Saliha Canfeda Hatun was a lady-in-waiting to Nurbanu Sultan and her son Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire.
15 Facts About Canfeda Hatun
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Canfeda Hatun was an ally of Nurbanu Sultan, who had brought her from the Old Palace.
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Canfeda Hatun was appointed the mistress housekeeper of the Imperial Harem, and under Nurbanu she was responsible for training the women of the imperial harem.
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Canfeda Hatun had been an ally of Ghazanfer Agha, the Agha of the imperial harem and of Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha's rival Lala Mustafa Pasha.
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On her deathbed, in 1583, Nurbanu insisted, in front of her daughter-in-law Safiye Sultan and her son, that Canfeda be kept in the royal harem.
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Canfeda Hatun managed to win the trust of her former adversary, and even to increase her influence on palace affairs under her protection.
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Canfeda Hatun gathered extraordinary wealth and this earned her the animosity of part of the high administration and the commandant of the janissary corps.
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Canfeda Hatun dedicated part of her huge wealth to her charitable foundation, whose revenues were used for the construction and maintenance of a mosque and a fountain in the imperial capital of Istanbul.
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In 1593, Canfeda Hatun built another mosque and a public bath in a village in the Beykoz village of Akbaba.
10.
Canfeda Hatun received permission from the Sultan to repair and enlarge a water transport system originally constructed by the Sultan Bayezid II in order to bring water to her Istanbul mosque and the nearby bath built by Gedik Ahmed Pasha.
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In retirement, Canfeda Hatun's stipend was 100 aspers a day, but when this amount proved to be insufficient for the public works she wished to undertake, it was doubled.
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Canfeda Hatun's mosques were built after Nurbanu's death suggesting her high status.
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Canfeda Hatun had two brothers, Mahmud Pasha, who was beylerbeyi of Haleb in 1594, and Divane Ibrahim Pasha.
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Canfeda Hatun had been dismissed by from her position by the new sultan Mehmed III, after which she frequently contacted the Venetians in order to obtain commodities for the harem.
15.
Canfeda Hatun was not in favour with the new sultan since she had chosen to protect the second son of Sultan Murad, Prince Mustafa, who was killed with his eighteen brothers on the eve of Mehmed's accession to the throne.