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Slaves in the Imperial Harem

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An 18th-century painting of the harem of Sultan Ahmed III, by Jean Baptiste Vanmour

Very little is actually known about the Imperial Harem, and much of what is thought to be known is actually conjecture and imagination.[1] There are two main reasons for the lack of accurate accounts on this subject. The first was the barrier imposed by the people of the Ottoman society – the Ottoman people did not know much about the machinations of the Imperial Harem themselves, due to it being physically impenetrable, and because the silence of insiders was enforced.[1] The second was that any accounts from this period were from European travelers, who were both not privy to the information, and also inherently presented a Western bias and potential for misinterpretation by being outsiders to the Ottoman culture.[1] Despite the acknowledged biases by many of these sources themselves, scandalous stories of the Imperial Harem and the sexual practices of the sultans were popular, even if they were not true.[1] Accounts from the seventeenth century drew from both a newer, seventeenth century trend as well as a more traditional style of history-telling; they presented the appearance of debunking previous accounts and exposing new truths, while proceeding to propagate old tales as well as create new ones.[1] However, European accounts from captives who served as pages in the imperial palace, and the reports, dispatches, and letters of ambassadors resident in Istanbul, their secretaries, and other members of their suites proved to be more reliable than other European sources.[1] And further, of this group of more reliable sources, the writings of the Venetians in the sixteenth century surpassed all others in volume, comprehensiveness, sophistication, and accuracy.[1]


The concubines of the Ottoman Sultan consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. The Sultan's concubines were generally of Christian origin. Most of the elites of the Harem Ottoman Empire included many women, such as the sultan's mother, preferred concubines, royal concubines, children (princes / princess), and administrative personnel. The administrative personnel of the palace were made up of many high-ranking women officers, they were responsible for the training of Jariyes for domestic chores.[1][2] The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of Valide Sultan which raised her to the status of a ruler of the Empire (see Sultanate of Women). The mother of the Sultan played an substantial role in decision making for the Imperial Harem. One notable example was Kösem Sultan, daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century.[3] Roxelana (also known as Hürrem Sultan), another notable example, was the favorite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent.[4] Many historians who study the Ottoman Empire, rely on the factual evidence of observers of the 16th and 17th century Islam. The tremendous growth of the Harem institution reconstructed the careers and roles of women in the dynasty power structure. There were harem women who were the mothers, legal wives, consorts, Kalfas, and concubines of the Ottoman Sultan. Only a handful of these harem women were freed from slavery and married their spouses. These women were : Hurrem Sulan , Nurbanu Sulan , Saifye Sultan (disput,e , Kosem Sulan , Gulnus Sul, , Perestu Sultan and Bezmiara Kadin. The Queen mothers who held the title Valide Sultan had only five of them that were freed slaves after they were concubines to the Sultan.

The concubines were guarded by enslaved eunuchs, themselves often from pagan Africa. The eunuchs were headed by the Kizlar Agha ("agha of the [slave] girls"). While Islamic law forbade the emasculation of a man, Ethiopian Christians had no such compunctions; thus, they enslaved and emasculated members of territories to the south and sold the resulting eunuchs to the Ottoman Porte.[5][6] The Coptic Orthodox Church participated extensively in the slave trade of eunuchs. Coptic priests sliced the penis and testicles off boys around the age of eight in a castration operation.[7]

The eunuch boys were then sold in the Ottoman Empire. The majority of Ottoman eunuchs endured castration at the hands of the Copts at Abou Gerbe monastery on Mount Ghebel Eter.[7] Slave boys were captured from the African Great Lakes region and other areas in Sudan like Darfur and Kordofan then sold to customers in Egypt.[8][5] During the operation, the Coptic clergyman chained the boys to tables and after slicing their sexual organs off, stuck bamboo catheters into the genital area, then submerged them in sand up to their necks. The recovery rate was 10 percent. The resulting eunuchs fetched large profits in contrast to eunuchs from other areas.[9][10][11]

Ottoman Sexual Slavery

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A 19th-century photograph of a Köçek, a cross-dressing young slave boy sometimes used for homosexual purposes

