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Ottomans The category of Ottoman women masks a complex and varied history. It spans the long

history of the Ottoman Empire, from the fourteenth to the early twentieth centuries, and includes a diverse geographical and cultural spectrum, including women of Anatolia, Greece, the Balkan Peninsula, North Africa, and West Asia proper, as well as Christian, Jewish, and Muslim women. The study of Ottoman women is relatively new; before the late 1970s little had been written. During the last twentyfive years, however, perhaps no topic in Middle Eastern studies has attracted more scholarly attention. Much of this work has challenged the traditional view of Ottoman and Muslim women, based on normative theological and political literature, as marginalized and powerless. Drawing on an array of diverse sourcesincluding court records, political documents, and financial recordsscholars have shown that Ottoman women had available to them what Madeline Zilfi has termed a wide field of action despite an inherited gender system that prescribed women's subordination to men.

The Ottoman Empire emerged in the fourteenth century amid the numerous Turkic tribes vying for hegemony in the Near East. As the Ottomans rose to power, the role and position of women within society evolved as well. In tribal times, women played a relatively public role in the affairs of the tribe.

Women in the Premodern Ottoman Empire.

Harem in Topkapi Serail. A contemporary reproduction of the harem of the sultans, with wax figures in traditional costumes, Istanbul, Turkey, 1994. akg-images Following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 , the Ottoman sultans came to see themselves as the defenders of the faith, and they gradually embraced the practices of classical Islam. Among these were the veiling and cloistering of women, though these were a product of social convention rather than Islamic law. One of the most enduring images of Ottoman women's segregation is the harem. The exotic and eroticized image of the harem is a Western obsession that overlooks the much more complex functioning of this important institution. Leslie Peirce, in The Imperial Harem ( 1993 ), one of the most important works on gender in the premodern period, has challenged the traditional image of Ottoman woman as cloistered and therefore powerless. She shows that as the sultans retreated into their harems in the late sixteenth century, their mothers (the valide sultans ) and other royal women became increasingly powerful and influential. Contemporary commentators (and subsequent historians) decried this influence as a destabilizing innovation and called this period the sultanate of the Women. The reality, Peirce shows, is a great deal more complex. Women of the harem used their wealth to patronize important public building projects and charitable works. Because of their proximity to and influence on

the sultans, they also played an active role in important political matters. For example, Nurbanu, favorite of Selim II, was key in bringing about the peace that concluded the War of the Holy League in 1573 . Instead of rendering them powerless, their cloistered status in the harem enabled royal women to exercise great influence on the political life of the early-modern Ottoman state. During this period, segregation of women was most common among the imperial elite and upper-class families. Women of the lower classes were generally freer to circulate, in part because of their involvement in economic activities. Circumstances varied significantly, however, according to time and place. During times of festivity, for example, restrictions on women appearing in public were often much relaxed. Conversely, concerns about public morality occasionally produced a backlash that led to increased segregation. If royal women wielded influence from behind the walls of the harem, their power found public expression through their patronage of important architectural projects. In the mid-sixteenth century, Hrrem Sultan (known in Europe as Roxelana), the powerful wife of Sleyman the Magnificent, initiated the construction of the Haseki Hrrem Klliye in Istanbul, a complex that included a mosque, several schools, a soup kitchen, a women's hospital, and a bathhouse. The Mihrimah mosque in Edirne (Adrianople), Thrace, begun in 1555 under the patronage of Hrrem Sultan's daughter, was designed and executed by the greatest Ottoman architect of the early-modern era, Sinan. The Yeni Valide Mosque in Istanbul, begun in 1598 by Safiye Sultan, is another dazzling example of royal women's architectural patronage. Ottoman women also created numerous awqaf (plural of waqf; pious, charitable institutions), which might include schools, hospitals, caravansaries, baths, fountains, soup kitchens, hostels, and mosques. Royal women were especially active in establishing charitable foundations throughout the empire, financed by their own ample personal resources. Significant numbers of less exalted women instituted smaller awqaf as well. Indeed, between 20 and 30 percent of all charitable foundations during the eighteenth century were established by Ottoman women. As their charitable activities suggest, women also played a significant role in the Ottoman economy. Women were important landholders; some even held timars (military fiefs). They could inherit and apportion property, and they often played an active role in managing their own wealth. Women borrowed and lent money, served as tax farmers (private tax collectors), and entered into a variety of business partnerships. Throughout the empire, urban and rural women were widely involved in certain crafts, particularly textiles. Silk winding and cotton spinning were considered women's work and were often carried out part time in the home. In Mosul, cotton-thread making was monopolized by women to the point that cotton-weaving guilds (to which women rarely belonged) sought state intervention. Women also sold prepared foods, were small scale traders, operated public baths, brokered slave trades, and were musical entertainers. In the countryside, women engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry, often while men were away on extended military campaigns. Ottoman women were considered subjects of the empire upon reaching puberty, and Islamic law and tradition granted them specific legal rights. They had the right to control property, and neither fathers nor husbands could make use of this property without their consent. They had the right to register complaints and to claim their rights before the local qadi (Islamic judge). Women of all social levels, in the countryside and in the cities, regularly used the Ottoman court system to defend their interests, and scholars have found that in most instances judges upheld women's legal and property rights. Indeed, non-Muslim Ottoman women frequently took recourse to qadi courts because they were perceived as more favorable in treating issues of concern to women. From early in the seventeenth century, women (and men) could petition the imperial divan directly. Marriage and family were, of course, an integral element of the lives of most early-modern Ottoman women. Islamic law institutionalized an imbalanced relationship that favored men in numerous ways: Muslim men could marry non-Muslim women, but not the reverse. Men were permitted up to four wives and were granted absolute authority over them. Sharia law permitted men to divorce with relative ease, while women's ability to initiate divorce was more restricted and carried a financial penalty. Recent research on marriage, however, has attempted to move beyond legal theory and instead to examine actual social practice, which indicates a more favorable situation for Ottoman women.para/>Marriages were arranged by parents and families, but women had the right to refuse a match, and prenuptial agreements were not uncommon. Throughout the Ottoman period, polygyny was rare: probably well over 95 percent of all men had only one wife, though this varied according to time and place. Members

