It is an often ignored but fundamental fact that in the Ottoman world as in most empires, there were 'first-class' and 'second class' subjects. Among the townspeople, peasants and nomads subject to the sultans, who might be Muslims or non-Muslims, adult Muslim males were first-class subjects and all others, including Muslim boys and women, were of the second class. As for the female members of the elite, while less privileged than the males, in some respects their life chances might be better than those of ordinary women. Even so, they shared the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and epidemic diseases with townswomen of the subject class and to a certain extent, with village women as well. Women also made up a sizeable share of the enslaved, belonging to the sultans, to elite figures but often to members of the subject population as well. Thus, the study of Ottoman women is indispensable for understanding Ottoman society in general.
In this book, the experiences of women from a diverse range of class, religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds are woven into the social history of the Ottoman Empire, from the early-modern period to its dissolution in 1922. Its thematic chapters first introduce readers to the key sources for information about women's lives in the Ottoman Empire (qadi registers, petitions, fetvas, travelogues authored by women). The first section of the book then recounts urban, non-elite women's experiences at the courts, family life, and as slaves. Paying attention to the geographic diversity of the Ottoman Empire, this section also considers the social history of women in the Arab provinces of Baghdad, Cairo and Aleppo. The second section charts the social history of elite women, including that of women in the Palace system, writers and musicians and the history of women's education. The final section narrates the history of women at the end of the empire, during the Great War and Civil War.
The first introductory social history of women in the Ottoman Empire, Women in the Ottoman Empire will be essential reading for scholars and students of Ottoman history and the history of women in the Middle East.
Author(s): Suraiya Faroqhi
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 328
City: London
Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Epigraph
Contents
List of figures
Preface and acknowledgements
A note on spelling and transliteration
Map
Timeline
Introduction
Women as agents: the struggle for survival, through family connections, work and charity
Political aspects
Agency and visibility
Information and social contacts as preconditions for agency
When to begin and when to end?
Spaces and places
Both indispensable and ‘treacherous’: the Ottoman qadi registers
Feminist-inspired source criticism: how to deal with authors writing women out of the record
The thrust of this book
Prologue: a conspectus of Ottoman history as relevant to women
The Ottoman–Safavid conflict, from the female perspective
‘Placing’ the sultan’s harem: the Old Palace, the Topkap ı Saray ı and the ‘old’ Çırağan Palace
The valide sultan and the Chief Black Eunuch: the harem as a political centre
A glimpse of ‘ordinary women’ in political and environmental crises
Ottoman defensive modernization: a backdrop for changes in the lives of women
Demographic engineering as a corollary of ‘defensive modernization’
The Balkan wars, the First World War, the Armenian massacres and the end of the empire
1 How women fitted into Ottoman history
Periodization
A long and complicated history: what were the consequences for women?
In conclusion
Part I 1500s to about 1700
2 The legal framework of family life
Conditioning agency: the sharia and the sultan´s commands
In the qadi’s court
The status of free women in Islamic law: a few salient points on marriage
Ottoman Syria and Egypt: the marriages and divorces of Muslims and Christians
Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Sofia
Jewish women, married and perhaps abandoned
In conclusion
3 Dependent on work, investments and charity
Protecting personal and family property
Moneylending, other investments and craftwork
Slaves
Pious/charitable foundations: outside the sultan’s court
Town and country: the charitable foundations of women in western Anatolia
The charities of royal women
The crimes of women as examples of non-agency
In conclusion
4 Exceptionally talented, exceptionally active: women of distinction
The marginality of literary women and the scarcity of female poets
Competing for patrons: entering the race with a ball and a chain on her foot
The protest of an ‘amateur’ female poet
‘I have always earned my living in this manner’31
A provincial mystic
Anonymous but outspoken: a petition writer of the 1520s
In conclusion
Part II about 1700–1870s
5 Ottoman diversity: female agency and survival in Ottoman Syria and Egypt
Viewed from Istanbul: vastly different urban societies
Forms of women’s agency
Marriage matters: family status, politics and perhaps the hope for some personal autonomy
Family boundaries and endogamy within families and households
Military households: from exceptions to widely emulated models
A study in contrasts
Back to the extraordinary power of Cairo’s magnate women: female agencies compared
To conclude
6 Ottoman diversity: coping with relatives, the state and dependent capitalism
Surviving social, economic and political changes in the Ottoman central lands
Marriage and divorce in an age of growing institutionalization
Providers of charity: the changing activities of royal women
The donations of Izmir’s non-royal women
Investors
At work, but with major privileges: female poets and an artist-cum-entrepreneur
Women’s work under incipient capitalism and an expanded money economy
Girls as paid household help: exploitation, charity or something in between?
Slaves within and outside the Ottoman palace
‘Falling through the cracks’: prostitution and crime
In conclusion
Part III 1870–1918
7 Female teachers, journalists and actors: education as a source of survival skills
Becoming a teacher in the Darülmuallimat
Teachers’ pay and curricula at the Darülmuallimat
The views of former students
Teacher training for Greek and Jewish women
Special: missionary schools that appealed to some Muslims as well
Despite poor pay: the benefi ts of teacher training
From education to authorship
Kadınlar Dünyası, feminism and nationalism: who can establish telephone connections?
Female authors in Ottoman Syria
On the stage in post-Tanzimat Istanbul
In conclusion
8 Before 1912: surviving through family, work, and charity – and occasionally, turning to crime
Marriage and its vicissitudes
Divorce and relations between ex-spouses
Polygamy and marriage to former slave girls
Hoping to survive as a worker
Persistent slavery
Outside the law
Dependent on charity
Orphanages and missionary schooling: Armenian orphaned girls about 1900
In conclusion
9 In profound distress: struggling to survive the disintegration of the empire (1912–18)
How the Ottomans entered the First World War
The labours and tribulations of rural women
Famine in Greater Syria and Lebanon
Deportations
Armenian women
The miseries of refugees
‘Demographic engineering’ in a new key: attempts to recuperate the younger generation
Seeking paid work to survive: the Banque Ottomane
Paid work in a novel ambiance: the telephone exchange
Making a living by nursing and midwifery
Working for the army and the Association for the Employment of Muslim Women
Ladies Bountiful and their clients in the Great War: women in organizations dispensing social aid
Being active – or not – in welfare work
State and private initiatives in tandem: shelter and training for homeless women and children
In conclusion: tracing agency
Conclusion
In the late 1700s: more Istanbul women taking their problems to court
Searching for early indicators of (limited) primary schooling for girls
The impact of ‘defensive modernization’: increasing the number of surviving Muslim children
Female refugees and deportees: the dark side of ‘defensive modernization’
Women’s agency: resembling that deployed by men
Suggestions for further reading
Multi-authored works reflecting the condition féminine, Ottoman style
Non-elite women in the qadi’s court: making and unmaking marriages
Privileged among working women: authors, journalists and educators
Paid work as a means of keeping (barely) alive
The labours of slave women
Palace women and their charities
The lives of female royals
Charitable giving by non-royal women
From charity to social aid: not always a successful transition
Conclusion
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