Female sexual slavery was extremely common in the Ottoman empire and any child of a female slave were just as legitimate as any child born of a free woman.[12] This means that any child of a female slave could not be sold or given away. However, due to extreme poverty, some Circassian slaves and free people in the lower classes of Ottoman society felt forced to sell their children into slavery; this provided a potential benefit for the children as well, as slavery also held the opportunity for social mobility.[13] If a harem slave became pregnant, it also became illegal for her to be further sold in slavery, and she would gain her freedom upon her current owner's death.[13] Slavery in and of itself was long tied with the economic and expansionist activities of the Ottoman empire.[14] There was a major decrease in slave acquisition by the late eighteenth century as a result of the lessoning of expansionist activities.[14] War efforts were a great source of slave procurement, so the Ottoman empire had to find other methods of obtaining slaves because they were a major source of income within the empire.[14] The Caucasian War caused a major influx of Circassian slaves into the Ottoman market and a person of modest wealth could purchase a slave with a few pieces of gold.[14] At a time, Circassian slaves became the most abundant in the imperial harem.[14]

Circassians, Syrians, and Nubians were the three primary races of females who were sold as sex slaves (Cariye) in the Ottoman Empire.[15] Circassian girls were described as fair and light-skinned and were frequently enslaved by Crimean Tatars then sold to Ottoman Empire to live and serve in a Harem.[15] They were the most expensive, reaching up to 500 pounds sterling, and the most popular with the Turks. Second in popularity were Syrian girls, with their dark eyes, dark hair, and light brown skin, and came largely from coastal regions in Anatolia.[15] Their price could reach up to 30 pounds sterling. They were described as having "good figures when young". Nubian girls were the cheapest and least popular, fetching up to 20 pounds sterling.[16] Sex roles and symbolism in Ottoman society functioned as a normal action of power. The palace Harem excluded enslaved women from the rest of society.[17]

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, sexual slavery was not only central to Ottoman practice but a critical component of imperial governance and elite social reproduction.[18] Boys could also become sexual slaves, though usually they worked in places like bathhouses (hammam) and coffeehouses. During this period, historians have documented men indulging in sexual behavior with other men and getting caught.[19] Moreover, the visual illustrations during this period of exposing a sodomite being stigmatized by a group of people with Turkish wind instruments shows the disconnect between sexuality and tradition. However those that were accepted became tellaks (masseurs), köçeks (cross-dressing dancers) or sāqīs (wine pourers) for as long as they were young and beardless.[20] The "Beloveds" were often loved by former Beloveds that were educated and considered upper class.[19]

Some female slaves who were owned by women were sold as sex workers for short periods of time.[12] Women also purchased slaves, but usually not for sexual purposes, and most likely searched for slaves who were loyal, healthy, and had good domestic skills.[21] However, there were accounts of Jewish women owning slaves and indulging in forbidden sexual relationships in Cairo.[21] Beauty was also a valued trait when looking to buy a slave because they often seen as objects to show off to people.[21] While prostitution was against the law, there were very little recorded instances of punishment that came to shari'a courts for pimps, prostitutes, or for the people who sought out their services.[22] Cases that did punish prostitution usually resulted in the expulsion of the prostitute or pimp from the area they were in.[22] However, this does not mean that these people were not always receiving light punishments. Sometimes military officials took it upon themselves to enforce extra judicial punishment. This involved pimps being strung up on trees, destruction of brothels, and harassing prostitutes.[22]

