The Political Power Of The Harem | The Hidden World Of The Harem | Timeline

in the 16th century Istanbul was the capital of the greatest Islamic empire the world has ever known [Music] ruled by Suleiman the Magnificent it stretched from Baghdad to Budapest the center of power was topkapi palace and in the heart of topkapi was the harem into it came hundreds of women from all over the Empire and beyond the personal slaves of the Sultan [Music] but in the Imperial Palace sex could equal power this is the story of those women and of the closed and secret world of the Ottoman harem in 1520 a newcomer entered the Imperial Palace in Istanbul her name was Alexandra Liz Oscar she was the daughter of a priest from the Ukraine captured by slave hunters to join the army of servants and concubines in the service of the Sultan there were slaves not of Turkish extraction either Slavs captured by the Tatars probably or from the Caucasus who were very prized for their looks white skin dark hair and delicate bone structure [Music] and they were predominantly Christian the enslavement of Freeborn Muslims was forbidden by the Koran in our history writing about the harem and the Sultan's women or talking about them is a sin and is forbidden yes so nobody has written anything and we always have to decorate these stories in our imagination and foreign travelers have also done this people went to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th 17th and 18th centuries and they were very taken with the idea that they were all these women locked up together they soon came up with stories that filled in the gaps if their ignorance about what was going on in the harem most of those involved a lot of sex a lot of rather abusive treatment of young women [Music] the first Englishman to catch a glimpse into the Imperial harem was a London mechanic sent by Queen Elizabeth the first to the palace of the great Sultan to install her gift of an organ [Music] through the grate I did see 30 of the grand señores concubines that were playing with a ball the first site I thought they'd been young men but when I saw the hair of their heads hanging down on their backs I didn't know them to be women and very pretty ones indeed they wore breeches so thin I could discern the skin of their thighs through it I stood so long looking upon them that he who had showed me began to be very angry and stamped with his staff to make me give overlooking [Music] the inner part of the palace and especially the harem was officially called the abode of felicity because the Sultan had a special relationship with God this was the reason why all the means of happiness were actually supplied the best food the best things to drink the best music they're singing the best manuscripts with figures in them which is frowned upon by straight Muslims you have the means to be happy but it's very difficult to tell whether they actually were happy a descendant of Suleiman's one of the last Prince's to have lived in the harem considered that his ancestors would have found it more lonely than lavish amongst them and I was more or less brought up by them I didn't realize it at the time that it was anything extraordinary because I was used to it you think everybody else lives that way but to the priests daughter soon to be known as Horan it would have been anything but ordinary when the girls first arrived they would be examined to make sure that they didn't have any physical defects how many diseases could the large of the women come to the harem at an early age on Josh Tyrande had a mega doula and as soon as they arrived their clothes are changed and they're taken directly to the hammam the bathhouse her mama they are cleaned according to our traditions and taught how to wash before prayers arguing behind the type that Turkish men like is what we called Valiquette ly flesh firm like a fish and another detail they say either go by meaning the belly should be shaped like a quince in our literature to when we describe women we say cheeks like peaches lips like cherries similes like these and that's what men expect the Islamic religious law permits polygamy a man could marry up to four women at any given time and could also have concubines on the side but the numbers of polygamous marriages were really very few only the ruling class for example like your Sultan's would have a harem when he was a young ruler it was said by foreign diplomats that Suleiman very lustful frequently visited the palace of the women and in the phrase did justice ie made love and indeed the Sultan was encouraged to behave a bit as a prize stud to cover more and more math so that the biological future of the dynasty was secured I think the reason that the ottomans chose to reproduce their concubines is it gave them more reproductive freedom the difference between having a child with a concubine and having a child with say a royal princess is that the princess the married woman has many more rights as a mother Hongki binds because they are slaves have fewer rights over children [Music] [Music] the Sultan was considered to be above society separate from it that was the very ideology of the state you can imagine that a relationship by marriage to a free Muslim woman the daughter of some important writer in Istanbul or some would immediately make the Sultan related to a segment of society and this may cause divisions with other segments etcetera these are the personal slaves of those they don't have any family and they don't have any connections we don't know the feelings of the women who entered the harem that must have been fear and terror as well as other emotions but also the delight of material comforts and there was a possibility of becoming the Sultan's consort the imperial harem in 16th century Istanbul was one of the most secret societies in the world even in the early 20th century shortly before it was abolished it was difficult to discover precisely what went on here I asked my mother sisters about grandmother's life in the harem and they said that because it was prohibited to talk about the life in the harem she could tell nothing to them modern historians have been less restricted and their discoveries have challenged the old Western fantasies it's not where women lounged around and spent their time this sort of orientalist image we have we should think of the harem as a unique place as a collection of females who were more highly educated more highly trained and trained in a variety of ways than women and this is general society so I think we might think of the Imperial harem is the only female University in the Empire the latest undergraduate was the priests daughter Alexandra Liz Oscar now known as who REM the Laughing one when a woman like harem arrived in the harem she would be given further education and by education I mean some religious training a knowledge of Islam she would be taught the etiquette of the court she would be trained in the skill that most harem women were adept at that is embroidery wonderful things the embroidery that she produced could be sold through agents on the market so it was a profitable skill it wasn't just a gentle womanly skill sorry RWD Newland little kalaiy beasties they learned the palace attitude that was not very easy how to greet people and to walk backwards to leave the Sultan's room and how to be respectful and well behaved at all times and never be angry they had lessons every day and most learned to read and write and to read the Koran [Music] had the prying eyes of Western travelers pierced the outer walls they would have perceived a vastly different harem from the sexual paradise or Inferno of their imagining making love is the one thing most inmates of the harem were not doing at least if they were following the rules relatively few got to spend a night with the Sultan [Music] living there must have been very claustrophobic have you got a relatively small space