Slavery in the Ottoman Empire

A rare portrait of Hürrem Sultan, a chief consort and legal wife of Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, has been put up for sale in New York for $206,000, according to auction house Sotheby's.

The walls of Vienna trembled on 27th of September, 1529, as strange music echoed close by. The sound of hundreds of drums stopped the heartbeats of the Austrian defenders. Also, the loud horn-like noise of the zurna pierced their souls, bringing fear of the unknown; of a distant menace coming from afar – The Janissaries.

The subject of slavery in the Ottoman Empire, and the use of eunuchs among the imperial elite in Istanbul, is an exotic but surprisingly little known subject. 

'The Black Eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire: Networks of Power in the Court of the Sultan' by George Junne (I.B. Tauris, 336 pages, £64)

“A class of human beings that has formed an integral part of Muslim society up to the present day is that of the slaves. [the Prophet] Muhammad took over the slavery system, upon which ancient society was based, seemingly without question and regarding it as part of the natural order of the universe.

Prostitution, they claim, is the oldest profession in the world, but when it comes to Ottoman times very little is known - not just because little research has been done on it. While marriage, divorce, slavery and adultery are extensively regulated in Ottoman customary law and Muslim law, the sharia, prostitution is not.