Fantasy Guide to the Ottoman Harem
The Harem was the very heart of the Ottoman Empire. It was an inner court made up of the Sultan's wives, servants, daughters, female cousins, aunts and the sultan's concubines. The harem was segregated from the Sultan's own court, sometimes it was an entire location on its own. This secluded world was rarely seen by anybody in the outside world other than the Sultan himself.
Life Within the Harem
The Harem was at its most basic is a collection of the Sultan's female slaves. These women were usually foreigners and non-Muslim women as the religious law barred Muslims taking other Muslims as slaves. These women would be taken from the surrounding lands of the empire, taken for their skills and beauty and brought to the harem as gifts for the Sultan. In some instances, some families encouraged their daughters to sell themselves into slavery in order to obtain a life of luxury through living at the harem.
Life in the harem was one of service but not always of a sexual nature. In fact, only a select few women ever actually saw the Sultan let alone slept with him. They were expected to serve him in any way they could such as washing his clothes or entertaining him. The women arrived at the Palace and were given an education in order to be interesting companions to the Sultan. They learned Islamic religious practices, how to read, write, how to play instruments, how to dance and how to do a number of different crafts. Harem women could actually make a living off of their crafting such as their embroidery.
The Sultan was a frequent visitor to the harem, if not to father heirs then to see his mother and sisters who also lived in the harem or to be entertained. If a woman caught his fancy, she would be a handed a handkerchief by the Sultan's attendant which acted as a summons to his Chambers. Most of the chosen women were actually earmarked by the Sultan's mother who advised him on his reign and sought to ensure that he chosen women who could bear children and be shrewd enough to raise their sons into potential Sultans. The women were not permitted to leave the harem but were offered every comfort they could ask for.
There was a strict hierarchical society within the Harem but they could rise within the hierarchy, some of the women of the Ottoman Harem write history as we know it.
Positions Within The Harem
- Valide Sultan (والدة السلطان) : Mother of the Sultan. The Valide was the highest ranking woman of the harem. She out ranked even the Haseki. Valides were honoured due to their roles as Councillors to their sons. She would have accompanied her son to his province to advise him and remained the biggest female influence in his life, even selecting the best concubines for him.
- Haseki kadın (خاصکى سلطان): Consort of the Sultan (the only one he actually marries). Before the rule of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Sultan would not marry. Instead, he would father heirs on his concubines. The tradition of taking a favoured concubine as a wife or a Haseki, became more popular in the period of the Sultanate of Women. The Sultan would usually marry his favourite concubine, elevating her position in the harem. However, she would continue to live there but she wasn't the head of the harem. Through her marriage she outranked the sultan's own sisters and aunts, the princesses of the dynasty because it was expected she would mother the next Sultan.
- Hatun (Lady/خاتون): Title of imperial princesses and mothers of sultans but in the 16th century it was carried by lesser female members.
- Kadın (قادین): This was the title granted to the women who had given the sultan a child. She was considered as a secondary wife to the Sultan. At any given time, there would be no more than four Kadın but some Sultans did have multiple kadin.
- Baş kadın/birinci kadin: She was the most senior of the slave consorts and held a high position in the harem usually after the Valide and Haseki. the second rank and most powerful after the valide sultan in the harem.
- Ikbal (اقبال) : These were harem wonen with whom the sultan had slept but had not bore any children. They were also referred to them as gözde and given certain privileges such as being given theur own chambers and higher position in the harem.
- Odalisques (اوطهلق): These women were women who were not deflowered by Sultan. They served the other women and trained to entertain the Sultan when he visited.
- Cariye (جارية) : These were the slave women who served the other women mentioned on this list. They, like the others, were female slaves of the Sultan. They held their own hierarchy in their group. Novice girls were called Acemi, the Acemilik were novicitiates, the Sakird were apprentices and the Gedikli were the personal maidservants of the Sultan. These women were released after 9 years to be married off in an arranged marriage by the court.
Male Positions in the Harem
Though the Harem was segregated from the rest of the world, some men lived in the harem as slaves and servants. They were trusted administrators and servants, well educated and permitted to rise very high despite their beginnings - like the women, they were bought or given to the Sultan as slaves. But this status and luxury came with a rather steep condition. They were castrated in order to ensure only the Sultan could father heirs with the women inside. There were many kinds.
- Sandali (clean-shaven): All of the parts are cut off by a razor. A tube is inserted into his urethra in order to ensure fiction while the wounds are sealed with boiling oil and the boy is usually fed on a diet of milk afterward.
- Penis is removed: Extactly what it says on the tin.
- The eunuch, or classical thlibias and semivir: Removal of Testicles only.
However, in these subsets there was a divide usually by race. A Sultan's Court would be made of both white and black slaves. Black eunuchs were often of the Sandali sort of eunch whilst white eunuchs fell into the second or third categories. White eunuchs were given places amongst the administration while the black eunuchs served the Harem directly. There were two chiefs of these different classes of eunch.
The chief black eunuch (Kızlar ağası): The kızlar ağası was charged with the protection of the harem women. He was considered high ranking in the harem, only second to the Grand Vizier because he held the confidence of the Sultan and had the power to arrange access to him and his Chambers. He held command of the halberdiers (baltacı).
The chief white eunuch (Kapı Ağası): This man was in charge of all white eunuchs slaves in the harem, controlling the communications, state papers and in charge of educating the next generation of administrators.
Children of the Sultan
- Şehzade (شهزاده) : Son of a Sultan. Şehzades were born into the harem and raised by their mothers alongside their sisters and half siblings. In the early years of the Empire, when they came of age, a Şehzade would be granted a province to govern by their father where they would learn the business of ruling. In later years, they spent their lives in the Harem sometimes as prisoners when their chosen brother ascended to the throne in special rooms of the harem known as kafes. But unlike courts of the West, all the Sultan's sons had an equal claim to the throne. You see when a Sultan dies, his sons fight over who gets to be the next Sultan. The Şehzades (the male issue of the Sultan) will turn on one another, often having all their brothers and half brothers massacred by guards armed with bowstrings. This fratricidal system did work in the Sultan's favour as his throne was safe from claims of rivals. Yet if you get rid of all your heirs and you can't sire one and you die... well bye bye dynasty. The Şehzade who usually comes out on top will be the one who is backed by the military. This practise became less awful as years went by and the brothers of the Sultan were imprisoned in the harem in chambers called the Golden Cage or kafes. Some went insane and some actually succeeded the Sultanate.
- Shehzadi (شہزادی): These are the daughters of the Sultan. Daughters usually lived most their lives in relative peace and luxury within the Harem as they were never potential threats or heirs. They were however important to Ottoman politics as well as marrying pashas, who were high-ranking advisers to the Sultan. These marriages ensured these powerful men stayed loyal yo the Sultan. The Ottoman Princesses impacted life in the harem and without, acting as notable philanthropists and advising their male relatives.
Recommended Sources for Further Information:
- Empress of the East : How a Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Pierce
- The Imperial Harem : Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire by Leslie Pierce
- The Sultans : The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Rulers and Their World by Jem Duducu.
- The Women Who Built the Ottoman World: Female Patronage and the Architectural Legacy of Gülnüş Sultan by Muzaffer Özgüleş
- Ottoman Women Builders: The Architectural Patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan by Lucienne Thys-Senocak,
