harem

harem (hâr`əm) [Arabic], term applied to women's apartments in a Muslim household. In the ancient Arab world women enjoyed a certain amount of freedom. However, with the advent of Islam, the veiling and seclusion of women into harems became more common. The most famous harem, that of the sultans of Turkey, dates from the 15th cent. and included the old and new palaces on Seraglio Point, Constantinople. It was abolished with the downfall (1909) of Abd al-Hamid II. The sultan's harem often contained several hundred women, all subject to the control of the sultan's mother and guarded by eunuchs. In India the harem is called a purdah or zenana; in Iran, andarun. Although the harem is rapidly disappearing in the 20th cent., there nevertheless are still some in existence in the more remote areas of the Muslim world.

Bibliography

See N. M. Penzer, The Harem (1937); D. Van Ess, Fatima and Her Sisters (1961).

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harem

 Arabic harim

In Muslim society, that part of a house set apart for the women of the family or the part from which males not of the family are excluded. Through extension it has come to refer generally to the mandatory seclusion of women from the outside world. Institutions similar to the harem existed in the pre-Islamic civilizations of the Middle East; in the courts of pre-Islamic Assyria, Persia, and Egypt, they were often the loci of political intrigues involving rival court factions. Large harems for wives (and often for concubines) were common in wealthy Middle Eastern households until the 20th century. From the 15th to the 20th century, the great harem, termed the seraglio, of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire housed several hundred women. In Iran—and in parts of Central and South Asia influenced by Persian culture—the institution of seclusion has traditionally been known as purdah. In the present-day Islamic world, seclusion of women is practiced only within conservative communities; concubinage has been generally outlawed. Similar systems have existed in other parts of Asia.

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harem, hareem

a group of female animals of the same species that are the mates of a single male