with several hundred women living in it access to the outside world is very limited the views over Istanbul if you could get them must have been quite had quite an effect on people it was a very comfortable place but it was more like a comfy prison than a comfy bordello and the prison waters were the eunuchs only men who had been castrated were allowed into the harem on a regular basis and like the women most would spend their entire lives here the enclosure of women itself seems very objectionable but perhaps even more objectionable is the mutilation of young men in order to provide eunuchs to staff and protect the harem it was forbidden by Islamic law to castrate a Muslim or perform the operation on others so it was carried out by Coptic Christian priests in Egypt the method of castration and there are two types one is cutting the testes and other twisting and crushing them sometimes there's a method called clean-shaven and which meant that they removed everything and it made it almost impossible for them to perform their usual body functions according to an ambassador they kept a silver quills in their turbans and they would use those quills in order to urinate one of the duties of the eunuchs was to ensure that the concubines did not have sex with anyone but the Sultan men women or whatever else came to hand cucumbers were not led into the harem because they were used as a penis it is said but the guards themselves were not beyond suspicion the process of castration was very frightening and difficult for the boys and often out of fear their testicles would retreat they would remain intact and sometimes over time they would be able to function sexually there are many accounts of the eunuchs having relationships with the women in the harem this was one reason why the eunuchs in the harem were exclusively African it was one way of making sure that these men couldn't inseminate the female members of the imperial family without everybody noting that she'd given birth to a half black child but for her M as for most newcomers to the harem there was little opportunity for dalliance with UNIX or anyone [Music] if the girls were higher in the power structure of the harem they would be given their own quarters but the rest of the girls would share their rooms there are older women who watched over the younger girls to make sure that they weren't getting into any kind of a mischief such as talking in the dark sharing their bed together girls boarding school or comfy prison it was not perhaps the happiest of estates for the daughter of a priest but if her end dreamed of improving her lot there was always the possibility of sex with the Sultan though this too was hedged with its own barriers of ritual and restraint [Music] there's some report that you know Sultan's like to watch lots of pretty girls sort of jumping about in the all together there's the story that the Sultan went through a hankerchief towards the woman who caught his eye the surprise virgin snatches of this prize and good fortune with such eagerness but she's ravished with joy before she is deflowered by the Sultan such reports have never been verified and for most harem women not yet numbered among the favourites a handkerchief was just another item of laundry very few of them ever got to see the Sultan in let alone jump into his bed renewal to get anywhere and not just be washing the Sultan's Underpants the rest of your life you had to maneuver yourself into position with the women who chose who went to bed with the Sultan his mother [Music] in reality the Sultan's mother would scout for suitable candidates among these now derelict pools and fountains in the bowels of Topkapi and physical attraction was far from being her only criteria an eligible concubine would obviously need to be attractive she needed to be healthy because her principal job was reproduction because of the important role that mothers played in training their sons she also needed to be shrewd and the way they were introduced was that they were asked to go to a semi car with pool underneath the Crown Princess apartment and that was an opportunity for the Sultan's to watch them and observe them and choose their favorite [Music] whatever it was that brought who rammed to the attention of the Sultan or indeed his mother the preparations for her first night with him would have followed a well-established ritual party shall the day she is going to be with the Sultan she goes to the bathhouse and has face and body treatments and her hands and hair are painted with henna the idea of any hair on the body was a thought of horror and so they would remove any kind of hair including their pubic hair what they used was really an awful smelling paste that contained arsenic and if you left it too long it could burn the skin very badly and they used mussel shells to scrape it off they would put henna four fingers above the pubic area it's a decorative beautiful design detail concubines were assumed to be virgins but I don't think we can assume the naivete and the innocence that kind of goes along with the whole notion of virgins I mean these women were prepared for their job I don't know the details but we have stories written by European observers are they fanciful are they true it's hard to know all the older women and those who have had his good graces before go to the favorite of the day congratulating her for the great distinction which she has received and saluting her as befits the concubine of the Emperor dressing her superbly and taking her up with countless jewels she would be given new clothes and shoes and and trained also in the erotic arts we don't really know exactly what that entailed I think we have to assume however that the Sultan's mother his sister's experienced women high-level women within the harem would probably provide the finishing touches would explain the particular person that the concubine would encounter my son is like this your Lord is like this [Music] the court musician Albert Baba V provided a colorful account of the courtship ritual while music is played the women sing before her and conduct her to the door of the chamber where there is a eunuch who tells the Sultan of her arrival and has her enter when the Sultan commands it as soon as she sees him she must go to him running and kneel at his feet and he receives her and holds what conversation seems good to him with the woman's music continuing to play at the door while she is with him there are also stories of her entering the bed from the foot of the bed so the Sultan would be waiting for this beauty to crawl from the foot of the bed and reach him [Music] whatever happened that night Suleiman wanted it to continue Haram was invited back to his bed again and again she was soon firmly established as the Sultan's favorite to the exclusion records tell us of all others [Music] the Venetian sources tell us that he fell in love with her [Music] a deadly rivalry had reached into the harem it was not simply a question of who would occupy the Sultan's bed it was a far more vital conflict over who would produce the next ruler of the Ottoman Empire the new favorite who Wren or the old favorite mahidevran Mahadev Ron was the mother of the oldest son so that her m coming in obviously being the Sultan's new favorite was a threat to her according to Venetian report mahidevran picked a fight with her M and called her soiled meat a piece of meat off the slave market and this provoked a physical struggle between them her name's face was scratched her hair was pulled and the next time the Sultan call for her M she replied she was unworthy of his attention since she was soiled meat and of course this intrigued Suleiman picks his curiosity and he calls her again and she tells the whole story of course with Mahadev Ron appearing as the bad guy here's an early sign of her Em's intelligence and ability to manipulate the whole palace system for