Şehzade Ahmed Nuri

Şehzade Ahmed Nuri
Born12 February 1878
Yıldız Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (present day Istanbul, Turkey)
Died7 August 1944(1944-08-07) (aged 66)
Nice, Vichy France
Burial
Orphans Cemetery, Nice, France
Spouse
Fahriye Hanım
​
​
(m. 1900; died 1940)​
Names
Turkish: Şehzade Ahmed Nuri
Ottoman Turkish: شہزادہ احمد نوری
DynastyOttoman
FatherAbdul Hamid II
MotherBedrifelek Kadın
ReligionSunni Islam
Military career
Allegiance Ottoman Empire
Service / branch Ottoman Army
Years of servicec. 1910[1]–1922 (active service)
RankSee list

Şehzade Ahmed Nuri Efendi (Ottoman Turkish: شہزادہ احمد نوری; 12 February 1878 - 7 August 1944) was an Ottoman prince, son of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and his consort Bedrifelek Kadın.

Early years

Şehzade Ahmed Nuri was born on 12 February 1878[2] in the Yıldız Palace. His father was Abdul Hamid II, son of Abdulmejid I and Tirimüjgan Kadın. His mother was Bedrifelek Kadın,[3][4] daughter of Prince Kerzedzh Mehmed Bey.[5] He was the third child, the second son and the youngest child of his mother. He had a brother, Şehzade Mehmed Selim, eight years elder than him, and a sister, Zekiye Sultan, six years older than him.[3][6]

Ahmed Nuri's circumcision took place in 1891, together with his half-brothers, Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir, and Şehzade Mehmed Burhaneddin.[7] His early education took place in the princes school. He was then enrolled in the Ottoman Military College. He held the rank of major of cavalry regiment in the imperial Ottoman army.[8] He was then promoted to colonel,[9] and later to brigadier.[4] He had been allocated a villa on the grounds of the Yıldız Palace.[10]

He was a very clever, sensitive person, and for this reason, he always suffered misfortune. He had an extraordinary talent for painting. He had taken lessons from the Italian painter Salvatore Valery, who also taught at the Sanâyi-i Nefise Mektebi. He used to paint colored pictures on glass. After working for days, he made a portable bathhouse the size of a small tent for his father as a gift for his twenty fifth anniversary of his accession to the throne in 1901.[6]

On 27 April 1909, Abdul Hamid II was deposed, and sent into exile in Thessaloniki.[11] Nuri, however, remained in Istanbul.[12] Abdul Hamid's whole family was expelled from Yıldız Palace, and most of them didn't even have a place to live in. Nuri, and his elder brother, Şehzade Selim, initially settled in the mansion of their sister Zekiye Sultan, until Nuri was allocated a mansion in Büyükdere.[6]

Personal life

His only wife was Fahriye Zişan Hanım.[3][6][13] She was born in 1883.[14] Her father was Ilyas Ali Bey,[6] a Circassian, and a cavalry major in the imperial Ottoman army.[13] They married in 1900. The two of them met when the prince visited the school for girls named Mekteb-i Tahsil, located in Şehzadebaşı, whose director was her elder brother. She was beautiful. Moreover, her family had been friends with the prince's mother.[6]

Sultan Abdul Hamid loved his daughter-in-law. He also rewarded her with a gold medal after she took care of her husband following a surgery for hernia in 1905.[6] The hernia was a result of a package that was thrown into the sultan's car during a Friday procession. Nuri thought it to be a bomb, and jumped out of the car. However, it was later revealed that the package was an orphaned baby. However, with the severity of the jump, Nuri had a hernia. Although he had surgery, he suffered this disease until his death.[6]

They didn't have children.[13] Despite this, the prince loved her very much, and didn't marry another woman. They separated in 1919, because Fahriye had been anguished over an act of the prince. She left their villa in Büyükdere, and settled in a mansion in Feneryolu, and took her elder sister along.[6] At the exile of the imperial family in 1924, she followed her husband to Nice, France. She died in 1940, and was buried in the cemetery of the Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, Damascus, Syria.[3][6][13]

