Fatma Sultan was born on 22 September 1704 in the Topkapı Palace. Her father was Sultan Ahmed III, and her mother was Emetullah Kadın. She was the eldest child and daughter born to her father.
First marriage
In 1709, at the age of four, Ahmed betrothed her to Silahdar Ali Pasha. The wedding took place on 11 May 1709, until 16 May in the Topkapı Palace. In the meantime, Silahdar Ali Pasha was given the rank of vizier and kaymakam. On 16 May, Fatma was taken from the Topkapı Palace to the Valide Sultan's palace in Eyüp, which was allocated for the wedding. The wedding lasted until 20 May. Silahdar Ali Pasha became Grand Vizier in 1713. However, he died in 1716, when Fatma was twelve years old.
Second marriage
In 1717, when Fatma was thirteen, Ahmed arranged her marriage to Nevşehirli Ibrahim Pasha. The wedding took place on 22 February 1717 in Edirne. Ibrahim Pasha was fifty years old at that time, and had divorced his first wife in order to marry the princess. Just over a year later, Ibrahim Pasha took over as grand vezir on 9 May 1718. By 1724 Ibrahim Pasha and Fatma had several palaces at different locations. Following their marriage in 1717, the one across from the Kiosk of Processions on the landwalls of the Topkapı Palace, which had long housed many grand vezirs, grew into a monumental complex as Ibrahim Pasha and Fatma continued to annex nearby palaces, and busied themselves with restoring and rebuilding them. Ibrahim Pasha stated his longing for Fatma Sultan with a poem. Pasha explains this love and sorrow in one place: She was described as having had a large political influence on both her father, who left the ruling to her husband, and on her husband, the Grand Vizier. Some sources regard her as the real ruler of the later part of the Tulip era. She was said to have assisted the Marquis de Villeneuve, French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1728–1741, in favor of an Ottoman policy benefitting to French interests during the Russo-Austrian-Turkish War. She has been referred to as the last de facto female ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The couple spent several happy and affluent years during the notorious for its splendidness and lavishness Tulip Age which became the symbol of the reign of Sultan Ahmed III. The two together had a son named Mehmed Bey who died in 1737. Fatma Sultan was widowed in 1730, when her husband Ibrahim Pasha, who was sixty-four years old, was killed during the Patrona Halil revolt, which led to the deposition of her father Sultan Ahmed. She was twenty-six years old.
Charities
In 1727, Fatma Sultan commissioned a fountain near the Ibrahim Pasha Palace, which bears her name. In 1728, she also commissioned a fountain near the Cedid Valide Sultan Mosque in Üsküdar. During her lifetime she founded waqfs in the capital bequeathing mülk properties she had received from her father. There is no trace left from the Fatma Sultan Mosque, which was built in the Eminönü district in Istanbul, opposite the current Vilâyet building. While Nevşehirli Ibrahim Pasha built a palace near this masjid, Fatma Sultan repaired the mosque and added from the land of her palace and built a large mosque. According to a judgment from an archive document determined by Ahmed Refik, on 20 October 1727, in Rumeli, in the district of Pasha, in the Berkofça suburb, Çetrofça and Tevâbii, the monastery and Florina in the sub-districts 60.000 It is learned that the Zagoriça and its repentance mutatas, which are the property of akçe, were allocated from the Havâss-ı Hümayı to be devoted to be devoted to the mosque. This provision, which was written four days before the opening of the mosque to the Berkofça and Monastir women, fits exactly with the date of its construction.
Death
Fatma Sultan died at the age of twenty eight on 4 January 1733, and was buried in the mausoleum of Turhan Sultan in New Mosque, Istanbul.
