History todayThe harem, symbol and instrument of powerFor Westerners, the harem is the place of all luxuries, a luxurious palace where the erotic vapors of the Turkish bath emanate. In reality, it is a closed and strictly hierarchical world in which power struggles and rivalries are woven. Historian Raphaël Weyland, expert on the Mediterranean region and Iran, tells us in detail about it.

The word “harem” means “forbidden”, “sacred”, and the Ottoman harem is the best known. “It is a part of the imperial palace where […] the Sultan’s family lives, where his concubines live, the maids and where we don’t have access, ”Raphaël Weyland explains.

The concept of harem appears in 3^e millennium BC in Mesopotamia. It then spread to Egypt and Greece in 2^e millennium, to the ancient Persians, to the Muslim world, from 8^e at 13^e century, and among the Ottomans from the 13th^e century.

Between 500 and 1000 people live in the harem, and of these people, between 49 and 433 are women. They are often slaves and enter the harem from their early adolescence. They are odalisques, who serve and learn in this trade. Nine years later, they left the harem to marry members of the administration or the Ottoman army. Some of these odalisques remain to satisfy the sultan.

Thanks to the harem, the sultan uses royal polygamy to ensure his succession to the male exclusive throne.

” It doesn’t really look like a big brothel, the harem. It is rather almost a cutthroat, so a place of political rivalry, but it is also a place of education, a place of life, a place of political influence. “

By the end of 19^e and at the beginning of 20^e century, the Ottoman Empire was declining. In particular, the harem has been criticized for giving too much power to women. “In 1908, the young revolutionary Turks usurped a good portion of his powers from the Sultan and the harem, considered a symbol of Eastern traditions, had to be closed,” Raphaël Weyland said.

Some of the women who lived in the harem married, others followed the sultan into exile, others became influential women in Ottoman society, but most fell into oblivion and misery.

In conclusion, Raphaël Weyland explained how the harem was very different from the court of European kings.