Gülbahar Hatun II

Who was Gülbahar Hatun II?

Gülbahar Hatun was the wife of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II and the mother of Selim I. She was married to Bayezid in 1469 at Amasya. Little is known of her family background, apart from the fact that an Ottoman inscription describes her as Hātun binti Abd-us-Samed, which supports the widespread view that her father was a Pontic Greek who had "turned Turk", that is converted to Islam and joined the Turkish Millet. Abd-us-Samed, meaning Servant of God, was the anonym that was applied to many Balkan and Anatolian Christians who converted to Islam in the classical Ottoman period. Gülbahar hatun's son, Selim became Ottoman Sultan as Selim I, although she herself never became recognised as a Valide Sultan because she died before his accession to the sultanate.

Ayşe Hatun was the first wife of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II and the daughter of Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey, the eleventh ruler of the Dulkadirids centered around Elbistan in Kahramanmaraş. Thus, she was a Valide Sultan for approximately two years as the stepmother of Selim I and the widow of Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II. According to an alternate story, Ayşe Hatun, the daughter of Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey, is the biological mother of Selim I