harems
A harem is the private living quarters of a royal or noble household in various Middle Eastern, South Asian, and North African cultures. The term, derived from Arabic haram meaning sacred or forbidden, has in English come to refer to the women of the household, together with their children and sometimes male servants, who resided apart from the male portions of the palace. The harem was both a domestic space and, at times, a political sphere.
In the Ottoman Empire, the harem constituted a distinct social and political domain within the palace, overseen
Similar arrangements appeared in Safavid and Mughal courts, and in other Islamic, Persianate, and North African
Scholarship emphasizes that the harem was not merely a place of sexual secrecy but a complex institution
In modern times, the term is frequently sensationalized in popular culture. Contemporary historians distinguish between the