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Şehzade Mahmud Namık

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Şehzade Mahmud Namık
Born23 December 1913
Dolmabahçe Palace, Constantinople, Ottoman Empire (present day Istanbul, Turkey)
Died13 November 1963(1963-11-13) (aged 49)
Cairo, Egypt
Spouse
Şehrazad Hanım
​
​
(m. 1939; div. 1947)​
IssueŞehzade Ömer Abdülmecid
HouseOttoman
FatherŞehzade Ömer Hilmi
MotherGülnev Hanım
ReligionSunni Islam

Şehzade Mahmud Namık (Template:Lang-ota ;23 December 1913 – 13 November 1963) was an Ottoman prince, the only son of Şehzade Ömer Hilmi, and his second wife Gülnev Hanım. He was the grandson of Sultan Mehmed V Reşad and Mihrengiz Kadın.

Mahmud Namık was an active member of the "Zohriya Set",[1] a group of exiled members of the Ottoman dynasty who lived in the Cairo suburb of Maadi along with members of the Egyptian Royal family and their entourage.[2] Mahmud Namık was implicated in the "Restoration Plot" to overthrow Gamal Abdel Nasser and replace him on the restored throne with Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim.[3] his trial and subsequent imprisonment made headlines around the world.[4]

Birth and early childhood

Mahmud Namık was born in Dolmabahçe Palace and lived there until the death of his grandfather, Sultan Mehmed V, just before the end of World War I on 4 July 1918. He then moved with his family to a Konak (residence) at Nişantaşı for the winter months and to one in Bağlarbaşı, above Beylerbeyi, for the summer.

Exile

In March 1924, at the age of 10, Prince Mahmud Namık was sent into exile along with the entire Imperial Ottoman family, following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate and the Ottoman Caliphate. Prince Mahmud Namık never returned to Turkey, since he died before the decree of exile was lifted in 1974. He was initially sent to boarding school in Lebanon, but then soon came to live with his family in Nice, France once they had settled there to be close to the former Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI, who had rented a villa in San Remo, and to their cousin, the last Caliph of Islam Abdülmecid II, who lived in Nice. In 1934 he moved to Alexandria, Egypt with his father Ömer Hilmi and grandmother, and was later joined in January by his sister, Emine Mükbile, and his brother-in-law, Ali Vâsib.

Marriage and issue

Namık's only wife was Şehrazad Hanım.[5] She was the daughter of Ismail Ratib Bey, and his wife Princess Emine Bihruz, daughter of Prince Ibrahim Rashid Fazil Pasha, of Egypt.[5] She was born in 1922.[6] They married in 1939.[5] On 4 June 1941, she gave birth to Şehzade Ömer Abdülmecid in Alexandria. They divorced in 1947.[5] She died in 1993.[6]

Career

Prince Mahmud Namik worked until the end of World War II for the Alexandria tramline company. In the late 1940s he established himself as a businessman and settled in Geneva, Switzerland where he developed his business interests in places as far apart as Pakistan and the USA.

Arrest, trial and imprisonment

Prince Mahmud Namik was accused of involvement in a plot to bring down the military regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser in favour of the one time Regent Muhammad Abdel Moneim or his son.[7][8] The Plot to topple Nasser had been ongoing since before the Suez Crisis of 1956 and was supported at various times by the British M16[citation needed] and the French.[9]

Tried in absentia on charges of plotting to place a Mohammed-Ali/Osmanoglou descendant on Egypt's throne, Prince Namik was sentenced to 15 years in jail on 29 April 1958. Luckily for him he was in Europe at the time.[10]

In 1958 he was asked to help negotiate the marriage of his cousin Princess Sabiha Fazila Hanimsultan, the only daughter of Prince Muhammad 'Ali Ibrahim Beyefendi of Egypt and Princess Zehra Hanzade Sultan, to King Faisal II of Iraq. The engagement was ended by the murder of King Faisal II, following a military coup on 14 July 1958.[11]

For his utter misfortune Prince Namik was in Iraq on 14 July 1958 when a bloody revolution broke out in that country. Mending fences with its republican neighbors, the new military junta offered the captured prince to a pitiless Nasser in exchange for improved relations with Egypt. Namik was thus flown to Cairo on 31 August 1958 to face retrial receiving a 15-year jail sentence[12] in Tora Prison.[13]

Death

Mahmud died at the age of fourty-nine from a stroke, at Cairo, Egypt on 13 November 1963.[13] The funeral took place in the garden of the prison, and was attended by by relatives and few Turkish citizens living in Cairo. He was buried in the private tomb of his former wife, Şehrazad Hanım.[14] In 1977, he was reburied in the mausoleum of Sultan Mahmud II in Istanbul.[14]

Family tree

Showing the line of descent from the founder of the Ottoman dynasty to present day through Sultan Mehmed V Reşad's youngest son Prince Ömer Hilmi Efendi Family tree showing descent from Sultan Mehmed V Reshad

References

  1. ^ Dan Morrison (24 June 2013). "Lost for Decades, a Beguiling Curio from Egypt's Royal Past". National Geographic.
  2. ^ "Maadi'S Ottomans". Egy.com. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  3. ^ Kyle, K. (2011). Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 148–149. ISBN 978-1-84885-533-5.
  4. ^ "NESLISHAH SULTAN 1921-2012". Egy.com. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  5. ^ a b c d Vâsıb, Ali; Osmanoğlu, Osman Selaheddin (2004). Bir Şehzadenin Hâtırâtı: Vatan Ve Menfâda Gördüklerim Ve İşittiklerim. Yapı Kredi Yayınları. YKY. pp. 296, 454. ISBN 978-975-08-0878-4.
  6. ^ a b Pazan, İ. (2009). Son saraylı: Şehzade Osman Ertuğrul Efendi. Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı. Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı. p. 96. ISBN 978-9944-118-94-1.
  7. ^ "Egypt Investigates Anti-Nasser Plot". The New York Times. 28 December 1957. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  8. ^ "NESLISHAH SULTAN 1921-2012". Egy.com. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  9. ^ "Adel Sabit". The Telegraph. 26 March 2001. Retrieved 1 May 2014.
  10. ^ "Maadi'S Ottomans". Egy.com. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  11. ^ "Maadi'S Ottomans". Egy.com. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  12. ^ "Maadi'S Ottomans". Egy.com. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
  13. ^ a b Bardakçı 2017, p. 260.
  14. ^ a b Bardakçı 2017, p. 261.

Bibliography

  • Bardakçı, Murat (2017). Neslishah: The Last Ottoman Princess. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN 978-977-416-837-6.
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