Assignment. Read text 13 and find specific lexical units characterizing the role of women in Turkey

The entrance to the Harem, open by guided tour only, is through the Carriage Gate beneath the Adalet Kulesi (Tower of Justice), the palace’s highest point.

Many of the 300-odd rooms in the Harem were constructed during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-66), but much more was added or reconstructed over the years. In 1665 a disastrous fire destroyed much of the complex, which was rebuilt by Mehmet IV and later sultans.

Fraught with legend and romance, the Harem is usually imagined as a place where the sultan could engage in debauchery at will. In fact, these were the imperial family quarters, and every detail of Harem life was governed by tradition, obligation and ceremony.

Every traditional Muslim household had two distinct parts: the selamlık (greeting room) where the master greeted friends, business associates and trades people; and the Harem or private apartments, reserved for himself and his family. The Harem, then, was something akin to the private apartments in Buckingham Palace or the White House.

The women of the Harem had to be foreigners, as Islam forbade enslaving Muslims, Christians or Jews (with some exceptions, for example the Janissaries’ devşirme). Besides prisoners of war, girls were bought as slaves (often sold by their parents at a good price), or received as gifts from nobles and potentates. A favourite source of girls was Circassia, north of the Caucasus Mountains in Russia, as Circassian women were noted for their beauty, and parents were often glad to give up their 10-year-old girls in exchange for hard cash.

Upon entering the Harem, the girls would be schooled in Islam and Turkish culture and language, the arts of make-up, dress, comportment, music, reading and writing, embroidery and dancing. They then entered a meritocracy, first as ladies-in-waiting to the sultan’s concubines and children, then to the sultan’s mother and finally, if they were the best, to the sultan himself.

Ruling the Harem was the valide sultan, the mother of the reigning sultan. She often owned large estates in her own name and controlled them through black eunuch servants (brought from Africa). She was allowed to give orders directly to the grand vizier. Her influence on the sultan, on the selection of his wives and concubines, and on matters of state, was often profound.

The sultan was allowed by Islamic law to have four legitimate wives, who received the title of kadın (wife). If a wife bore him a child, she was called haseki sultan if it was a son; haseki kadın if it was a daughter. The Ottoman dynasty did not observe primogeniture, so in principle the throne was available to any imperial son. Each lady of the Harem contrived mightily to have her son proclaimed heir to the throne, thus assuring her own role and power as the new valide sultan.

As for concubines, Islam permits as many as a man can support in proper style. The Ottoman sultans had the means to support many, sometimes up to 300, though they were not all in the Harem at the same time.

Life in the Cage. Imperial princes were brought up in the palace Harem as children, taught and cared for by its women and servants.

In the early centuries of the empire, Ottoman princes were schooled as youths in combat and statecraft by direct experience: they practised soldiering, fought in battles and were given provinces to administer. But as the Ottoman dynasty did not observe primogeniture (succession of the first-born), the death of the sultan regularly resulted in a fratricidal blood bath as his sons battled it out among themselves for the throne. In the case of Beyazit II, his sons began the battles even before the sultan’s death, realising that to lose the battle for succession meant death for themselves. The victorious son, Selim, even forced Beyazit to abdicate, and may even have had him murdered as he went into retirement.

Fratricide was not practised by Ahmet I, who could not bring himself to murder his mad brother Mustafa. Instead, he kept him imprisoned in the Harem, beginning the tradition of kafes hayatı (cage life). This house arrest, adopted in place of fratricide by later sultans, meant that princes were prey to the intrigues of the women and eunuchs who ran the Harem, corrupted by the pleasures of the Harem, ignorant of war and statecraft, and thus usually unfit to rule if and when the occasion arose. Luckily for the empire in this latter period, there were able grand viziers to carry on.

In later centuries the dynasty abandoned akafes haytı and adopted the practice of having the eldest male in the direct line assume the throne.

РАЗДЕЛ 3. О ГОРОДАХ

(ABOUT TOWNS AND CITIES)