Sexual slavery in the Ottoman empire also provided a social function because some slaves gained the status of their owner, or was passed on a distinguished person's lineage.[21] Slaves also had the right to inheritance. Some slaves were treated as family members, and were left with money, items, or were even granted their own freedom.[21] Sexual slavery was a means for social mobility in the Ottoman empire. The imperial harem was similar to a training institution for concubines, and served as a way to get closer to the Ottoman elite.[17] Parents from lower-class concubines especially had better opportunities for social mobility in the imperial harem because they could be trained for marriage to high-ranking military officials.[17] Some of the concubines had a chance for even greater power in Ottoman society if they became favorites of the sultan. [1] The sultan would keep a large number of girls as his concubines in the New Palace, which as a result became known as "the palace of the girls" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[1] These concubines mainly consisted of young Christian slave girls. Accounts claim that the sultan would keep a concubine in the New Palace for a period of two months, during which time he would do with her as he pleased.[1] They would be considered eligible for the sultan's sexual attention until they became pregnant; if a concubine became pregnant, the sultan may take her as a wife and move her to the Old Palace where they would prepare for the royal child; if she did not become pregnant by the end of the two months, she would be married off to one of the sultan's high-ranking military men.[1] If a concubine became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, she may still be considered for further sexual attention from the sultan.[1] The harem system was an important part of Ottoman-Egyptian society as well; it attempted to mimic the imperial harem in many ways, including the secrecy of the harem section of the household, where the women were kept hidden away from males that were outside of their own family, the guarding of the women by black eunuchs, and also having the function of training for becoming wives or concubines.[13]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Peirce, Leslie P. (1993). The imperial harem : women and sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York. ISBN 0195076737. OCLC 27811454.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ Nikki R., Kiddie (2006). "From the PIous Caliphs Through the Dynastic Caliphates" in Women in the Middle East: past and present. Princeton University Press. pp. 26–48.
  3. ^ See generally Jay Winik (2007), The Great Upheaval.
  4. ^ Ayşe Özakbaş, Hürrem Sultan, Tarih Dergisi, Sayı 36, 2000 Archived 2012-01-13 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ^ a b Gwyn Campbell, The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia, 1 edition, (Routledge: 2003), p.ix
  6. ^ See Winik, supra.
  7. ^ a b Henry G. Spooner (1919). The American Journal of Urology and Sexology, Volume 15. The Grafton Press. p. 522. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  8. ^ Tinker, Keith L. (2012). The African Diaspora to the Bahamas: The Story of the Migration of People of African Descent to the Bahamas. FriesenPress. p. 9. ISBN 978-1460205549.
  9. ^ Northwestern lancet, Volume 17. s.n. 1897. p. 467. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  10. ^ John O. Hunwick, Eve Troutt Powell (2002). The African diaspora in the Mediterranean lands of Islam. Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-55876-275-6. Retrieved 2011-01-11.
  11. ^ American Medical Association (1898). The Journal of the American Medical Association, Volume 30, Issues 1-13. American Medical Association. p. 176. Retrieved 2011-01-11. the Coptic priests castrate Nubian and Abyssinian slave boys at about 8 years of age and afterward sell them to the Turkish market. Turks in Asia Minor are also partly supplied by Circassian eunuchs. The Coptic priests before.
  12. ^ a b Andrews, Walters (2005). The Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Durham and London: Duke University Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780822334507.
  13. ^ a b c Shihade, Magid (2007). "Edmund Burke, III and David N. Yaghoubian, eds. Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East, Second Edition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. 434 pages, 12 photographs, 1 map, glossary, list of contributors. Paper US$24-95 ISBN 978-0-520-24661-4". Middle East Studies Association Bulletin. 41 (2): 185–186. doi:10.1017/s002631840005063x. ISSN 0026-3184.
  14. ^ a b c d e Karamursel, Ceyda. "The Uncertainties of Freedom: The Second Constitutional Era and the End of Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire". Journal of women's history. 28: 138–161 – via Project Muse Standard Collection.
  15. ^ a b c "SLAVES SOLD TO THE TURK; HOW THE VILE TRAFFIC IS STILL CARRIED ON IN THE EAST. SIGHTS OUR CORRESPONDENT SAW FOR TWENTY DOLLARS--IN THE HOUSE OF A GRAND OLD TURK OF A DEALER. (Published 1886)". The New York Times. 1886-03-28. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-10.
  16. ^ Wolf Von Schierbrand (March 28, 1886). "Slaves sold to the Turk; How the vile traffic is still carried on in the East. Sights our correspondent saw for twenty dollars--in the house of a grand old Turk of a dealer" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
  17. ^ a b c Peirce, Leslie P. (1993). The imperial harem : women and sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. New York. ISBN 0195076737. OCLC 27811454.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ Madeline C. Zilfi Women and slavery in the late Ottoman Empire Cambridge University Press, 2010
  19. ^ a b Walter G., Andrews (2005). The Age of the Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Duke University Press. pp. 1–31.
  20. ^ Madeline C. Zilfi Women and slavery in the late Ottoman Empire Cambridge University Press, 2010 p74-75, 115, 186-188, 191-192
  21. ^ a b c d e Ben-Naeh, Yaron. “Blond, Tall, with Honey-Colored Eyes: Jewish Ownership of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire.” Jewish history 20.3/4 (2006): 315–332. Web.
  22. ^ a b c Baldwin, James (2012). "Prostitution, Islamic Law and Ottoman Studies". Journal of the economic and social history of the orient. 55: 118–148 – via JSTOR Arts and Scientists VII.
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