Where did women in harems came?

[TheForeigner]

What was the source of women in harems. I know some were bought from peoples like Circassians and Georgians. Some were kidnapped by Tatars and sold to Ottomans. Where did they usually get the women from?

[wvwvw]

From kidnapping

[TheForeigner]

From kidnapping

Where did they kidnap them from?

[Governor]

Where did they kidnap them from?

Balkans, Caucasia and Russia.

[TheForeigner]

Balkans, Caucasia and Russia.

So they kidnap them both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.

[Dema]

From Greece and Serbia


http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...=1#post4244260

[wvwvw]

Where did they kidnap them from?

From the Christian lands they plundered.

[TheForeigner]

From the Christian lands they plundered.

Even those already Ottoman provinces?

[Governor]

So they kidnap them both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire.

They stole beautiful, decent, Caucasian/White looking women.

[Dema]

In the mid-14th century, Murad I built an army of slaves, referred to as the Kapıkulu. The new force was based on the Sultan's right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. The captive slaves converted to Islam and trained in the sultan's personal service. The devşirme system could be considered a form of slavery because the Sultans had absolute power over them. However, as the 'servant' or 'kul' of the Sultan had high status within Ottoman society, they could become the highest officers of state and the military elite, and all taken children (but not their parents) were well remunerated.
Slaves were traded in special marketplaces called "Esir" or "Yesir" that were located in most towns and cities. It is said that Sultan Mehmed II "the Conqueror" established the first Ottoman slave market in Constantinople in the 1460s, probably where the former Byzantine slave market had stood. According to Nicolas de Nicolay, there were slaves of all ages and both sexes, they were displayed naked to be thoroughly checked – especially children and young women – by possible buyers.


The concubines of the Ottoman Sultan consisted chiefly of purchased slaves. The Sultan's concubines were generally of Christian origin. The mother of a Sultan, though technically a slave, received the extremely powerful title of Valide Sultan which raised her to the status of a ruler of the Empire (see Sultanate of Women). One notable example was Kösem Sultan, daughter of a Greek Christian priest, who dominated the Ottoman Empire during the early decades of the 17th century. Roxelana (also known as Hürrem Sultan), another notable example, was the favorite wife of Suleiman the Magnificent.
The concubines were guarded by enslaved eunuchs, themselves often from pagan Africa. The eunuchs were headed by the Kizlar Agha ("agha of the [slave] girls"). While Islamic law forbade the emasculation of a man, Ethiopian Christians had no such compunctions; thus, they enslaved and emasculated members of territories to the south and sold the resulting eunuchs to the Ottoman Porte. The Coptic Orthodox Church participated extensively in the slave trade of eunuchs. Coptic priests sliced the penis and testicles off boys around the age of eight in a castration operation.
The eunuch boys were then sold in the Ottoman Empire. The majority of Ottoman eunuchs endured castration at the hands of the Copts at Abou Gerbe monastery on Mount Ghebel Eter.[ Slave boys were captured from the African Great Lakes region and other areas in Sudan like Darfur and Kordofan then sold to customers in Egypt. During the operation, the Coptic clergyman chained the boys to tables and after slicing their sexual organs off, stuck bamboo catheters into the genital area, then submerged them in sand up to their necks. The recovery rate was 10 percent. The resulting eunuchs fetched large profits in contrast to eunuchs from other areas.

sexual slavery

A 19th-century photograph of a Köçek, a cross-dressing young slave boy sometimes used for homosexual purposes.
Circassians, Syrians, and Nubians were the three primary races of females who were sold as sex slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Circassian girls were described as fair, light-skinned and were frequently enslaved by Crimean Tatars then sold to Ottomans. They were the most expensive, reaching up to 500 pounds sterling and the most popular with the Turks. Second in popularity were Syrian girls, with their dark eyes, dark hair, and light brown skin, and came largely from coastal regions in Anatolia. Their price could reach up to 30 pounds sterling. They were described as having "good figures when young". Nubian girls were the cheapest and least popular, fetching up to 20 pounds sterling.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, sexual slavery was not only central to Ottoman practice but a critical component of imperial governance and elite social reproduction. Dhimmi boys taken in the devşirme could also become sexual slaves, though usually they worked in places like bathhouses (hammam) and coffeehouses. They became tellaks (masseurs), köçeks (cross-dressing dancers) or sāqīs (wine pourers) for as long as they were young and beardless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaver...Ottoman_Empire