Favorite of the Emir by Benjamin Constant

Image: Favorite of the Emir (1879) by French painter Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant (1845-1902), oil on canvas painting, 142.24 cm x 220.98 cm (56 in x 87 in), located at National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, USA.

The painting depicts the favorite woman of the Emir, a slave or Eunuch and another woman of the Emir’s harem. A harem refers to the sphere of women in a polygynous in households or palaces and their quarters which is enclosed and forbidden to men. The word originated in the Near East and came to the West via the Ottoman Empire, and the word has been recorded in the English language since 1634. A centuries-old theme in Western culture is the depiction of European women forcibly taken into Oriental harems.

The harem exerted a certain fascination on the European imagination, especially during the Age of Romanticism, due in part to the writings of the adventurer Richard Francis Burton. Many Westerners imagined a harem as a brothel consisting of many sensual young women lying around pools with oiled bodies, with the sole purpose of pleasing the powerful man to whom they had given themselves.

A harem need not necessarily consist of women with whom the head of the household has sexual relations (wives and concubines), but also their children and other females. It may include staff such as slave women and eunuchs. It is being more acknowledged today that the purpose of harems was for the royal upbringing of the future wives of nobles and royal men. Some women of Ottoman harem played very important political roles, and at times it was said that the empire was ruled from the harem.

It is claimed that harems existed in Persia under the Ancient Achaemenids and later Iranian dynasties -- the Sassanid Chosroes II reportedly had a harem of 3000 wives, as well as 12,000 other women -- and lasted well into the Qajar Dynasty. Ancient Egyptian pharaohs are said to have made a ‘constant demand’ of provincial governors for more beautiful servant girls. In Mexico, Aztec ruler Montezuma II, who met Cortes, kept 4,000 concubines; every member of the Aztec nobility was supposed to have had as many consorts as he could afford.

Harem is also the usual English translation of the Chinese language term hougong, meaning the palaces behind. Hougong are large palaces for the Chinese emperor's consorts, concubines, female attendants and eunuchs. The women who lived in an emperor's hougong sometimes numbered in the thousands.

Waterfront houses in Istanbul

Photo: The traditional waterfront houses (2007) in the Yeniköy neighborhood lining up the shores on the European side of the Bosphorus in Istanbul.

The Bosphorus (Bosporus or the Istanbul Strait) is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits along with the Dardanelles. The world's narrowest strait used for international navigation and about 30 km long, it connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, which is connected by the Dardanelles to the Aegean Sea, and thereby to the Mediterranean Sea. The shores of the Bosphorus are thickly populated, with Istanbul alone, with a metropolitan area in excess of 11 million inhabitants, straddles it.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) was a statesman, writer and founder of the Republic of Turkey as well as its first president. Atatürk became famous as a capable military officer during World War I. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, he led the Turkish National Movement in the Turkish War of Independence. After establishing a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies - the initial Allies countries in WWI were the United Kingdom, France and the Russian Empire, though many others joined them later. With his able leadership, the successful Turkish National Movement campaigns led to the liberation of Turkey. During his presidency, Atatürk introduced many progressive programs aimed at political, economic and cultural reforms of modern Turkey. He sought to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern and secular country.

16th century Ottoman 9-barrel volley gun

The Ottoman Empire, also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey, was an Islamic empire that lasted from 1299 to November 1, 1922 as an imperial monarchy, or July 24, 1923 de jure, as a state. It was succeeded by the Republic of Turkey, officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923.

Ottoman artillery was famous for the size of its cannon and their number, from the highly mobile antipersonnel Abus gun to the massive Great Turkish Bombard. As late as 1809 massive stone-firing guns were used with some effect against British ships during the Dardanelles Operation, throwing 800-pound marble cannon balls which were able to sheer off a main mast of a ship of the line.

The dormant volcanic Mount Ararat in Turkey

Mount Ararat is a snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone in Turkey having two peaks: the Greater Ararat, the tallest peak in Turkey and the entire Armenian plateau with an elevation of 5,137 meter (16,854 ft) and the Lesser Ararat with an elevation of 3,896 meter (12,782 ft).

The Ararat massif is about 40 km in diameter. The Iran-Turkey boundary skirts east of Lesser Ararat, the lower peak of the Ararat massif. It has been reported that this flank had been used by Kurdish rebel tribes to organize uprisings against Turkey in the past.

In Judeo-Christian tradition and belief, Mount Ararat is associated with the ‘Mountains of Ararat’ where according to the book of Genesis in the Bible, The Noah's Ark came to rest. This mount also plays a very significant role in Armenian nationalism.

The Dolmabahce Palace, Turkey

The Dolmabahçe Palace, or Dolmabahçe Sarayı in Turkish, in Istanbul, Turkey, located at the European side of the Bosporus, used to be the main administrative center of the Ottoman Empire from 1856 to 1922, except a twenty-year interval from 1889 to 1909 in which the Yıldız Palace was used. The Dolmabahce Palace was built between 1843 and 1856 under the orders of the Turkish Empire's 31st Sultan, Abdülmecid I. The 45,000 square meter mono-block palace stands on an area of 110,000 squire meters. Hacı Said Ağa was responsible for the construction work of the palace, while the project was conceptualized by architects Garabet Balyan, his son Nigoğayos Balyan and Evanis Kalfa.