Saliha Sultan
The Golden Horn flows murky and pale like an old silver ingot. A grey veil covers Istanbul under the clear sky. Only the lead ornaments on the dome of Sokullu are still able to sparkle. Sultan Mustafa’s mother Gülnuş Valide Sultana is passing through Azapkapı. She commands her driver to stop.
Her eye is drawn to a beautiful little girl with lustrous, waist-long black hair and shiny black eyes who is drawing water into a clay jug from an elegant fountain. The Valide Sultana’s attention distracts the girl, who drops her filled jug to the ground. It shatters into a million pieces, water spilling all over herself. The young girl, whose name is Saliha, breaks out in tears. Gentle Gülnuş steps out of the silver-plated coach, holding the skirts of her gold-embroidered dress.
She hugs Saliha, and wipes away her pearl-like teardrops, consoling her with soothing words: “Don’t be sad my sweet darling. I will replace your jug with a much more beautiful one.” To which Saliha replies with a surprising answer: “My Lady, I am not just crying for the broken jug. I am angry with myself because I failed this simplest of chores. If I can’t even fetch water from the fountain, what good am I?!”
Gülnuş Sultana, astonished by the depth of little Saliha’s emotions, takes her to the palace and educates her with tenderness and care. In the year 1695 Sultan Mustapha II, Gülnuş Valide Sultana’s son, accedes to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. Meanwhile, her protégé Saliha has grown into an astoundingly beautiful woman. The Sultana introduces her to the new Sultan, and Topkapi Palace witnesses a mythical wedding. Saliha Sultana’s adventure which began in front of a fountain continues to dwell on fountains.
The magnificent plaza and ornate fountain which the Sultana commissioned for Azapkapı are regarded as masterpieces of Ottoman era Turkish architecture.
