[1][6][7][8] In the meantime, Abbas began to have sexual relations with Ikbal, and on 12 February 1895, she gave birth to a girl, named Emina in honor of her grandmother.

[12] By the standards of contemporary Ottoman ruling-class culture, the fathering of a child by a slave concubine was unexceptional, and so too was Abbas's decision to raise Ikbal to the status of legal wife.

The announcements did not allude to Ikbal's previous slave status, something that would have been as rude as it was obvious to contemporaries familiar with upper-class harem culture.

As Khediva, Ikbal was considered one of Egypt's most beautiful women and was reputed to be a devoted wife, gaining her favor among those around the palace.

However, aside from attending ladies-only state functions such as royal weddings or receptions and opera premiers, Ikbal Hanim had no official public role.

[3] In 1913, a year before his deposition in 1914, the khedive began seeing Georgette Mesny also known as Andrée de Lusange whom he met at Maxim's in Paris.

Lusange was a 20 years old short, lean, heavily painted woman who distributed her favors for 20 francs and once in the khedive's entourage spied for the French government.

[20] In 1925, she came in procession of Sultan Abdul Hamid II's son Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir's mansion in Feneryolu[21] after the latter gave the power of attorney to Sami Günzberg, a well-known Turkish Jewish lawyer, authorising him to regain from usurpers buildings, lands, mines, concessions left by Abdul Hamid situated in Turkish territory and elsewhere.