Theodora Megale Komnene, also known as Despina Khatun (from the Greek title Despoina and Mongol title Khatun, both meaning "Lady, princess, queen") is the daughter of John IV of Trebizond, who marries the Aq Qoyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan in 1458.

She becomes the mother of Martha (Halima), who becomes the mother of first Safavid king, Shah Ismail I. John IV had approved the marriage only on the condition that his daughter be allowed to continue her Orthodox Christian religion, a condition to which Uzun Hasan had agreed.

Despina is famous for her extreme beauty among the Greek women.

She is accompanied by a group of Orthodox Christian priests and is allowed to build Orthodox churches in Iran.

Uzun Hasan strengthens his anti-Ottoman alliance by this marriage and gains the support of many Greek, Armenian and Georgians.

Marriage between Christians and Muslim rulers, although uncommon, is not unprecedented.

Speros Vryonis provides several examples from the Sultanate of the Seljuk Turks, beginning with Kilij Arslan II.

A later example is Michael VIII Palaiologos marrying off his illegitimate daughters Euphrosyne and Maria to Nogai Khan and Abaqa Khan respectively.

Previous Emperors of Trebizond had married off female relatives, most notably Alexios III, during whose reign two of his sisters and two of his daughters were married to rulers of neighboring Muslim states.

In Western Europe, Theodora inspires the myth of the "Princess of Trebizond", a fixture of tales of damsels in distress as well as of a possible grand Crusade against the Ottoman Turks.

The legend inspires several artists, including Pisanello and Jacques Offenbach.

Source: Speros Vryonis, The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California, 1971), pp.

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