Life in exile and death

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, Nuri and his wife settled in Nice, France.[6] On 14 January 1925, he gave the power of attorney to Sami Günzberg, a well-known Turkish Jewish lawyer, authorising him to regain from usurpers buildings, lands, mines, concessions left by Abdul Hamid situated in Turkish territory and elsewhere.[15] In exile, the prince fell into financial troubles. His villa in Yıldız was seized, and the money from the villa in Feneryolu ran out in a short time. In the meantime, a young Greek man, whom he met in Nice was on good terms with him. He helped the prince by giving him a certain amount of money.[6]

He had been proficient in chemistry as well as painting and architecture. He used to sell toiletries such as soap, which he produced in his home or hotel room in Nice. He also gave them as gifts to his friends. During World War II, his situation got worse. Unable to find a job, Nuri fell into a miserable situation. He died of starvation and disease in a park[6] on 7 August 1944.[3][2] He was buried in an orphans cemetery. A letter found in his pocket read, "If I die, do not blame anyone because I am starving. I was making a living by playing piano in a movie theater. Now I can not find this job. You bury me as a Muslim."[6]

Honours

Styles of
Şehzade Ahmed Nuri
Reference styleHis Imperial Highness
Spoken styleYour Imperial Highness

Military appointments

Military ranks and army appointments
  • Major of the Cavalry Regiment, Ottoman Army[8]
  • Colonel of the Cavalry Regiment, Ottoman Army[9]
  • Brigradier of the Cavalry Regiment, Ottoman Army[4]

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ Salnâme-i Devlet-i Âliyye-i Osmanîyye, 1326 Sene-i Maliye, 64. Sene. Selanik Matbaası. 1910. pp. 48–49.
  2. ^ a b Osmanoğlu 2000, p. 262.
  3. ^ a b c d e Adra, Jamil (2005). Genealogy of the Imperial Ottoman Family 2005. p. 25.
  4. ^ a b c Yılmaz Öztuna (2008). II. Abdülhamîd: zamânı ve şahsiyeti. Kubbealti Publishing. p. 234. ISBN 978-97564-446-27.
  5. ^ Akyıldız, Ali (2018). Son Dönem Osmanlı Padişahlarının Nikâh Meselesi. p. 697.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Ekinci, Ekrem. "SULTAN HAMİD'İN AÇLIKTAN ÖLEN ŞEHZÂDESİ: AHMED NURİ EFENDİ". ekrembugraekinci.com (in Turkish). Retrieved 2021-04-10.
  7. ^ Pazan, İbrahim (2008). Son saraylı: Şehzade Osman Ertuğrul Efendi. Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı. p. 18. ISBN 978-9-944-11894-1.
  8. ^ a b Salnâme-i Devlet-i Âliyye-i Osmanîyye, 1328 Sene-i Maliye, 67. Sene. Selanik Matbaası. 1912. pp. 48–49.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Salnâme-i Devlet-i Âliyye-i Osmanîyye, 1333-1334 Sene-i Maliye, 68. Sene. Hilal Matbaası. 1918. pp. 64–65.
  10. ^ Uğurtol, Drahşan; Uğuryol, Mehmet (2017-07-30). "Yıldız Sarayı Şehzade Köşkleri Bahçesi'nin Özellikleri Ve Korunmuştur Durumu". Art-Sanat Dergisi (in Turkish) (8): 261–289. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  11. ^ Hall, Richard C. (October 9, 2014). War in the Balkans: An Encyclopedic History from the Fall of the Ottoman Empire to the Breakup of Yugoslavia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 1–2. ISBN 978-1-610-69031-7.
  12. ^ Osmanoğlu 2000, p. 157-58.
  13. ^ a b c d Ömer Faruk Yılmaz (2002). Sultan Abdülhamit Han'ın harem hayatı. Eylül Yayınları. p. 108. ISBN 978-975-6597-15-6.
  14. ^ Mehmet Metin Hülagü; Şakir Batmaz; Gülbadi Alan (2011). Devr-i Hamid: Sultan II. Abdülhamid. Erciyes Üniversitesi Yayınları. p. 284. ISBN 978-975-6478-71-4.
  15. ^ Kark, Ruth; Frantzman, Seth J. (2010). "One of the most spectacular lawsuits ever launched": Abdülhamid's heirs, his lands and the land case in Palestine, 1908-1950. p. 138.
  16. ^ "Payitaht Abdülhamid (TV Series 2017– )". IMDb. Retrieved 2021-04-10.

Sources