Asporça Hatun

Asporça Hatun (اسپورجہ خاتون; born Holofira, Olivera or Glafira, died after 1362) was a Greek-Byzantine noblewoman, the first legal wife of Sultan Orhan of the Ottoman Empire.

Origins
Asporça Hatun was born as Holofira (or Olivera or Glafira), a Greek-Byzantine noblewoman, but are not known others details about her origins.

Contemporary rumors said 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's impossible that Asporça was daughter of Andronikos III because he was born in 1296 and Asporça had a son in 1310. Plus, Byzantine princesses married to Muslim rulers usually kept their own name and their Ortodox Christian faith, while Asporça took an Ottoman name and converted to Islam.

Another thesis is that Asporça was the daughter of the Byzantine tekfur of Bilecik, who in 1298/1299 was kidnapped by the Ottomans and given to Orhan as a consort, but this wife is usually identified with Bayalun Hatun, and if the kidnapped girl was Asporça, this would mean that her firstborn was born over a decade later.

Wedding
Since one of Asporça's children, the only one whose birth date is known, was born in 1310, Asporça married Orhan in or shortly before that year. She was the first of Orhan's two legal wives (the other was Theodora Kantakouzene, married in 1346) and she bore him two sons and two daughters. She was highly esteemed by her father-in-law, Osman I, who gave her the revenues of numerous lands and villages, including Narlı and Kiyaklı.

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. In the 17th century, a woman named Saliha Hatun presented herself at the court of Bursa, declaring herself a descendant of Asporça and asking that the income guaranteed by the waqf be paid to her.

Death
Asporça survived Orhan, who died in 1362. Shortly thereafter, in the same year, her son Ibrahim was executed by order of the new sultan Murad I, son of Orhan and the concubine Nilüfer Hatun.

Upon her death, she was buried in Bursa, in the türbe of Orhan. 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.

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


 * Ibrahim 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. She married Süleyman Bey, son of Mehmed Aydin.
 * Fatma Hatun.