Download or read book The Concubine the Princess and the Teacher written by Douglas Scott Brookes and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Western imagination, the Middle Eastern harem was a place of sex, debauchery, slavery, miscegenation, power, riches, and sheer abandon. But for the women and children who actually inhabited this realm of the imperial palace, the reality was vastly different. In this collection of translated memoirs, three women who lived in the Ottoman imperial harem in Istanbul between 1876 and 1924 offer a fascinating glimpse "behind the veil" into the lives of Muslim palace women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The memoirists are Filizten, concubine to Sultan Murad V; Princess Ayse, daughter of Sultan Abdulhamid II; and Safiye, a schoolteacher who instructed the grandchildren and harem ladies of Sultan Mehmed V. Their recollections of the Ottoman harem reveal the rigid protocol and hierarchy that governed the lives of the imperial family and concubines, as well as the hundreds of slave women and black eunuchs in service to them. The memoirists show that, far from being a place of debauchery, the harem was a family home in which polite and refined behavior prevailed. Douglas Brookes explains the social structure of the nineteenth-century Ottoman palace harem in his introduction. These three memoirs, written across a half century and by women of differing social classes, offer a fuller and richer portrait of the Ottoman imperial harem than has ever before been available in English.
Download or read book The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem written by Jane Hathaway and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the chief of the African eunuchs who guarded the sultan's harem in Istanbul under the Ottoman Empire.
Download or read book The Imperial Harem written by Leslie P. Peirce and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unprecedented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. This book examines the sources of royal women's power and assesses the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition. By examining political action in the context of household networks, Leslie Peirce demonstrates that female power was a logical, indeed an intended, consequence of political structures. Royal women were custodians of sovereign power, training their sons in its use and exercising it directly as regents when necessary. Furthermore, they played central roles in the public culture of sovereignty--royal ceremonial, monumental building, and patronage of artistic production. The Imperial Harem argues that the exercise of political power was tied to definitions of sexuality. Within the dynasty, the hierarchy of female power, like the hierarchy of male power, reflected the broader society's control for social control of the sexually active.
Download or read book The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Harem written by Jane Hathaway and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-30 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eunuchs were a common feature of pre- and early modern societies that are now poorly understood. Here, Jane Hathaway offers an in-depth study of the chief of the African eunuchs who guarded the harem of the Ottoman Empire. A wide range of primary sources are used to analyze the Chief Eunuch's origins in East Africa and his political, economic, and religious role from the inception of his office in the late sixteenth century through the dismantling of the palace harem in the early twentieth century. Hathaway highlights the origins of the institution and how the role of eunuchs developed in East Africa, as well as exploring the Chief Eunuch's connections to Egypt and Medina. By tracing the evolution of the office, we see how the Chief Eunuch's functions changed in response to transformations in Ottoman society, from the generalized crisis of the seventeenth century to the westernizing reforms of the nineteenth century.
Download or read book Life after the Harem written by Betül İpşirli Argit and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first study exploring the lives of female slaves of the Ottoman imperial court, drawing from hitherto unexplored primary sources
Download or read book Rethinking Orientalism written by Reina Lewis and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questioning the Western stereotype about the women of the Muslim harem, the author argues that, whilst Orientalist thinking has been challenged, the Western understanding of Middle Eastern culture remains limited.
Download or read book Intimate Outsiders written by Mary Roberts and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-10 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DIVComparative study of 19th-century representations of Ottoman harems that considers both the tradition of British paintings and writings about harems as well as the perspectives of Ottoman women who commissioned their own harem portraits./div
Download or read book Ottoman Harem written by Ahmed Akgunduz and published by IUR Press. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirty years ago, we have published The Ottoman Harem in Turkish and I have given a copy to Şükran Vahide (Mary Weld) to evaluate and to translate to English. She has translator the Risâle-i Nur Collection completely and is a native in English. When she had completed the translation, she told me “Dr. Akgunduz! I have enjoyed translating this book and I think that this book is very important in historical and religious sense.” I have spent five years preparing this work Male and Female Slavery in Islam and the Ottoman Ḫarem. The product of those five years’ work has now been published in English. The subjects discussed in this book are as follows: Part One; the distortions and misrepresentations of male and female slavery and the Ḫarem, together with some examples. Part Two; male and female slavery in non-Muslim societies and in other religions. Part Three; the institutions of male and female slavery in Islamic law. Part Four; aspects of the practice of slavery, male and female, in the Ottoman state. Part Five; an investigation of the question: what is the Ḫarem? Part Six; a lady governess’s memoirs of the Ḫarem. Part Seven; the replies to a number of important questions on these subjects. My request of readers is that they read the sections they are interested in, and particularly that they study Parts One, Five, and Seven. I realize that Part Two is a slight digression, but I am of the opinion that the comparison is necessary in order to illuminate slavery in Islam and in the Ottoman state. “Ahmed Cevdet Pasha says: “To own slaves in Islam is to be a slave.” What should be realized here is that Islam did not introduce slavery. So how was slavery practised in other societies and religions? How did other religions and peoples act towards slaves? Since “Everything is known through it opposites,” it is essential to know this in order to understand male and female slavery in Islamic law and the Ḫarem in Ottoman society. The women in the Sultan’s Ḫarem lived under very strict discipline. They lived an enclosed life in their apartments, just as they paid great attention to these matters when they were out on trips or travelling. Since it was thus, does it conform to historical fact to show them to be immodest and overly free and easy, as in the films made recently? Does this reflect history as it was lived or is it make-belief? This should be pondered over fairly and reasonably.”
