Behiye Sultan


Behiye Sultan was the eldest daughter of Şehzade Mehmed Selaheddin, who was the son of Ottoman Sultan Murad V. Her mother was Naziknaz Hanım.

Life

Behiye Sultan was born on was born on 20 September 1881 in the Çırağan Palace, Istanbul. She was the daughter of Şehzade Mehmed Selaheddin and Naziknaz Hanım. She had a younger brother Şehzade Ahmed Nihad two years younger then her. She was the paternal granddaughter of Murad V and Reftarıdil Kadın.
On 17 February 1910, she married to Ottoman Army major general Hafız Hakkı Pasha in the Ortaköy Palace. She remained childless. She did not remarry after her husband's death in 1915.
Upon the exile of imperial family in 1924, she settled in Cairo. She lived in a tiny villa on Road 13. Her neighbors, the Wahid Raafat family, never saw anyone visit her. No one noticed when she moved out. All of a sudden she was replaced in the small house by astronomer Professor Khayri, director of the Helwan observatory." recalls Mrs. Raafat. Sharing the same boisterous gardener 'Am Ibrahim,' the Raafats would send the princess home-baked kahk during Eid-ul-Fitr. A few years later, by mere coincidence Dr. Wahid Raafat found himself wrongly implicated in an alleged royalist plot concocted by members of the sultana's extended family. He was subsequently imprisoned for several weeks.

Death

She died on 5 March 1948 in her home in Maadi, Cairo, Egypt She was buried next to Said Halim Pasha's grave in the tomb of Al-Shafi‘i in Cairo.

Ancestry