In her childhood, she learned how to play the piano from Lombardi Bey, a French music teacher who also taught other children of the sultan.

[5] Towards the end of Abdul Hamid's reign, he bethrothed Refia Sultan to Ali Fuad Bey, the son of Müşir Ahmed Eyüp Pasha.

[3] The marriage took place on 3 June 1910 on Dolmabahçe Palace, the same day of wedding of her half-sister Hamide Ayşe Sultan.

[6] At the exile of the imperial family in March 1924, the couple and their daughters settled firstly in Nice, France, where Hamide died at the age of eighteen because of an incident in 1936.

[7] Refia Sultan died at the age of forty-seven in 1938 in Beirut, Lebanon, and was buried in the cemetery of the Sulaymaniyya Takiyya, Damascus, Syria.