Rukiye Sabiha Sultan (; after 1952 legally Sabiha OsmanoÃÂlu; 19 March 1894 â 26 August 1971) was an Ottoman princess, the third and last daughter of Sultan Mehmed VI and his main wife Nazikeda Kadñn. She was the first wife of à Âehzade ÃÂmer Faruk, son of Caliph Abdulmejid II and à Âehsuvar Hanñm.
Sabiha Sultan was born on 19 March 1894 in her father's Ortaköy Palace in Ortaköy, Istanbul. Her father was Mehmed VI, son of Abdulmejid I and Gülistu Kadñn. Her mother was Nazikeda Kadñn, daughter of Prince Hasan Ali Marshania and Princess Fatma Horecan Aredba and first wife of her father. She was the third and last daughter born to her father and mother. She had two sisters, Münire Fenire Sultan, six years elder than her, born and died in 1888, and Fatma Ulviye Sultan, two year elder than her. Her birth was difficult, so that later her mother could not have any more children. She had a younger half-brother, à Âehzade Mehmed ErtuÃÂrul, born in 1912 by the Second Consort Müveddet Kadñn.
Refik Bey, the son of Mihrifelek Hanñm, the second Kalfa of Sultan Abdulmejid I, was appointed teacher to Sabiha, and her elder sister Ulviye Sultan. The two had learned to play piano from Mlle Voçino.
When her father ascended the throne in 1918, Sabiha was still unmarried, but had several admirers. Those who knew her always said that she was not like the other women of the Ottoman family. "Sabiha Sultan was different", said the Turkish poet Yahya Kemal.
Her first suitor is thought to be Rauf Orbay, a relative of one of Sultan Abdul Hamid II's consorts, Sazkar Hanñm. He was followed by Mahmud Kemal Pasha. Another was Fuad Bey of the Babanzade clan. Captain Safvet Arñkan and Lieutenant Suphi Bey from Damascus were other suitors, but none of them were accepted. Another suitor was Mehmed Ali Pasha, the nephew of Ahmed Muhtar Pasha.
Her betrothal to Ahmad Shah Qajar, the last ruling member of the Qajar dynasty, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was forfeited in favor of her second cousin à Âehzade ÃÂmer Faruk, thus missing her chance of becoming the first "First Lady" of the nascent Turkish Republic.
Sabiha and à Âehzade ÃÂmer Faruk, who was four years her junior, the son of Abdulmejid II, the last Caliph of the Ottoman Caliphate and à Âehsuvar Kadñn, were in love with each other. Initially the marriage was rejected because between the descendants of Abdülmecid I (as Mehmed VI) and those of Abdulaziz (as à Âehzade ÃÂmer Faruk) there was no friendship due to Abdulaziz's violent death. à Âehsuvar Hanñm, the prince's mother, called on Nazikeda, and succeeded in convincing her.
The marriage took place on 29 April 1920, in the pavilion of the sacred relics at the Topkapñ Palace. The marriage was performed by à Âeyhülislam Hayrizade Ibrahim Efendi. Sabiha Sultan's deputy was Baà Âkatip Ali Fuad Bey, and ÃÂmer Faruk's deputy was ÃÂmer Yaver Pasha. The wedding reception took place at the Yñldñz Palace.
In May 1920, ten days after their wedding, Sabiha and Faruk moved to the mansion of Rumelihisarñ. In October of the same year, her father bought two houses for his daughters in Nià Âantaà Âñ. The mansions were known as the Twin Palaces. He gave one house to Ulviye Sultan, and the other to Sabiha. Sabiha and Faruk decided to live in Nià Âantaà Âñ during the winter and in Rumelihisarñ during the summer.
The couple's eldest daughter, Fatma Neslià Âah Sultan was born on 2 February 1921 in the Nià Âantaà Âñ Palace. She was followed two years later by Zehra Hanzade Sultan, born on 12 September 1923 in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Sabiha and her two daughters left Turkey. On 11 March, she left her mansion in Rumelihisarñ and took the Orient Express to join her husband and father-in-law in Switzerland. Later they moved to Nice, France, where her youngest daughter Hibetullah Necla Sultan was born on 16 May 1926, the same day of Mehmed VI's death.
In 1930, Ã Âehzade Ibrahim Tevfik, now penniless, and his family, came to live in Nice in a small cottage in a village nearby with his family. He then moved with his youngest daughter Fevziye Sultan in with his cousin Sabiha and ÃÂmer Faruk, where he died in 1931. Fevziye came back to live with her mother.
Her mother also used to come for a stay at Nice with her. A large room used to be assigned to her, which she shared with à Âehzade Mehmed ErtuÃÂrul, her stepson, whenever he came back from Grasse. In 1938, she moved to Alexandria, Egypt, with her mother and sister after her mother's grave illness there.
On 26 September 1940, she attended the wedding of her daughter, Neslià Âah Sultan and Prince Mohamed Abdel Moneim, son of Egypt's last khedive Abbas II Hilmi. Her two other daughters, Hanzade Sultan, and Necla Sultan also married Egyptian princes, Mehmed Ali Ibrahim on 19 September 1940, and Amr Ibrahim in 1943, respectively. After the weddings, Sabiha and Faruk moved to Egypt with their daughters.
Sabiha's husband, ÃÂmer Faruk, developed an increased interest in his cousin Mihrià Âah Sultan, the daughter of crown prince à Âehzade Yusuf Izzeddin. It was also a public knowledge that things were not going well between Faruk and Sabiha.
In 1944, Mihrià Âah even sided with Faruk when the council chose Prince Ahmed Nihad as the head of the family. While Sabiha backed the council's decision and approved the choice of the leader. Her daughters also sided with her. Faruk accused Sabiha of turning their daughters against him. But he was already in love with Mihrià Âah and the issue of the council was just an excuse.
And so, on 5 March 1948, after twenty eight years of marriage, ÃÂmer Faruk divorced Sabiha, and married Mihrià Âah Sultan. However, their marriage didn't last, and a few years later Mihrià Âah divorced. Later Faruk would tell his friends, "I divorced the most beautiful woman in the world to marry the ugliest one. Fate!".
Following her divorce, Sabiha Sultan left her home in Maadi on the other side of Cairo to be closer to her eldest daughter, Princess Neslià Âah. Taking a few things with her she moved to a small apartment in Heliopolis. She sent her furniture to her second daughter Princess Hanzade's house in Cairo, while she was living in Paris, France. But after the Egyptian revolution of 1952, all she owned there was confiscated with all the belongings of her daughter and son-in-law.
Later, Sabiha went to Paris for a while, to live with Princess Hanzade. Sabiha also stayed with Neslià Âah at Montreux for sometime. Here she visited her cousin Sultanzade Sabahaddin Bey, son of Seniha Sultan. But, as soon as the female members of the Ottoman family were allowed to return to Turkey in 1952, she moved to Istanbul, when she took the name Sabiha OsmanoÃÂlu. She rented a small flat in Kuyuku Bostan Street in the district of Nià Âantaà Âñ, and the few things she still had in Egypt were sent to Istanbul.
Sabiha Sultan died on 26 August 1971 at the age of seventy seven in her mansion in ÃÂengelköy, Istanbul, and was buried in Aà Âiyan Asri Cemetery.