's favorite consort, until Murad married Mara Branković in 1435. The jealousy between the two consorts initially resolved against Halime, who was expelled from the court and sent to Bursa, but something happened between the autumn of 1436 and the spring of 1437 which prompted Murad to instead send Mara herself to Bursa and recall Halime.^[9]

Hatice Halime died in Bursa in 1440.^[5]

A few years after Halime's death, Murad II married her niece Hatice Hatun, daughter of Halime's brother Tâceddin Ibrâhim II. In May 1450, Hatice bore Murad's last child, a son, Şehzade Ahmed, nicknamed Küçük Ahmed ("Ahmed the Younger") to distinguish him from his eponymous older half-brother, Büyük Ahmed ("Ahmed the Elder").^[5]

Murad died on February 1451, and his son Mehmed II, born by of Hüma Hatun, assumed the throne. At the time, Murad's only other son alive was the newborn Ahmed of nine months. The succession, not regulated by a precise law, had always been a source of dispute within the Ottoman dynasty which had previously been the cause civil wars and as such, Mehmed decided to eliminate every risk by executing his newborn half-brother. Following his accession, on 18 February, he summoned Hatice to the throne room and, while she and his father Murad's consorts and concubines congratulated him on his accession and offered their condolences on his father's death, Mehmed sent Ali Bey, son of Gazi Evrenos, to Hatice's chambers with orders to either strangle or drown the child. Subsequently, Mehmed legitimized the act by issuing the Law of Fraticide, which until the end of the 17th century granted the sultan the power to execute, at his discretion, any male relative in line of succession to the throne.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Later, Mehmed forced Hatice to marry Ishak Pasha, one of his father's officials and the new Beylerbey of Anatolia. The two had eight children, five sons named Halil Bey, Şadi Bey, Mustafa Çelebi, Piri Çelebi, and Ibrahim Bey, and three daughters named Hafsa Hatun, Fahrünnisa Hatun, and Şahzade Hatun.^[3][4]

By Murad II, she had a son:

• Şehzade Isfendiyar (1425–1425)

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