The harem – the section reserved for the sultan’s women and family – formed a Palace within a Palace, and was, as in every Turkish household, a private place, forbidden to all strangers. Its organization complemented the slave system, an aspect of its character forgotten amidst a proliferation of fanciful tales, and paralleled the page organization. Women for the sultan’s Palace were carefully selected from among prisoners-of-war, or from the slave markets. Women were not, however, subject to the devşirme. In 1475 there were 400 female slaves in the Topkap Palace and 250 in the Old Palace, and these girls, like the pages, passed through a long period of education and training. When they first came to the Palace they lived together in two large rooms, the Greater and Lesser Chambers, and were known as acemîs – novices. Under the strict supervision of the kâhya kadn – a woman superintendent – they grew up as refined and skilful women. They learned the principles of Islam, at the same time acquiring such skills as sewing, embroidery, dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, puppetry or story-telling, each according to her capabilities. The acemîs in time attained the ranks of câriye, şâgird, gedikli and usta. (It is worth noting that this hierarchy and the last three terms are the same as in the guild organizations, and were used also in the bureaucracy. It was the Ottoman practice that any skill or craft should be learned through an apprentice-master system.) In the same way as pages received promotion from the Larder to the Privy Chamber, the ustas too were selected from the ranks of the gediklis to perform a specific service for the sultan. Women from this group whom the sultan chose for his bed were distinguished with the title hâs odalk or hâseki. Until the time of Süleymân I, Ottoman sultans also took the daughters of foreign rulers as canonically legal spouses.[now we know that it stopped even earlier, since Hafsa was not after all a Crimean princess according to recent research - Joanna]. Süleymân contracted a religious marriage with the Russian slave-girl, Roxelana, known as Hürrem Sultan, but in the period between 1574 and 1687, when the influence of the vâlide sultans came to dominate the Palace, the sultans no longer contracted canonically legal marriages. The vâlide sultans themselves were not legal wives according to the şerîat. In the seventeenth century Osmân II and Ibrahîm I were the exceptions who contracted legal marriages. Nevertheless, four of the hâsekis – four being the canonically legal number of wives in Islam – were distinguished by the title of kadn and received special treatment. A hâseki who bore the sultan’s child received special privileges. Ceremonially crowned and dressed in sable, she went to kiss the sultan’s hand, and a private apartment was set aside for her use. The first woman to give birth to a son took precedence over all the others, with the title baş kadn. The staff of the harem, like the pages, received a daily stipend and a clothing allowance, each group having its own special uniform. Women above the rank of usta adorned their clothes with fur. The vâlide sultan had absolute authority within the harem, and the chief black eunuch – the harem ağasor dârüssaâde ağas – stood in the same relationship to her as the chief white eunuch – the kap ağas – did to the sultan. As the influence of the vâlide sultans increased after 1574, so too did that of the chief black eunuch, who came eventually to be the most important officer in the Palace. It is related that when the women in the harem heard the sultan’s silver-nailed slippers they at once hid from sight, since it was an offence to meet him face to face. Any woman who disrespected the rules or the hierarchy of the harem was punished, since if a novice were to win the sultan’s heart this would undermine the rights of the senior ustas and the authority of the vâlide sultan. The vâlide sultan herself carefully chose the ustas who were to consort with the sovereign. Tradition relates that in 1536 Roxelana, Süleymân’s favourite wife, had the harem transferred from the Old to the New Palace, and henceforth gained an increasing influence over the sultan and over affairs of state.
from: Halil İnalcık, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600