Download or read book Harem Ghosts written by Douglas Scott Brookes and published by Markus Wiener Publishers. This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gendered Domains written by Dorothy O. Helly and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For over two centuries the notion that societies have been sharply divided into women's (private) and men's (public) spheres has been used both to describe and to prescribe social life. More recently, it has been applied and critiqued by feminist scholars as an explanation for women's oppression. Spanning a rich array of historical contexts—from medieval nunneries to Ottoman harems to Paris communes to electronics firms in today's Silicon Valley—the twenty essays collected here offer a pathbreaking reassessment of the significance of the concept of separate spheres. After a theoretical introduction by the editors, certain essays reexamine historians' definitions of public and private realms and show how the imposition of these categories often obscures the realities of power structures and the alterable nature of gender roles. Other chapters consider how the concept of separate domains has been used to control women's actions. Additional essays explore the limits of public/private distinctions, focusing on women's working lives, the role of the state in the family, and the ways in which women including Native North Americans, African-Americans in the birth control movement, and participants in the lesbian bar culture have themselves reshaped the model of separate spheres. Making available the best papers on the public/private theme delivered at the 1987 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Gendered Domains will be welcomed by anyone interested in women's studies, including historians, political scientists, feminist theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers.
Download or read book Empress of the East written by Leslie Peirce and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "fascinating . . . lively" story of the Russian slave girl Roxelana, who rose from concubine to become the only queen of the Ottoman empire (New York Times). In Empress of the East, historian Leslie Peirce tells the remarkable story of a Christian slave girl, Roxelana, who was abducted by slave traders from her Ruthenian homeland and brought to the harem of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul. Suleyman became besotted with her and foreswore all other concubines. Then, in an unprecedented step, he freed her and married her. The bold and canny Roxelana soon became a shrewd diplomat and philanthropist, who helped Suleyman keep pace with a changing world in which women, from Isabella of Hungary to Catherine de Medici, increasingly held the reins of power. Until now Roxelana has been seen as a seductress who brought ruin to the empire, but in Empress of the East, Peirce reveals the true history of an elusive figure who transformed the Ottoman harem into an institution of imperial rule.
Download or read book Beshir Agha written by Jane Hathaway and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the life of el-Hajj Beshir Agha (ca. 1657-1746), the most powerful Chief Harem Eunuch in the history of the Ottoman Empire Enslaved in his native Ethiopia as a boy, then castrated in Egypt, el-Hajj Beshir became one of hundreds of East African eunuchs who inhabited the imperial palace’s enormous harem. Rising through the ranks to become harem treasurer by 1707, he eventually oversaw the educations of crown princes and harem women whilst choosing and deposing a long series of grand viziers. Wielding unparallelled power and influence over the empire, the libraries that he founded throughout the region helped to shape the religious and intellectual profile of the Ottoman state.
Download or read book The Mystery of the Ottoman Harem written by İlhan Akşit and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Rethinking Orientalism written by Reina Lewis and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2004-09-24 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The oppressed yet highly sexualized woman of the Muslim harem is arguably the pivotal figure of Western orientalism. Yet, as Reina Lewis demonstrates, while orientalist thinking had recently been challenged, Western understandings of Middle Eastern culture remain limited. This book presents alternative dialogues between Ottoman and Western women. Lewis examines, from the position of cultural theory, the published autobiographical accounts about segregated life of self-identified "Oriental" women Demetra Vaka Brown, Halide Edib, Zeyneb Hanum, Melek Hanum and Grace Ellison. Bringing her subjects vividly to life, Lewis uses these texts to challenge the Western orientalist stereotypes that have become commonplace within postcolonial theory.
Download or read book An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem written by Grace Ellison and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Turkish Harems Circassian Homes written by Andrée Hope and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-06-02 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Turkish Harems & Circassian Homes by Andrée Hope is a small yet incredible account of the author's previous summer. She has wonderfully attempted to recall some lovely memories of those readers who have already seen the bright lands she tries to describe. She has presented through her words all the places she visited gracefully and with great precision, so much so to take a reader on a journey with her. According to the preface, she wants to express the magnificence and charm of these faraway countries and clarifies that these descriptions may interest those who wish to get an experience of traveling while sitting in their comfortable houses reading this book.
Download or read book Harem Secrets written by Raphael Amadore and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-24 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suleyman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, has a harem of three hundred beautiful concubines. His soul and eyes desire only one; the one who makes him a poet. Only one makes him long for her every touch. What is her aphrodisiac? Roxelana, known as Hurrem-The Cheerful One in the harem has a brilliant mind within her irresistible body. She holds a 75 year old secret that could sow seeds of destruction in the Ottoman Sultanate; a secret granted her by none other than the Sultan's own mother. What is this secret curse? What power does Roxelana wield over Suleyman that he would break tradition and make her queen? Is it simply love or something more that tempts the Sultan? Why does she learn the ancient art of Kama Sutra from an Indian princess in the harem and then send Suleyman to war? And why would the Sultan's mother entrust the great secret to a mere harem girl? Rich with eroticism of the harem and the twisting, intrigues of the empire ruled from Topkapi palace, Harem Secrets creates embroidery of compelling plots since the fall of Constantinople. At the height of power, two figures change world history in Europe and Asia; history that was later influenced through a legendary harem dancer, Anarkali of Ottoman origins. Her mystery continues into the Palaces of Mogul emperors.
