When all one gets is an empty nest one will search for meanings in meaningless places. Well, that’s where the thoughts about this poem started. Months and months of waiting and any action that is possible can only happen based on another person’s actions… and nothing happens. I guess you understand the situation. Now read the poem.
What can I say, I have gone through worse in life? Nope, this is it. There is always a learning curve and these lessons are brutal. Let tomorrow decide what is in store. I am not good at predicting and I am not good at listening to voices I can never hear. All I got good at is listening to the silence and walking through dark alley roads. It is not very pleasant but the choices in front of me are not made by me.
Little Boss, my Mahidevran (The name means one who is always beautiful)…I love you.
I will take a welcome back… aha a break was needed from myself. I am now slowly getting back to my normal, even though lot more things should fall into place to feel that normal fully.
As for the poem, it was written from a fragment I wrote for an Instagram post. It is pretty much self-explanatory.
Writing fragments of poems has an issue with me. The unfinished part or untouched part will remain in me and at some point, I have to write it down and burn it or expand the fragment into a full poem. This is one of the expansions.
Personally speaking, a lot of rest and pretty much nothing else. There are certain things I am not going to reveal yet. Now I have to tell about “Magnificient Century” I wish everything about that series was fictitious, unfortunately nope. There are fictitious characters and events in that series but my reading these days is mostly about the Empires. Greek, Rome, Ottoman, British, etc. Which of course took me to some fantastic events in the past. Then I stumbled upon Kosem Sultan which led me to see an interesting name I saw “Mahidevran”. Now I am writing my on fiction around that character. Kosem Sultan and Mahidevran were real people who lived centuries ago. In it all there is a point at which I said with a lot of touchy emotions.. what the hell were they all thinking? I wish I were able to talk to them… however I don’t know if I will even meet Kosem Sultan even in after life for what she had done in her life after the death of her husband. As for Mahidevran I may stand up in respect to anyone with that name as the life of her was just that much amazing.
Little Boss, I told you I will never get bored. I can never get bored and even when I was reading and watching the lives of people centuries ago and laughed, felt sad, and enjoyed every bit of life in the best possible way I can with the means given to me by Allah, I still with every breathe prayed for you, your well-being and happiness. May Allah Smile Upon You Always.
Mahidevran Hatun (Hatun means Lady). Popularly known these days as Mahidevran Sultan. This is not a fictional character or a living real character, this is someone who passed away 440 years ago. Interesting isn’t it? Why would someone even think about a lady who was born in the year 1500? Her life. I saw a series called Magnificent Century – Kösem the story about one of the most powerful ladies in the Magnificent Century era of the Ottoman Empire. Well, the so-called Magnificent Century started almost 100 years before the arrival of Kösem Sultan into the Ottoman empire. It started with Hurrem Sultan. So after watching the fictionalized version of Kösem Sultan’s story, I went back a bit to know more about Hurrem. When I started watching that part it started with Sultan Sulieman coming to take the throne as the emperor of the Ottoman Empire. By that time he already had a lady, Mahidevran, and a son with her, a boy called Mustafa who was 5 years old at that time. That part was viciously fictionalized with jealous rages and fights between Mahidevran and Alexandra who later converts to Islam and become Hurrem. The acting of Nur Fettahoğlu maybe the trigger point in me following not the heroine. But I started researching who this character was historically. That’s where the goose chase started there is hardly any information I can get my hands on about this lady.
An early painting of Mahidevran
Not a lot of people know about her birthplace or early life. But the best and realistic information I got surprised me further. Mahidevran was born to an Albanian Musician who was a Muslim and from early information available she was married to then Prince Suleiman when she was 12 years old. At the age of 15 she gave birth to their first born Prince Mustafa. I wondered what the hell this little girl was doing in the princely harem of an Ottoman Province?
An early painting of a young Mahidevran
Okay, now we need more explanations, what is a harem? In those days, slavery was widespread in Europe and middle east. people of nobility as well as rulers have harems filled with these slaves. The slaves are subjects or properties which they can own and use. They don’t have much rights and any children are directly owned by their masters. So these Sultans don’t have to marry them so they buy these slaves/concubines from European slave markets and bring them to the harem in the topkapi palace in Istanbul. Mahidevran as we know now was not a slave even though in the show she is called a slave. There were bitter rivalry between Mahidevran and Hurrem in the early days… but as even the Sultan is forbidden to speak about the harem no one knows what all happened in there. There were Venetian reports which were nothing but National Enquirer type gossips in those days about Mahidevran beating and scratching the face of Hurrem. But many Turkish historians disputed these claims as Mahidevran lived at the Topkapi palace until Mustafa was old enough to go for administrative training in a province.
Here is where Mahidevran’s life changed for the better. The so-called abandoned wife of Suleiman raised a boy who became a sensation wherever he went as he was loved by the army, people, ladies all around the empire. His popularity is exactly was the scheaming lady Hurrem used against him and fabricating evidence that he is organizing a revolt against the Sultan, Hurrem requested Prince Mustafa to be executed and the henpecked Sultan obliged.
This didn’t go well for Mahidevran and Mustafa’s family. Mustafa was only known to have one concubine his oldest was a girl the second child was a 5 year old boy. The boy also was executed by strangulation. The girl Nargis Shah was taken away and married away to some old man. Mahidevran’s life fell apart as she moved to Bursa where her son was buried. People in Bursa taunted her and anyone who helped her. She was neck deep in debt with no money to even pay rent. After Hurrem died in 1558 things got a little better. By the order of Sultan Suleiman, his son Selim paid off Mahidevran’s debts and bought her a house and allowed an income. Mahidevran never lived the life of a Sultana. She lived the rest of her life in prayers near her son’s grave. After Sultan Suleiman passed away, Selim became the Sultan and he built the mausoleum of Prince Mustafa. All the children Sultan Suleiman had in Hurrem died one after the other and Mahidevran outlived all of them, Mahidevran passed away in 1581 at the age of 81 living a long life in the standards of those times. She was buried in the mausoleum of her son.
It is going to take a significant effort to write about this character. I am going to take a much modern approach to write this. In my busy life, I am estimating approximately a year to finish this project. Don’t you all know.. I love writing especially about heartbroken people whose life in some way resonate with mine.
