Harem: The World Behind the Veil (25th Anniversary Edition)

This kindlebook The Harem The World Behind The Veil (25th Anniversary Edition) by Alev Lytle Croutier contains historical details pertaining to harems that include: details on harems involving the upper class and “middle class” harems, how the “Eastern” idea of the harem crossed over into western ideas on the harem, where the author was born and how this indirectly factored into her awareness on harems, how old the author was when she left the area where she was born for the United States, a certain action that a favorite woman of the harem chose to do in order to ensure her status was further elevated in the harem, competition for being among one of the favorites in the harem was vicious and the stakes were high, sometimes the dramatic competition turned deadly (the author mentions that there is a story of how one woman of a harem named Gulnush intentionally pushed Gulbeyaz one of the harem favorites to her death, sometimes the number of men who were tasked to guard a harem at times numbered as high as 800 men, the lives of some of the harem women were often brief, apparently sometimes the male guards of the harem played a role in how some of the harem women met an unexpected andor early death, gardens were frequently a playground for the harem women, it was common for upper class women to call on women in other harems to stay as guests with them for several days, a picture of the author with her parents, sometimes one of the male guards received permission to marry one of the harem girls however when this occurred usually both that male guard and the harem girl permanently eventually left the harem to start their own life together instead of the male guard andor harem woman staying in the harem, and more.

Lavishly illustrated, which led me to regard this book with some suspicion, but in the end lots of interesting information of harem life and history. (That the author has a family history that reaches back to the seraglio and that she has included a photo of her great-uncle with his odalisque is convincing in and of itself.)In 1790, one sale document reads, you could buy seven women slaves for 1,000 to 2,000 kurush. One horse would cost 5,000 kurush. Kidnapped or sold by their parents, the trip to the harem was one-way--once you went in you never came out. Unless the sultan didn't like you or you refused to convert to Islam or failed to learn Arabic, in which case he could post you for resale on the medieval equivalent of eBay.If in the rare event you became the favorite of the sultan, your troubles were not over. Your rivals might poison you or have you tied in a sack and thrown into the Bosphorous (one particularly mad sultan had his entire harem so disposed of). If you had a son, you became the automatic enemy of every other woman in the harem who also had a son with aspirations of succeeding to his father's power.The rest of your time, always supposing you survived, was spent in gossip, eating and smoking opium, and going to the baths.The very first paragraph of the introduction is the most poignant, written by an anonymous woman of the harem:I am a harem woman, an Ottoman slave. I was conceived in an act of contemptuous rape and born in a sumptuous palace. Hot sand is my father; the Bosphorus, my mother; wisdom, my destiny; ignorance, my doom. I am richly dressed and poorly regarded; I am a slave-owner and a slave. I am anonymous, I am infamous; one thousand and one tales have been written about me. My home is this place were gods are buried and devils breed, the land of holiness, the backyard of hell.Life in a harem must have been unutterably boring. Seldom have I been so glad to have been born in the here and now.

Harem: The World Behind the Veil by Alev Lytle Croutier is a gratifying find among the many historical books written about the harem life of the Ottoman Empire. A harem was not a hidden, decadent enclave of the Sultan's stunning concubines. It was simply where the women lived in the palace. All of the women lived there, including the Sultan's own mother, known as the "Valide Sultan." She was the most powerful figure in the empire after the Sultan himself. Croutier doesn't exclusively cover the Turkish harem, or Seraglio as it is known, and addresses the topic of the harem in general. However, since Croutier is Turkish and has a personal linkage to this past, naturally the majority of her book covers the Ottoman harem.Reading this book is like watching a documentary. Decorated with lush photography and paintings, it animates the women who lived in this time and place. Croutier covers all elements of the harem life: the baths that were a quotidian ritual, the poetry of the women's voices, an emotional life as multifaceted as the gems adorning them, the princesses, high-ranking concubines, and the eunuchs who surrounded them. There is also mention of the ordinary harem of domestic households. This rich history is laid out like a damask tapestry. The author's first person narrative makes the prose all the more alluring.The harem life was not easy. It was an imprisoned life, a segregated complex of buildings populated mostly by foreign slaves. A Muslim Turk could not be a consort to the Sultan as slavery was forbidden in Islam. Women were kidnapped or sold into the slave market just as cattle were. In some ways, the Turks are still ashamed of such a history, and it was abolished in the early twentieth century. Even Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the revolutionary leader and creator of the modern Turkish republic, had said: "Is it possible that, while one half of a community stays chained to the ground, the other half can rise to the skies?" Women could rarely leave the walls of the harem, but as oppressive as it could be, it was still a place of rich culture where a network of women turned to each other for comfort and enjoyed as much of its splendor as they could.Researched extensively, Harem offers a rare glimpse into the fascinating yet misunderstood heritage of women in the Ottoman Empire.

I'm sure there is a lot of truthful information in this book but my reading experience was tainted by a sentence on page 20 which is absolute nonsense. Ms. Croutier quotes: 'Woman is a field, a sort of property that a husband may use or abuse as he sees fit, says the Koran'..... The Koran doesn't say that! I suggest she reads Surah 4. She doesn't even back up that statement as to where her quote comes from. Domestic violence is systemic of patriarchal culture and nothing to do with religion.

Love this book a fascinating insight from a writer whose family was touched by harem life

Covers in detail, interesting facts about a very closed world.I would highly recommend this book as thought provoking, andstimulating. Amazing to think this kind of thing still goes onin the world today.

Ludicrous assumptions and conclusions abound. The author's understanding of Islam is lacking and her research is surface at best. Other than the section on the harem in the arts in the west, the book is a waste of time.

Ich brauchte dieses Buch für meine Abschlussarbeit, da ich mich ganz dem Thema Feminismus, Orient und Harem verschrieben habe. Es ist sehr interessant, gibt einen Einblick in die Geschichte des Harems und räumt mit den stereotypischen Konstrukt des Westens auf! Hat mir weiter geholfen, gerade bei Definitionen diverser Wörter.Wer sich auch für dieses Thema interessiert dem empfehle ich:Malek Aloulla- The Colonial HaremFatima Mernissi- Dreams of Trespass und Scheherazade Goes WestEdward Said - Orientalism