Assoc. Prof. Aslıhan ERKMEN BİRKANDAN was an invited speaker at the “International Symposium: One Hundred Years of the National Palaces” in November 2025. Her talk was entitled: “The Bibliophile Women of the Ottoman Dynasty and Their Collections.”
Assoc. Prof. Aslıhan ERKMEN BİRKANDAN’s talk took place on the 25th of November at the Topkapı Palace. Her paper examines the intellectual agency and cultural patronage of the mothers of Ottoman sultans (vālide sultans), through the libraries they assembled, curated, and endowed. While palace women are traditionally discussed in relation to architecture, charity, and dynastic politics, their role in the history of the books has remained comparatively underexplored. Drawing upon manuscript seals, ownership and transfer notes, waqf deeds, catalogues, and visual features of the manuscripts themselves, the study demonstrates that the vālide sultans were not passive recipients of cultural prestige but rather active participants in producing, preserving, and circulating scholarly knowledge.
The collections of Ayşe Hafsa Sultan, Nurbânû Sultan, Kösem Sultan, Turhan Sultan, Gülnûş Sultan, Mihrişah Sultan, Bezmiâlem Sultan, and Pertevniyal Sultan reveal a wide thematic range, with a strong emphasis on religious literature—Qur’ans, hadith compilations, devotional works, and commentaries—alongside volumes on literature, history, geography, science, and biography. Their manuscripts are also distinguished by their artistic refinement, featuring palace-quality bindings, calligraphy, illuminations, miniature paintings, and decorative techniques such as katıʿ (paper filigree) and vassale (paper joining). The circulation of books through purchase, translation commissions, inheritance from palace elites, and institutional endowments further illustrates the women’s strategic approach to knowledge acquisition and dissemination.
By situating these libraries within the broader context of Ottoman intellectual and material culture, the paper highlights the vālide sultans as significant cultural actors who shaped the empire’s scholarly memory and transmitted learning to subsequent generations.
