Ottoman Dynasty Eldest Member Dies

Fatma Neslişah Osmanoğlu, or Neslişah Sultan, the eldest member of the Ottoman royal family, has passed away in İstanbul at the age of 91.

Neslişah Sultan, a paternal granddaughter of the last Ottoman Caliph Abdülmecid II and maternal granddaughter of the last Ottoman Sultan and Caliph Mehmed VI Vahdettin, died early on Monday in İstanbul. She assumed the title of eldest surviving member of the Ottoman dynasty after the death of Osman Ertuğrul Osmanoğlu in 2009.

Born in 1921, Neslişah Sultan was 3 years old when she left İstanbul and went to France after the caliphate was abolished in 1924 by the newly founded Turkish Republic and members of the Ottoman royal family were expelled from the country. In 1940, she married Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim, the son of Egypt’s last khedive Abbas Hilmi II. She thus became an Egyptian princess by marriage.