MIDDLE EAST HISTORY POLITICS CULTURE XI-XII Middle East | Page 280

MELKONYAN MARIAM
(YSU)
THE REFLECTION OF THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN WORK «HÂTEME-I
RISÂLE» BY MIHRI HATUN (15-16 CENTURIES)
In Ottoman Empire Islamic laws formed public way of thinking.
Women were isolated from society, politics, culture and so on. The main
reason was that Islam restricted the women rights.
The general attitude towards women has its manifestation in Ottoman
poetry, where we can meet works expressing negative opinions about
women.
In Ottoman Empire women were kept away from literature. This is the
reason why there are no many women in Ottoman literature. Nevertheless,
15 th century was marked by appearing of woman poet in Divan literature.
Many of them mainly wrote in literal traditions established by man poets.
The only exception was Mihri Hatun (1456-1514). You can meet numerous
lines in her divan, which express progressive ideas not typical to that period
and the most notable from her works is «Hâtemei Risâle» .
We can say that in «Hâtemei Risâle» the poetess tries to speak about
woman’s natural rights as here Mihri wants to say that woman with her mind
and opinions is not yield to man, often even surpasses, so she must also be
considered as a human being who has right to express her virtues, to express
her ideas like men. In these extremely brave lines, not typical to that period,
appear that Mihri has the courage to criticize unequal status of men and
women in society. This is the first case in Ottoman Divan literature.
Although ideas expressed in «Hâtemei Risâle» are no predominant in
other works of Mihri Hatun, but these lines show that in Ottoman literature
the ideas dedicated to the protection of women rights are the reflection of
feminism, which we can meet till 15-16 centuries.
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