of the juridical and religious elite, as well as some high divan officials, were more often polygynous, but merchant, artisan, and peasant men rarely married more than one woman. In the case of divorce, studies of court records indicate that in practice, Ottoman women had more flexibility in ending unwanted marriages than the legal codes would suggest. Separations and annulments were possible, and divorces initiated by women in eighteenth-century Istanbul became common enough that they attracted concerned comment by social observers. Women's motivations for divorce included abuse, abandonment, and failure to provide adequate financial support. For non-Muslim Ottoman women whose traditions did not normally permit divorce, conversion to Islam was a common way to be liberated from an unwanted spouse. The changing view of women's history in the early-modern Ottoman Empire suggests that women's experiences and possibilities were more complex and varied. There is now compelling evidence that controverts the Orientalist image of Ottoman woman as submissive and powerless victims. One could argue that Ottoman women's status was at least equal to that of European women. Indeed, Lady Elizabeth Craven , who traveled in the region, reported in her Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople ( 1789 ), I think I never saw a country where women may enjoy so much freedom from all reproach, as in Turkey. The Turks in their conduct towards our sex are an example to all other nations.

There is a tendency to view Ottoman and Muslim women's history in a synchronic fashion that sees their experiences over time as undergoing little change. This ignores the significant changes that Ottoman women experienced in the final century of the empire. The Tanzimat era ( 1839 1876 ) marked the beginning of a shift toward a more modern state, which ushered in a range of reforms in the penal code, property and personal rights, the tax structure, and education. These reforms, as well as changes associated with the evolving Ottoman economy, had important and far-reaching implications for Ottoman women. During the nineteenth century as traditional crafts were affected by new manufacturing methods and as new industries arose, women's economic roles expanded and changed. This is evident in the production of rugs, a craft traditionally dominated by women. As demand grew in the late nineteenth century, increasing numbers of Turkish, Greek, and Armenian women worked full-time in the industry. In 1880 , workers in Usak numbered 3,000 women and 500 girls; by 1900 their total had increased to 6,000. In the final years of the century, rug production shifted from home workshops to large factories employing thousands of women, including girls as young as four years of age. Workdays were long: eleven hours for all but the youngest girls. Some women walked to work, others lived in dormitories furnished by the factory. The changing nature of rug manufacture led to unrest, and in 1908 mobs of women attacked the new factories to protest the shift from home to factory production. Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman women also worked in the shoe, silk, and cigarette industries. Men and women worked side by side in many factories, even though the textile, rug, and cigarette industries were classified as women's work. The large numbers of women and girls working in Ottoman factories drove wages down and helped make these industries more competitive with European producers. One European report described women's labor as cheaper than water, usually costing less than half that of male workers. Tanzimat reforms created increased educational opportunities for some Ottoman women. The first state school for girls opened in 1858 , and others followed over the next few decades. An 1869 decree made primary education compulsory for both boys and girls aged six to ten, though its implementation was limited. In 1870 the Teacher Training College for Girls opened, which prepared women as teachers for girls' schools; over the next forty years it would graduate over seven hundred instructors. Prior to this time girls received instruction in their homes or in classes held in the homes of educated women. Missionary schools and the schools of the empire's non-Muslim minority communities were also important sources of education for women. As small but growing numbers of women received educations, a variety of publications specifically targeting them began to appear. In 1870 the first women's periodical was published as a weekly supplement to a reformist newspaper, and others followed over the next few decades. These publications were rarely radical, focusing instead on family-related issues, religion, needlework, and noteworthy women, both Muslim and non-Muslim. The first published defense of Ottoman women's

