Refia Sultan (daughter of Abdul Hamid II)

Refia Sultan was born on 15 June 1891 in the Yıldız Palace. Her father was Abdul Hamid II, son of Abdulmejid I and Tirimüjgan Kadın. Her mother was Sazkar Hanım,^[1][2][3][4] daughter of Recep Bata Bey Maan and Rukiye Havva Hanım Mikanba. She was the only child of her mother and her father's youngest daughter to reach adulthood. In her childhood, she learned how to play the piano from Lombardi Bey, a French music teacher who also taught other children of the sultan.^[5]

Towards the end of Abdul Hamid's reign, he bethrothed Refia Sultan to Ali Fuad Bey, the son of Müşir Ahmed Eyüp Pasha. However, at the overthrew of her father in 1909, the princess followed her parents into exile at Thessaloniki. The next year she returned to Istanbul.^[3]

The marriage took place on 3 June 1910 on Dolmabahçe Palace, the same day of wedding of her half-sister Hamide Ayşe Sultan. He became a Damat. The couple had two daughters, Rabia Hanımsultan, born on 13 July 1911, and Ayşe Hamide Hanımsultan, born in 1918.^[6]

At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, the couple and their daughters settled firstly in Nice, France, where Hamide died at the age of eighteen because of an incident in 1936. Later the couple settled in Beirut, Lebanon.^[3][4]

According to Neslişah Sultan, she was by far the worldliest among the daughters of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. She was a gracious lady, and her husband Fuad Bey was an excellent husband.^[7]

Refia Sultan died at the age of forty-seven in 1938 in Beirut, Lebanon, and was buried in the cemetery of the Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, Damascus, Syria.^[6][1][3][2] Her mother outlived her by seven years dying in 1945.^[8]

• Order of the House of Osman^[9]
• Order of the Medjidie, Jeweled^[9]
• Order of Charity, 1st Class^[9]
• Liakat Medal in Gold^[9]
• Iftikhar Sanayi Medal in Gold^[9]
• Hicaz Demiryolu Medal in Gold^[9]