em knew how to play her cards you have to think how the women we know about got to where they got we know about them because they fought their way tooth and claw up the ladder it was horribly intensely sort of concentrated baller intrigue battling jockey in the position people to produce an heir her own gave birth to her first son Prince meth met in 1521 if Suleiman had played the game by the rules he should now have moved on to a new woman but he didn't before her M's time if a concubine of the Sultan produced a son then she was kicked out of bed hirin produced one son but then she produced several more suleiman kept her in his bed there are a number of reasons why they follow this one mother one son principle mothers were important advisors to their sons so for us two sons to have to share a mother meant they only had half of an advisor I'd have a support if a woman is identified with only one son she is completely with him in this game of power and it was a game who em had to win under Islamic law all sons had an equal right of inheritance but in the Ottoman Court the losers lost more than the throne the sons of a sultan were in combat survival of the fittest the one who was strongest most able became the soldier [Music] the sons were going to vie amongst themselves to become the Sultan and it was winner-takes-all they had to race to Constantinople they had to raise the support and when they were acclaimed Sultan they put all their brothers to death all Genesis have had problems in securing an uninterrupted and legitimate succession many wars have been started in England and France by discontented royal brothers or cousins or other relations the Ottoman solution was to have a harem say there was no lack of male hours after the Sultan's accession other male members of the dynasty were murdered if had lived in those days since I was a younger brother I would probably have been strangled very young or even as a small child but then after being strangled I would have been buried with great ceremony which is not much of a consolation by 1530 Suleiman had five sons and four of them were by harem who am troubled people they weren't used to a sultan keeping up a relationship with one woman and they worried that Suleiman had had gone head over heels in love the foreign sources tell us that people even went so far as to call her a witch because of their fear that she had somehow seduced the Sultan new concubines were brought into the harem in the hope of tempting Suleiman from the path of fidelity they included two Russian women with the same highly-prized looks as harem women given directly to the Sultan would be highly cultivated attractive intelligent women naturally she might see a competition anyway the story goes she was so put out through a fetch let the Sultan had to give them away so here we see another sign before him being able to manipulate the politics of the harem and and to use her own special position as a real favorite of the Sultan other eligible concubines were married off as virgins to Suleiman's courtiers and then in 1534 14 years after Suleiman and harem first made love the Sultan made an even bigger break with tradition Western observers were astounded this week there occurred a most extraordinary event unprecedented in the history of the Sultan Suleyman has taken to himself as his empress a slave woman from Russia [Music] he married her which is the incredible thing Sultan's didn't marry their concubines they didn't ET the concubine by definition is a man's female slave according to the religious law you can't marry your own concubine so you have to free her in order to marry her there is great talk about the marriage and none can say what it means one thing it meant was power for the first time in their history the Ottomans had a queen after she was married we start calling her Quran so time and she was really like a queen she builds up diplomatic relations and she also influences her husband politically in another move that impressed Western observers for em occupied new apartments next to her husband [Music] the chambers of the Sultana are very splendid with chapel spas gardens not only for herself but her maids as well but for long periods the two lovers were apart Suleiman was a fighting Sultan who had already extended his empire westward took Belgrade he destroyed the whole of the Hungarian ruling classes in 1526 the Battle of MU house at a stroke and rode into Buda a conqueror by 1529 he was at the gates of Vienna but even on campaign his thoughts were with her M he sent frequent love letters and poems where we can get nearer to his personality is through his poems which are remarkable for any ruler the green of my garden my sweet sugar my treasure my love who cares for nothing in this world my master of Egypt by Joseph by everything the queen of my hearts Rome my land of the Roman Caesars my Baghdad and Khorasan lovely lovely poems exist that pass back and forth in correspondence between the two if the seas were to become ink and these trees pens when could they write an account of this parting there is no limit to the burning anguish of separation let my soul gain at least some comfort from a letter your son and daughter weep from missing you but who REMS letters also reveal her fears for the safety of her sons the favored heir to the throne was Prince Mustafa the son of hürrem's old rival Mahadev Ron Mustapha had the support of the army and the Grand Vizier ibrahim pasha some visitors were captured slaves lat ibrahim pasha he did become a companion and a favorite of the sultan they would generally dine together and he would his bed was in the same room as the Sultan's or even stories of intense emotional relationship some Europeans spoke of a sexual relationship maybe yes maybe no in any event that was a very close emotional and political relationship so there's a very young man probably in his twenties he was suddenly the top man in the Empire after the Sultan himself Suleiman had cemented this relationship by giving his own sister in marriage to Ibrahim none of this pleased the ambitious harem Abraham's prestige for something she could not tolerate we should not forget that we are talking about power politics here sixteenth century Ottoman Empire was at its height that meant tremendous power so of course she wants to undermine it in one of her letters her M refers to a disagreement with Ibrahim Pasha she writes to Suleiman and now you inquire about why I'm not with Ibrahim Pasha you'll hear about it when you will hear about it when I am granted my next meeting with you for the moment give the Pasha our greetings we hope they will be acceptable to him Ibrahim played into her hands within a very short space of time he acquired lots of wealth [Music] Soloman the magnificent could figure out where that wealth was coming from at least partially it was graph if graft and corruption were among Abraham's faults another was an arrogant assumption of his own worth he's reported by one ambassador as saying though I am the Sultan's slave whatever I say is done I can at a stroke make a Pasha out of a stableboy I can be kingdoms and provinces to whosoever I choose and my Lord will say nothing against him Ibrahim confidence was misplaced and on the 15th of March 1536 Ibrahim Pasha accepted as usual the Sultan's invitation to dine with him thankful for the year they eat at the same table until late at night according to Ramadan traditions they talk and entertain themselves and then they go to bed [Music] we didn't really know what happened that night but obviously the Sultan had decided that the Grand Vizier had become too powerful as a complement to his boyhood friend Suleiman apparently ordered the same method of execution reserved for his own kin go rotting with a bowstring so there would be no spilling of royal blood but Ibrahim put up too much of a struggle Suleiman in both ottoman sources and in European sources is frequently portrayed as a man of ire anything that threatened the state or that threatened his own integrity as ruler would motivate him to take violent moves the next morning Ibraheim body was found outside the palace this is a reminder of how Ottoman government worked you could raise a peasant from the dust to be Grand Vizier but his life hung by a thread if this are good the next day ibrahim wife Sullivan's sister comes to the palace and blames the Sultan for her husband's death Sullivan goes to the harem to find shelter in her Rams arms it's hard to see that Solomon himself would have done it without her making him on she wanted to be absolutely sure of her control and until he brahim was out of the way there was always a danger that she might be packed off herself she was ruthless she had to be ruthless but the danger remained and death was not under her m's exclusive control in 1543 who rams ambitions received a fatal blow her young son Prince meth net was struck down by smallpox [Music] his death began a new race for the succession and the front-runner was Mustapha now in his 30s the son of hürrem's old rival Mahadev run this would mean death for harem surviving sons Solomon's favorite son was must have first he was also a favorite of the army it was Dolly was strong it was handsome he comes through he was gonna be a great ruler and everyone thought very highly of it must if I were to ascend the throne the murder of her own children would be inevitable it was impossible for her m to accept this story is usually looked at as one of intrigue and competition among the mothers around their sons I think there's a larger political context for this Mustafa was very very popular with the soldiers he was a rival to his father without meaning to be just by virtue of its popularity and the Sultan was persuaded that Mustapha was conspiring against him the story is that coram had an ally it was the husband of her daughter Mahima harem women could establish important alliances with male political actors - the marriages of their daughters and his daughter's husband was the Grand Vizier the new Grand Vizier was an important ally for her m and ideally placed to whisper slanders in the Sultan's ear word began to reach Solomon while he was out on campaign that most of her was plotting against him and most of her himself was very upset when news of these allegations reached him and he went to see his father Mustapha reached Suleiman's base in iran and went straight to his tent a Western diplomat reported what happened then [Music] as soon as he entered the tent several sturdy mutes made a determined attack upon him they hurled Mustafa to the ground and throwing a bowstring round his neck strangled him it was said that Suleiman urged the mutes to greater efforts but Haram was widely blamed for her role in the murder I don't think she Lehman would have listened to these stories if he hadn't himself felt that there was a legitimate threat and that despite the fact that he was going to alienate so many people by executing his son that this was probably the wiser move for the integrity of the Empire if tradition paints Haram as the villain of the piece it was at a time when powerful women were widely perceived as a threat to the established order hürrem's contemporaries were Queen Elizabeth of England Catherine de Medici of France than Mary Queen of Scots whom the Calvinist John Knox dubbed the monstrous regimen her M aroused similar hostility among the Ottoman elite though the extent of her power has been disputed herim was obviously a very powerful woman it's difficult for us to know how powerful because of course you know as today in the corridors of power things are decided in corridors not written down she was his eyes nears and of course when the Sultan is away it means she could probably do a few things on her own account as well Karim was a very smart and shrewd person and she would write giving him news of what was going on books within the family but also political news there's one letter she wrote when Suleiman was fighting the Iranians she said so everybody here in Istanbul is waiting to your good news they're ready to set up a parade and we don't have any good news from you you need a victory no if a messenger arrives saying no progress here nothing there no one is going to be very happy my Sultan Haram was sensitive to public opinion and she embarked on an ambitious building plan one of the major expressions of power was building building large mosques that had in the prerogative of males in the dynasty and harem is in some ways the first woman who builds quite publicly but the public expression of hürrem's power was undermined by a fatal flaw she had removed the main rival for the throne but she had two sons and they couldn't both rule under Ottoman law one would have to die before the problem could be resolved she became seriously ill Suleiman old now and also in bad health kept vigil at her bedside but even as he watched her fight for life he must have known he would have to make a terrible choice over which of their sons would succeed him it was probably her Rams fortune that she did not live long enough to see the power struggle between her two sons the younger son took arms against his older brother and the sultan Suleiman had his youngest son executed as a traitor but by then he had lost the love of his life herim died on April the 18th 1558 38 years after she had first entered the harem Suleiman takes to a sort of ascetic lifestyle he dines off earthenware platters and this is the man who was changing his clothes everyday into a sort of cloth of gold he becomes religious but morbid [Music] eight years after Hurons death Suleiman joined her in the cemetery of sulemani mosque 400 years later her m's tomb has become a shrine for women who cherished the memory of a great ottoman queen bread really builds the foundation of this very public power that women have although she herself was unpopular at this time her power was as a concubine in that troubled people that she was a concubine a sexually active woman in power a problem herim had devoted 38 years of her life to ensuring that one of her own sons succeeded to the throne but ironically instead of providing the world with another Suleiman the Magnificent she had blazed the trail for future generations of harem women whose power would eclipse even her own ever since Suleiman the Magnificent fell for a slave girl called her M things had been changing in the harem European observers commented that it was like or they thought it was like a nunnery a monastery this is also political crucible the women may have been enclosed that were no longer powerless in this world of threat and danger they were beginning to play an active role her M had broken the mold of the anonymous passive concubine by becoming Suleiman's confident and wife the women who followed would build on her M's power but their power would be more as mothers than as concubines the murderous struggle for the succession had continued after her M died in 1558 it was her son Selim who made it to the throne eight years later his favorite nurbanu meaning princess of light would become the most powerful woman in the harem she is extremely well loved and honored by his majesty both for her great beauty and for being unusually intelligent she was the illegitimate daughter of two Venetian noble families captured by an ottoman admiral born Cecilia Vania boffo she was seized and brought to Istanbul in 1537 at the age of just 12 she knew Banu was presented to Salim the second when he was very young and still only a prince and he fell madly in love with her Choksey view when he went off to the provinces to learn to govern saline took Nibbana with him as a prince he seems to have been faithful to her nor Anna is not just one more concubine nor bono is a privileged concubine of Salem's princely career when he becomes Sultan she comes with him to Istanbul like all the concubines Nibbana was a slave but this was not slavery as in toiling in the plantations it was an honor and a wise career moved to be a slave of the Sultan for women it meant the chance of being in the imperial harem which was a wonderful career for women because it was a finishing school as well as a harem you learnt skills you were protected from the wear and tear of daily life and there was the possibility of becoming the Sultan's consort Nibbana Sultan Selim was not the greatest catch he hand aged too well tell in the second was a grave disappointment he came after Solomon the Magnificent the greatest Ottoman Sultan ever and Selim was called selling the sort sailing Wars like his father in one respect he loved just one concubine and perhaps even married her but in all their years together they had had only one son Murad though they did have four daughters the first duty of an ottoman sultan or i suppose any monarch at all is to produce healthy airs so salem had to get on with it pretty sharpish and produce more sons which he did towards the end of his reign [Music] with all the princes battling to be Sultan these new sons by other mothers would be a threat to no Bono's son when Salem died which he soon did [Music] according to the stories who came to rather an ignominious end one can guess probably because he'd been hitting the bottle but the story goes that in the bathhouse he stubbed his toe and slipped over and of course Turkish bars are all stone inside and he hit his head on the stone and died instantly the death of a sultan was often a crisis because there's that period between the death of the sultan and the arrival of the new sultan on the throne if the new sultan was not in Istanbul that period could stretch into 3-4 weeks so there's a possibility of rebellion of a prince trying to take over the throne of all kinds of things happening so often they would hide the fact that the Sultan had died no Banu took control bono hid selling his body in the ice rooms in the palace cellars until her son Murad returned from the provinces to take his place she only announced his death after her son arrived this action by new urbano is a remarkable one but it's also part of the role of people at the heart of power and from the end of the 16th century on it was so often women who were there at the very heart so when Murad arrives from the provinces he's obviously going to become Sultan but then we have the problem of fratricide he's got five brothers living in the palace [Music] murad spent some time alone with his mother it is said she reminded him of his duty to kill his brothers we have the account of a Jewish physician he said that Murad spent a lot of time very unhappy thinking about it but in the end custom and perhaps indeed the pressure of his mother and certainly Ottoman politics said he had no choice I think particularly the mothers in the hurry there was a terrifying sense of paranoia the state of constant anxiety I [Music] sometimes try to imagine myself into the place of one of those women I am sure they raise these children knowing full well that their son might be executed the Ottomans took care of letting one son be successful and making him without any contenders for the throne if one or two of his brothers survived then there is civil war one or two boys versus thousands of being killed in Civil War is what we are talking about Murad made up his mind it was a night of terror in the harem the very first political act he takes is to have his brothers executed so that only one line would remain [Music] the first site that the population of the capital saw of Meraz reign was the coffins of the little princes emerging from the doors of the palace although there was nothing new about Sultan's killing their brothers this was the first time it had happened under the nose of the people of Istanbul one of the mothers then killed herself she'd failed in her prime function as the mother of a prince to keep her son alive [Music] 1574 and na Banu was triumphant as mother of the new Sultan she would now rule the roost in the harem the role of queen mother was in a sense in invention of noir Bhanu's for nirvana she's the first woman who acquired the title of valide Sultan queen mother Empress Dowager [Music] the sultan bases his policies principally on the advice of his mother yet appearing to him that he could have no other advice as loving and loyal as hers she correspond did as the mother of the sultan with catherine de medici Queen Mother of France and the Venetian ambassador wrote all good and all ill come through the Queen Mother she was absolute top dog in the harem but she was still watching out for her son's career because she rose and fell with him there was one threat to her position her son had a favorite Sofia yelling kinda miss ELISA it's a problem between the bride and the mother-in-law issue a choc cereal Sofia Murad the third loves his favorite Sofia Sultan very much no Barney's jealousy and cruelty towards the fear is something recorded in our history didymus like so many of the Sultan's Murad was going against Ottoman tradition by singling out one woman when he became Sultan his job was then to produce a lot of sons kind of his insurance in case Sophia's own son should should become Ilyn and die and he didn't he's stuck with Sofia and this really troubled people [Music] move on nope ah no tried everything to make her son meet other women and go to bed with them she found the many beautiful concubines who danced well and organised nights with dancing oh yeah [Music] the gift of two concubines by his sister is a trick that that turns his situation around and off he goes so reluctant in the beginning he had no problem [Music] after this you're not almost pushed Sofia aside and began going with other women in each area you should copy aversion against all tradition Murad even started to sleep among the women inside the harem nabarro had him where she wanted him in bed making more Prince's this symbolizes that the Sultan's are more restricted to the palace and in particular the harem the tradition of the campaigning Sultan campaigning every summer is dying away nor Banu was the one who encouraged more of the third to take up his residence in the harem which meant that she had more power over him than previously been the case for any woman in the Ottoman history and you can see her as a pivotal figure in increasing the role of the harem and of its head the valide Sultan in the running of the state it's about power returning from the periphery of the Empire as it grows returning towards the center and now you go down to the center it's the palace and you go to the center of the palace it's the harem and who's in the harem it's the women in Murad's reign the empire reached its peak stretching from Iran in the east to Budapest in the West Murad and his mother had the harem extended and more and more women were brought in from all over the Empire [Music] numbers rose from about a hundred and thirty on Saline the seconds death to 600 on Murad the Third's historians then and since muttered darkly about decadence and decline during more ad the Third's reign the size of the hurry and increased greatly but I can't see any reason why having a larger harem should cause an empire to decline some Ottoman observers disapproved of the development of what would be called the Sultanate of women the harem was close to power indeed there was a window looking onto the council chamber in the Imperial Palace where the Sultan would overhear the proceedings in the council and it's from within the harem said some inmates of the harem would have been very well informed and of course proximity to power leads to discussions about power and wanting to influence decisions which to outsiders would seem like intrigue only men can become Sultan's but women are political actors so in a sense I mean the top woman in the female hierarchy in the palace is not only a political role but it's a top political role the palace is the seat of political life faction jockeying in summation worries policies and the harem was a part of that so at the same time that we've got this these rules and a strong hierarchy we've also got a lot of conflict worried looking for allies teaming up the Bhanu's harem was like a department of state within the Sultan's Palace the harem was that run very much like a large corporation all the department heads would have novices to train and the departments were things like the mistress of sherbet sand mistress of dressmaking mistress of jewels mistress of the coffee mistress of the laundry and the general housekeeping in the time that Nirvana was the Queen Mother we really can talk about a kind of a firming up of the hierarchy of women in the harem at the very bottom we've got your basic servants people who boil the water for the laundry put coal in the furnace this kind of service then I think we need to think of it as bifurcating into a reproductive a kind of a concubine tract and an administrative tract there's a management team in this harem chief officer of the harem is a woman called the harem stewardess and she's got her own staff she carries the keys she's in charge of all the various service divisions within the harem the other important harem officials were the black eunuchs guardians of the sacred space theoretically akin to angels who unlike men could pass between heaven and earth they were the only people who had access to both parts of the palace they could go both into the harem and into the male section of the palace and that meant that for example a black eunuch could talk to the Queen Mother about affairs of state the Queen Mother herself couldn't then come out into the male quarters and discuss the thing but the black eunuch could one English observer in fact commented that is the black eunuchs who run the Empire well I don't think that that is strictly true but clearly they were very important people and because they were also the controller's of the Sultan's charitable trust they could become extremely wealthy the palace midwives could become wealthy too they didn't run the Empire but were central to the harem midwives of the palace were very popular and they came to be very rich and they owned big houses they were given very precious presents after they had delivered babies they also advised on health and contraception for unlike Christians at the time Muslims were allowed to use contraception the major method they talked about was what is referred to politely in the literature as go it is interruptus which people would know as worth knowing there was always the argument that a few practice contraception and this was the argument used by Jewish and Christian anchors you're doing something against God for against nature because you're not allowing the sexual act to reach its conclusion the Muslim attitude was if God really wanted a child to be born and that child will be born made it possible to argue no this is not against God's wishes which was a very nice twist on this question of whether you're going against God midwives in the harem would have prepared tampons and other barriers these would have been coated with oils herbs and honey most of the known methods were for women but there were some for men too what tar was seen as an extremely effective contraceptive when inserted into the vagina and then it was also seen as an effective contraceptive if it's smeared on the penis would tar obviously wasn't something Murad was using all to Twitter the truck father he had a lot of children he probably wanted to have children from all the concubines he liked it is said in historical records that more than a hundred cradles were being rocked in the harem at the same time along the surliness he was a very busy man historians say Murad had a hundred and twelve children when he died he had 27 daughters and 20 sons alive all the babies would be born within the harem the tradition was to let the pregnant woman sit on a chair and give birth through her child in a sitting position a midwife would take it he knew that even as you were giving birth your Solomon was a son might become the next sultan but there was a death there too it was likely to be death though someone was going to come and kill that child you had to watch out you had to watch out all through his life Murad was overdoing it one son was not enough but this was too many it would cause a crisis when he died people think that with a harem and ottoman sultan would have large number of children in fact they most of them had a very limited number of children and they took great care not to have too many Sofia mother of neurons first son concentrated on building up her own political position she also competed with his mother in choosing new slaves for him Nibbana must have been furious this was her job for it is only she who has the interest of the loves of her son at her heart and she can more easily assure herself from the girl's loyalty to both herself and the Sultan there was a sort of engine revving to supply him with suitable concubines and the female hierarchy of the harem was very keen on keeping control of who the Sultan slept with because that's how they kept control of the reproduction process and that was their source of power because they were very powerful within the palace no Bono's power was expressed in her living quarters the Queen Mother had her own large apartments of almost twenty rooms because she was a strong woman with high status the large number of rooms reflected that status the Queen mothers were generally very rich too because the Sultan's respected them very much and gave them very valuable presents and lands the ownership they are armed allow me to honor much of Nirvana's money went towards mosques and other vast charitable works including military installations this was a statement of power on an international scale that had up until really the time of Horan been the prerogative of males and the dynasty the women who succeed her amaz political actors are noted for their buildings anybody who saw the mosques that Noor Bono and her successors built would know of the importance of the Queen Mother's this was expressed in stone no bono was still at the height of her powers when she died in 1583 at the age of 58 she was the first woman to be buried in the same tomb as her Sultan she had a state funeral against all tradition her son God's shadow on earth participated we have a wonderful miniature of the emergence of her casket from the palace in Murad is walking in front of it this was very unusual a demonstration of his attachment and the importance given to her when her son died 12 years later his successor immediately executed his 19 brothers the population of the capital saw 19 coffins coming out of the palace gate and according to a contemporary chronicler the angels in heaven wept when they saw it the public outcry seems to have been what put an end to the practice of sultan slaughtering their brothers but in some ways the solution would be worse for the princes and better for the women from the beginning of the 17th century things changed for the sons of Sultan's this would make it easier for strong women to step forward to fill the power vacuum being created in the past princess had been sent off to the provinces to learn to govern and then all but one had been killed when their father died now they were usually kept alive but they were confined within the harem in what was known as the caphis or cage caucus mr. chaffetz in turkish means the cage in which birds and chickens are kept it's also the place where lions and tigers are locked arsalan qapla mothers of ottoman princes call their sons Aslan lion arse London New York to annually return so when a place in the hurrying was built for them to be locked up they called it cafes because princes like lions well he's were gilded beautiful apartments in the part where they could live for years just waiting never knowing from one day to the next what was going to happen to them never knowing whether their brother might be deposed and they might be pulled out and made Sultan themselves never knowing whether the mutes might come in with a bowstring and finish them off difficulty with the cage of course is that a meant that the princes were withdrawn from the day-to-day running of the Empire so on there a succession of Sultan they're really knew very little about politics which may be one reason of course why their mothers were so important because their mothers would know something [Music] the woman who used her political experience when the men most lacked it was Qasim zombies dead cousin in our language means the RAM that leads the sheep in the Ottoman palace her reign lasted about 30 years she was like a female sultanate mr. Coggan party shot Qalamoun dog Kassem possibly the daughter of a Greek priest was the favorite of Sultan Ahmed the first she was unusual in having several sons once again a sultan is adopting one woman one concubine in this very special way of allowing her to continue to reproduce beyond just her first son Qasim's route to power was paved with weak Sultan's she came to the fore when they were mad or underage her son Murad the fourth was only 12 when he took the throne all power and authority is with the mother in the prime of life and of lofty mind and spirit Chris Thomas Queen Mother really is what we would call a regent she wrote the most marvelous candid letters to the Grand Vizier she says I must be driving you nuts with all my questions but on the other end you drive me nuts too she says you really give me a headache but I give you an awful headache too how many times have I asked myself I wonder if he's getting sick of me but what else can we do you've got a real sense of a political natural the person who's engaged as a person and as a ruler the Grand Vizier turned to Kassim when there were problems finding food for the army you say attention must be paid to provisions for the campaign if it were up to me it would have been taking care of long ago there is no shortcoming on either my part or my sons Kassem really came into her own when her son Murad the fourth a strong sultan died in 1640 he left no heir and had killed all his brothers bar 1 her other son Ibrahim Kassim had persuaded Murad not to kill Ibrahim on the grounds that he was mad Murad dies and people come to the door and they say more adds dead your Sultan and he doesn't believe them he thinks there's another trick of more ads he fears that he's going to be executed just like his other brothers who were executed by Murat so he has to be persuaded that in fact this is not the case and Qasim his mother was clearly instrumental in that [Music] [Music] bring the body of Mourad and fling it that way you can see it before he agrees to come out and be made into sultan [Music] and when he comes out he proves to be not kids nobody expected that Ibrahim would become the Sultan he was an emotionally disturbed really handicapped individual but he was the last Ottoman male alive any dynasty which lasts for as long as the Ottoman Empire is sooner or later going to get an utter on the throne the Ottomans over there the whole history did very well there were very few but the ones which happened happened in the mid 17th century and they came together it was the job of a Queen Mother to do anything she could to smooth over these political ruptures one of the main job requirements is that when there is a dynastic crisis you fix it you smooth it over and Qasim did a pretty good job because I'm represented at least continuity she'd been in power really for longer than anyone else and she was very careful to keep it that way people came in and out of office no one was really building up the sort of contacts the expertise that she was there was nobody strong at the center of the Empire and it seems that that is why the Queen Mother's became powerful because four had to be somebody to keep the show on the road given the crisis that the Empire was going through during her lifetime I think we can say it was probably thanks to kiss em that the Empire actually survived the ottomans have lost some of Murad the Third's conquests in Iran and the caucuses were facing rebellion in Anatolia and Istanbul and losing battles at sea the last thing they needed was trouble at the top [Music] but he brahim who's not just mad he was impotent he could not be cured for a while and they were of course terrified that he was going to die childless that would have meant the whole country in going to Civil War we have ambassadors riding home saying get ready I mean this Empire might simply dissolve what's going to happen if the Ottoman Empire goes down the tubes it's a real moment of crisis luckily the Ottomans had ways of dealing with the problem there are special books written on sexual matters and these are called bonhomie meaning book of love or book of lust some of these prescriptions were kept a secret and some of them were specially prescribed for the Sultan or the Sultan's family here is a real interesting prescription which was said to give such a potency that a man who used it could satisfy ten women without himself losing anything from his lust you have to hunt 400 large red ants and poor specimen oil on it leave it exposed in the sunrays for 20 days at the end of the 20 stay count them in a mortar till they become a uniform mass it will be applied on the fingers toes and armpits the potency during the sexual intercourse is enhanced to an incredible degree it will give much more precious it seems to have worked for Ibrahim eventually Kassim taking a lead in this Ibrahim was induced to take a concubine and with the birth of his first son a huge collective sigh of relief he then goes on to become excessively how should we say excessively interested in sex he had apparently you know all his women were he rode around on them they were naked he ran around them like a stallions or neighing kind of kinky guy they say he was especially interested in fat women and once he insisted bring me the fattest woman in Istanbul and they found her and brought her he spent time with her for days and all the time she told him fairy tales once she told him the sable stories and the sultan wanted to hear it every day it was about a sultan who really loved sable furs soft soft and he caressed it and decorated everywhere with fur the chairs were fir the curtains were fir in order to make the story real he wanted everything to be covered with fur we read about a fur tax that he imposed on the Empire because he wanted to line rooms in the palace with fur and mirrors and we read about real abuse at Ibrahim s hands in which he makes his sister's come and wait on one of his concubines I mean this is a complete perversion of the hierarchy of dignity and service and seniority those must have been very difficult years for Kusum but obviously it did not isolate her from being a political player because she still has the connections to help engineer his removal from the throne by the end of his reign in 1648 the Empire was clearly weakening the Venetian Navy was at the entrance to the Dardanelles there was starvation in the capital and the Vizier's decided that he had to be deposed and finally his mother curse him agreed to this Kassim wrote to the Grand Vizier in the end he will leave neither you nor me alive we will lose control of the government the whole society is in ruins have him removed from the throne immediately for the sake of the Empire and her own political career she was prepared to sacrifice her own son she had a grandson on hand to take his place she produced his son mehmed to the council with the words here he is see what you can do with him clearly she didn't overestimate the visions abilities with his seven-year-old son on the throne Ibrahim is in prison again sorry the person who rules the palace is Kassim Sultan so she must agree to her son being imprisoned and her grandson being on the throne but kasam could not let this continue Ibrahim supporters might have tried to reinstate him father she's a fatwa was issued saying there cannot be two Sultan's in one country there are very facility officials went to the cage with an executioner I had Ibrahim strangling with ibrahim out of the way Kasim had a new problem the boy Sultan's mother wanted her share of the action once again an older woman had a young rival jostling her for power [Music] during the reigns of her two sons kasam had been queen mother now with her grandson on the throne she wanted to continue in power as Queen grandmother but her grandson had a mother a young woman called tor Han now to Han with a faction around her wanted to have the position of queen mother herself we have a whole new rivalry of two Queen mother's first time in the Ottoman Empire that you've got two women at the heart of power two women who in a sense are acting as regent the two queens were exasperated highly against each other one to maintain the authority of her son and the other the traditional thing although we have to remember that tradition is new it's a bit ad-hoc but it would have been for Kassam to step aside step aside meant leaving with your retinue the Topkapi Palace to move to another Imperial Palace into retirement [Music] the palace of tears it was called where the former Sultan's women would be sent to while away the rest of their days when the new Sultan took over one reason person may have been reluctant to remove herself from the center of politics is that the new Sultan's mother is really quite young she may simply have felt that it wasn't the wise thing to do but we have to remember also that she probably simply did not want to give up this densely exciting political life that she had enjoyed for so many years so Kasim stuck around and a deadly tug of love began with both women trying to influence the young Sultan these Regent Queen Mother's Qasim and then sir Han as political actors needed to communicate and the whole question is how could they do it because they were in the harem the Chronicles tell us that they spoke behind screens do we envision a kind of a lattice screen they were obviously they're quite close simply not visible sometimes they spoke directly sometimes we hear that they whispered answers through the screen we even hear about an incident in which young Mamet turns to the screen and says what answer do I give and the answer is then conveyed to him Kassam defended her influence on her grandson you said this to the Sultan My dear who taught you to say these things such patronizing behavior towards Sultan's is impermissible and what if the Sultan is instructed the official she was berating Drowned it is said in the sea of mortification but tahan was not so easily defeated on the night of September the second 1651 things came to a head absoluta samso town wants to take her grandson from the throne and put another Prince there whose mother is more malleable that prince is also 6 or 8 years old ya see cuz you sure that the young mother thought that in order to save her son she should really eliminate because um so that night she told her own people to find her and strangle her but that was the only way who get rid of kisum she wasn't going to retire voluntarily [Music] this is reminiscent of a couple of centuries earlier when the tension and the rivalry is among princes and brothers now this kind of rivalry has displaced itself into the palace itself in his a month powerful women it is said that when a eunuch spoke up for Kassim they split his head with an axe his blood and brains were dashed on the rich carpets right in front of the boys Alton he then signed his grandmother's death warrant saying she should be strangled but neither cut with sword nor bruised with blows some of the slaves hunted for curse em she hid in a cupboard and it said that her presence was betrayed by a hem of her dress sticking out from behind the door [Music] [Music] seeing two great jewels at our ears they immediately tore them thence they were two diamonds of the bigness of chestnuts and beneath each diamond was a ruby those earrings have given her by sultan ahmed and esteemed by the most skilful jewelers worth a year's revenue of grand cairo [Music] she's a controversial person she was a great manipulator and she meddled in politics she was a dragon she did everything in her power for political power and she acquired great wealth she was never satisfied Kirsten is a mixed press as with her predecessors noir Bono Sofia Kristen was highly praised by many people simply for her role as an important figure in the dynasty I think by the time of Chris and we can say that that she was revered as Queen Mother Qasim's young rival to a hon continued as regent for five years but then her son and his advisors took command as the centuries have passed the women have continued to be criticized for meddling in politics and bringing down the Empire recently their role has been reconsidered traditionally historians have liked to say that this was the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire we do have to remember that the Ottoman Empire lasted until well 1918 and the last vestige disappeared in in 1923 so we must be careful about talking about decline and I don't think women had anything to do with it the women of the harem had to step in to protect their sortin and to guide him in the running of the empire now they were doing that it appeared when there were lots of problems and what's happened is that those women who were doing the best for the Empire as they saw it are getting blamed for the problems which were the things they were actually having to face up to and to Seoul while it's okay for men to be ruthless that's not seen as a very good thing for a woman when people look back on this period this period really of a hundred years from her dam through tour Han they look with a kind of a mixed attitude it was a real change in the way the dynasty was managed at the end of the Sultanate of women we don't see women with that degree of public political power how to continue to I think it would have become a very natural phenomenon it's hard to say whether the sultanate of women was a good thing or a bad thing they did what they could they struggled to survive they did what they had to and some amazing women emerged but many many many didn't and were submerged and history doesn't talk about that the imperial harem was to continue for another two and a half centuries hundreds of women would disappear into it but none was to come forward to play such a commanding Rome as her em no bono or Kusum you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 7,086,298

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Keywords: harem documentary, suleiman the magnificent documentary, ottoman empire documentary, history documentary, documentary history, suleiman the magnificent, ottoman empire, full documentary, full length documentaries, timeline documentary, topkapi palace, hürrem sultan, channel 4 documentary, bbc documentary, documentary movies - topic, Tv shows - topic, Muhammad, Mohammed, Salah, Hajj, Umrah, Madrasa, Muslima, An-Nisa, Aisha, Talaq, Khadija, Abaya, Tarawi, Taraweeh, Iftar, Mubarak, Kareem

Id: XEDWaBmKpfY

Length: 95min 38sec (5738 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Should be noted that harems were filled with sex slaves taken from the places that fell under ottoman rule.

[u/ivywylde]

Thanks for posting. I watched Magnificent Century on Netflix and wanted to learn more about the sultan and his harem (since MC isn't exactly known for historical accuracy).