Ottoman Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

rights, Fatma Aliye's Nisvan-i Islam (Women of Islam), appeared in 1891 . Aliye was the daughter of the influential grand vizier and historian Ahmed Cevdet Pasa . She received an excellent education, and her numerous works of literature open a fascinating window onto women's experiences in the final years of the empire. The first Ottoman women's organization was founded in 1876 by the wife of an influential government official, with the objective of aiding wounded soldiers. Other organizations with similar charitable objectives were founded over the next several years. Only after 1908 did organizations concerned with more civil issues, such as women's education and suffrage, begin to appear. Minority Ottoman women also organized associations toward the end of the century, and some international women's organizations like the Young Women's Christian Association were active in the capital, though they worked mostly with non-Muslim girls and women. In general, before the establishment of the Turkish Republic, Ottoman women were minimally engaged with the broader international women's movement. The late nineteenth century saw growing numbers of intellectuals and publications begin to debate the position of women in Ottoman society. They critiqued traditional Ottoman attitudes and practices toward family and women and urged a shift toward more civilized, that is, Western, practices. The new woman would help the nation succeed in the modern world; the traditional woman, in contrast, was trapped in the antiquated traditions of the past and retarded progress. One of the common visual tropes of the early twentieth century was the image of an old hag, who symbolized traditional culture, contrasted with a young Westernized woman of the future. In this period the Committee for Union and Progress, popularly known as the Young Turks, arose with the objective of modernizing Ottoman society through Westernization. A central part of its program included raising the status of Ottoman women. The Young Turks revived the reformist trend of the Tanzimat and declared, Women must be liberated from the shackles of tradition. Women's status and opportunities, at least in the cities, improved somewhat, and women took an increasing part in public social activities. Their access to education improved, and for the first time a few women became doctors, lawyers, and even civil servants. Muslim women also appeared for the first time on stage, which prior to this time had been dominated by Armenian actresses. Public spaces such as restaurants, theaters, and lecture halls were opened to women, though owners were required to provide a segregated area to separate women from men. Women's expanded opportunities were always vulnerable, however, as evidenced by the conservative reaction at the outset of Sultan Mehmed V's reign in 1909 . The Young Turks' reforms continued through the difficult years of World War I. In 1917 the family law code was revised and marriage was declared a secular, rather than religious, union. Despite legal changes, in many rural parts of the empire, traditional attitudes continued to hold sway. During this time the government established the Society for the Employment of Muslim Women, whose objective was to alleviate wartime labor shortages by encouraging, occasionally even forcing, women to serve in the Battalions of Women Workers. This push produced results: in under six months 14,000 women in Istanbul had applied for employment through the society, driven in no small part by difficult economic circumstances. The result was the introduction of women of all classes into areas previously dominated by men and non-Muslim women, and a greater degree of liberation, at least among urban women. The vestiges of the Ottoman Empire were swept away in the War of Turkish Independence ( 1919 1923 ). Women such as Halide Edib Adivar and Nakiye Elgun played a public role in the war. Indeed, Adivar served for a time as a corporal and then sergeant in the military, and would later become an important literary figure and a member of parliament. The secular Turkish Republic, which was established on 29 October 1923 , produced significant new political, social, and economic opportunities for Turkish women. [See also Adivar, Halide Edib Edib; Codes of Law and Laws, subentry Islamic Law Law; Hrrem, Sultan ; Islam Islam; and Orientalism .]

Bibliography
Bates, Ulku U. The Architectural Patronage of Ottoman Women. Asian Art 6 (Spring 1993 ): pp.5065. Davis, Fanny . The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood

Press, 1986 . An early work that still provides valuable insights into elite Ottoman women's lives. Duben, Alan , and Cem Behar . Istanbul Households: Marriage, Family, and Fertility, 18801940 . Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1991 . A detailed study of family life in the last years of the Ottoman Empire. Faroqhi, Suraiya . Stories of Ottoman Men and Women. Istanbul, Turkey: Eren, 2002 . Jennings, Ronald C. Women in Early 17th Century Ottoman Judicial Records: The Sharia Court of Anatolian Kayseri. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 18 ( 1975 ): pp.53114. An important early essay that challenged numerous assumptions about Ottoman women's lives. Joseph, Suad , ed. Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures . 4 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2003 . An up-to-date collection that contains a number of essays on Ottoman women. Nashat, Guity , and Judith E. Tucker . Women in the Middle East and North Africa: Restoring Women to History . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999 . Peirce, Leslie P. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993 . The most influential monograph on early-modern Ottoman women, it overturns the idea that harem women were powerless. Quataert, Donald . Ottoman Women, Households, and Textile Manufacturing, 18001914. In Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender , edited by Nikki R. Keddie and Beth Baron . New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991 . A useful discussion of the economic role of Ottoman women in the age of industrialization. Tucker, Judith E. In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine . Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000 . A significant work by one of the most important scholars of premodern Islamic women. Zilfi, Madeline C. , ed. Women in the Ottoman Empire: Middle Eastern Women in the Early Modern Era . Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1997 . One of the few works devoted solely to Ottoman women. Eric R. Dursteler
How to cite this entry: Jennie R. Ebeling , Lynda Garland , Guity Nashat , Eric R. Dursteler "West Asia" The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Ed Bonnie G. Smith. Oxford University Press, 2008. Brigham Young University (BYU). 1 November 2010 <http://www.oxfordreference.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t248.e1144-s4>

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