Mihrengiz Kadın


Mihrengiz Kadın was the second wife of Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire.

Early life

Mihrengiz Kadın was born on 15 October 1869 in Sochi, North Caucasus. Born as Fatma, she belonged to the Ubykh clan of Circassians. She had a brother named Ibrahim Bey.
In 1864, during the ethnic cleansing of Circassians, she had been brought to Istanbul as a young child, where her father entrusted to the imperial harem. Her name according to the custom of the Ottoman court was changed to Mihrengiz.

Marriage

Mihrengiz married Mehmed as his second wife, when he had been a prince. On 2 March 1886, at the age of sixteen she gave birth to her only son, Şehzade Ömer Hilmi in the Dolmabahçe Palace. On 27 April 1909, after Mehmed's accession to the throne, she was given the title of "Second Consort".
In 1912, the "Hilal-i Ahmer Centre for Women" was organized within the "Ottoman Hilal-i Ahmer Association", a foundation established in 1877 to provide medical care in Istanbul and surrounding communities. Mihrengiz was a member of this organization.
Safiye Ünüvar, a teacher at the Palace School, whom she met in 1915, noted in her memoirs that unlike the other wives, Mihrengiz was slim, while the others were quite heavier. This was because she had been suffering from illness from the past few years.
On 30 May 1918, Mihrengiz met with the Empress Zita of Bourbon-Parma in the harem of Yıldız Palace, when the latter visited Istanbul with her husband Emperor Charles I of Austria.

Last years and death

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Mihrengiz, her son, Ömer Hilmi and his two children, Mukbile Sultan, and Şehzade Mahmud Namık, settled firstly in Beirut, Lebanon, then in Nice, France, and finally settling in Alexandria, Egypt, where Ömer Hilmi died in 1935. She died on 12 December 1938 at Alexandria at the age of sixty-nine, having outliving her son by three years. She was buried in the mausoleum of Khedive Tewfik Pasha in Cairo.

Issue

Mihrengiz and Mehmed had one son: