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The Harem

Haram is the term used by the Mohammedan doctors to denote what deserves a reprimand or punishment, being expressly forbidden by the Law. It is the opposite of Halal, what is permitted and sanctioned by the Mohammedan Law. The word haram also signifies a sacred thing from which infidels are to abstain, as the temple of Mecca or Mo hammed's tomb at Medina. The word harem is Arabic for anything forbidden or not to be touched. It is generally applied in Moslem law to such things as games of chance, draughts, chess, witchcraft, and portrait-taking, which are inconsistent with the religious code.

Under the form of haram it is well known even to Europeans as designating the sacred enclosure of the principal mosque at Cairo and at Jerusalem (Haram esh-Sherif). The resemblance of the Jerusalem Haram with the Cairo mosque is striking. In both there is a large rectangular area surrounded by colonnades ; the pillars in the Cairo mosque are torn from older buildings, and support round arches, and a wooden beam runs above the capitals, - details also observable in the Dome of the Rock.

The word seraglio, which was not unfrequently employed as equivalent to harem, is an Italian modification (usually spelled serraylio from assimilation to serrare, to shut in) of the Persian term serai, which simply means a palace or large building, as in the familiar compound caravanserai.

Harem is the apartment in the East set apart exclusively for the women. In the East, the harem is held sacred, so that even the officers of justice dare not intrude therein, unless they have received certain information that a man is within the harem contrary to the law; and if on entering the harem they do not find what they look for, the women may punish and even kill them. The Mohammedan law requires that the faces of women be concealed from the view of men, with the exception of their husbands, fathers, and sons. In Egypt the strictest precautions are taken that no male visitors be allowed to enter the interior of the harem, not even the slaves who are in attendance.

Female existence in the Oriental harem is one monotonous and unvarying scene of indolence and self-indulgence. The women seldom leave their apartments to take exercise in the open air, but reclining on soft divans, they spend their time in gold embroidery, or in trifling amusements, while they pamper their appetites with large quantities of sweetmeats, and a variety of rich dishes, the preparation of which they carefully superintend. In addition to this, by the constant use of relaxing, warm, and vapour baths, they soon grow so large that the symmetry of their forms and the regularity of their features entirely disappear, and nothing of beauty remains but the eyes. "When the moral state of the harem is closely examined," we are told in the Journal of a Deputation to the East, " a sad picture of depravity and misery is discovered. The women are left wholly uneducated, being unable either to read or write; their time is mostly occupied in attending to their toilette, feasting their appetites, frivolous gossip, and domestic squabbles. As respects the intellect, they live and die in a state of mental childhood; and with regard to morals, being without the restraints of either religion or reason, they are wholly abandoned to the sway of the sensual and malevolent passions of our fallen nature. Envy, jealousy, and malice are the natural fruits of this deep moral debasement."

The harem, or women's department of the sultan's household, consisted of a number of little courts or "dairas," each surrounding some one or other of the leading ladies of this amazing female hierarchy, numbering not less than fifteen hundred persons by the end of the 19th Century.

His Majesty never condescended to go through the usual ceremony of a Moslem marriage. The women of his harem were divided into three great classes. The kadines, who are more or less legitimate wives, though never officially espoused; the ikbals, or favorites, from amongst whom the kadine are usually selected; and the guienzdes, literally, "the young ladies who are pleasant in the eyes" of their master, who may in their turn attain to the dignity of ikbals. All these women must be of slave origin. The majority were either purchased or stolen from Circassian or Georgian peasants at a very tender age, and in so mysterious a manner as to prevent all chance of their relatives ever tracing their whereabouts. In nine cases out of ten, however, if the lady did rise to importance, her identity is revealed to her own kinsfolk, and the chief object of her life becomes to obtain rich places for them, by fair means or foul.

The sultan of Turkey, therefore, was invariably the son of a slave woman. But the moment that slave became the mother of a prince, or even of a princess, of the blood royal, she was set free and given imperial rank. As an instance in point, many old residents in Constantinople still remembered how Sultan Mahmud II was smitten with a sudden passion for a buxom hamnmmjinah, or bathwoman, who, on becoming the mother of Abd-ul-Medjid simultaneously became kadive effendi, and eventually rose to the supreme dignity of 'Valide Sultan."

As all good Mussulmans should have four official wives, so the sultan has four kadines. Each bears her own distinctive title, and takes precedence accordingly. The Bach Kadine or principal of these ladles, the sister of Zaki Pasha, all too well known for his exploits in the Sasoun, was erroneously described as the sultana. The three other kadines are respectively denominated the Skindjl-Kadine, or Second Lady, the Artanie-Kadlne, or Middle Lady, and the Kutchuk-Kadine, or Little Lady. The fact that each of these ladies must, according to the Moslem law, have an equal court in every detail, from the mistress of the robes down to the lowest scullion, and even to the number of the horses in her stable, explains why some other female personage of the imperial entourage, must perforce be selected to hold the place and title usually allotted to the wife of a monogamous sovereign. This personage, in the Turkish system, was always the mother of the reigning sultan, and is known as the valide-sultan. Should the sultan be motherless at the time of his accession, his foster-mother takes the position, this connection being considered almost as sacred as the maternal one, in the eyes of all good Moslems.

The title of sultana did not exist. But that of sultan added to the proper name, was accorded to all ladies of the imperial blood, daughters and sisters of the sultan. Thus Lelia-Sultan, FatmaSultan, and so forth. Should one of these ladies condescend, as frequently occurred, to marry a subject, she retained her title and fortune, and her husband may not even sit down before her, unless she gives him leave.

The harem was constantly fed by a stream of slave children, secretly purchased from remote regions, and privately conveyed into the palace. During their earlier years, they are called alalkes, and are placed in the care of certain elderly and experienced women, known as kalfas, or mistresses, who initiate them into all the subtle arts which delight the Oriental taste. Their manners are especially attended to, and they are taught music and dancing. In due time they begin to act as attendants on the kadives and the imperial princesses, and frequently rise to the highest rank.

The Kizlar-Aghasse, or chief of the black eunuchs, ranked officially next to the grand vizier. But, for obvious reasons, his Highness has now no place in the Almanach de Gotha. The regiment of eunuchs under his command has greatly diminished during the present reign, but their number is still formidable, for they are indispensable to the harem system. A few exceedingly old white eunuchs are lodged at Yildiz, but they are rapidly dying out.

Yet another important personage in the harem is the hasnada-ousta, or grand mistress of the robes and treasury, generally a respectable and intelligent elderly woman, who acts as vicevalide, and attends to all those many household details which, in so vast an establishment, must perforce escape the vaiide-sultan's own eye. On more than one occasion, faute de mieux, the hasnada-ousta had risen to the position of valide-sultan.

It must not for a moment be concluded that because a woman is an inmate of the Serai she does not possess a legal husband of her own. Many of the ladies are the wives of pashas, and. like our own court ladies, have only a stated period of waiting in each year. But the majority of the married denizens of this world within a world, be they mistresses or maids, have husbands holding some palace appointment, and apartments and families within its walls. The harem ladies have a fair share of liberty. In the regulation yashmak and feridje they can go out driving and paying visits whenever they choose, and they haunt the bazaars, the Grande Rue de Pera, and other public promenades. They have, moreover, many entertainments among themselves.