Gülfem Hatun


Gülfem Hatun was a lady-in-waiting to Suleiman the Magnificent.

Life

Throughout Suleiman the Magnificent's reign, she enjoyed a considerable status within the imperial harem, thus she is supposed by some authors to have been a concubine of Suleiman's or the stewardess of his harem and received 150 aspers a day.
In September 1542, she commissioned a soup kitchen in Üsküdar. In March 1543 she established the financial ground work to built a "timber frame mosque" now known as the "Gülfem Hatun Mosque", located near the soup kitchen. According to a local tradition, the mosque was intended for the use of women and opened to men only in recent times. A school is also present near the mosque.
She died in 1561–62, and was buried in her own mosque.

In popular culture