Asporça Hatun

Asporça Hatun (; died after 1362) was a Byzantine noblewoman and the first legal wife of Sultan Orhan of the Ottoman Empire.

Biography Asporça Hatun was born a Greek-Byzantine noblewoman, but other details about her origins are not known.

According to contemporary rumors, she was a Palaiologos princess, a daughter, probably illegitimate, of the emperor Andronikos II or Andronikos III but most modern historians reject this version. It is impossible that Asporça was Andronikos III’s daughter, because he was born in 1296 and Asporça had a son around 1310. Also, Byzantine princesses married to Muslim rulers usually kept their own names and Christian faith, but Asporça took an Ottoman name and converted to Islam.

In September 1323, Asporça signed a waqf which assigned the revenues of her lands to his descendants. The document cites the vizier Alaeddin Pasha as a witness and Asporça's eldest son, Ibrahim Bey, as administrator. The waqf of Asporça is the oldest known Ottoman document, and together with the waqf of Orhan of the following year constitutes a valuable source of information on the composition of the Ottoman dynasty in that period.

Death Asporça survived Orhan, who died in 1362. However, the imperial burials of Bursa were restored in the 19th century due to centuries of earthquakes and fires, and currently the Asporça sarcophagus is located in the türbe of Osman I.

A poetic inscription attributed to Asporça Hatun, which hangs on her tomb, was published by İbrahim Hoci and Ahmed Tevhid in Tarih-i Osmanî Encümeni Mecmuası :

"She is the pearl of the sea of virtue, the wife of Sultan Orhan.

She sat in the honorable harem of the Sultan and held a high rank.

She showed full compassion and care for the prince.

Her child İbrahim passed away, leaving her in grief.

She followed her child to the eternal rose garden (paradise).

And it was Asporça Sultan who joined that journey to the hereafter."

Issue By Orhan, she had two sons and two daughters:

İbrahim Bey (1310-1362, buried in Osman I's türbe). Governor of Eskişehir, was executed by the order of his half-brother Sultan Murad I; Şerefullah Bey; Selçuk Hatun.