Haseki Mihrişah Sultan| Not To Be Continued

Fatma Sultan

How strange life is. One day, I was wiping away my bad memories as I was wiping away my tears while the other I started remembering those memories so I could find strength and continue my life. One day, I was on the highest scale of confusion while the on the other everything was made clear to me. I remember that my father once told me that "God tests the ones he loves." Am I one of those? Will I be able not to disappoint God? Will I be able not to fail him? Or myself? 

This world is strange. Fascinating, true, but strange. I look at the sky at night, and I can see countless stars. Maybe the stars look at the Earth and also see countless people. Will I be able to see only one star for the rest of my life? No, of course not. So why do I think that the stars will look only at me, amongst all the people.? 

Before, I used to believe that patience was the key to success. Now, I do believe that intelligence makes you make the right decisions  that can lead you to success, but patience will make you always be successful. 

How did I learn this?

The Harem is such an interesting hierarchy. All slaves that entered here were termed odalisques or "women of the court" - practically just general servants, as I had been this far. Odalisques were not usually presented to the Sultan. Those who were of extraordinary beauty and talent were seen as potential concubines and trained accordingly. They learned to recite poetry, play musical instruments, needlework, and, of course master the art of seduction and love-making, the reason why we all were here. Only the most gifted of us were presented to the Sultan as his personal gedikli, maids-in-waiting. Generally, odalisques would be assigned as servants to the oda or court of a harem mistress. For example, the Mistress of the Robes, or the Keeper of Baths, or the Keeper of Jewels, etc. 

The women formed only half of the Harem, and the other half was by eunuchs. I was shocked when I learned that all the guards in here were castrated men, so they could not be tempted by the girls. It was a sad and ugly reality at the same time. There were two kinds of main eunuch guards or aghas, the Girls' Agha and the Door Agha. I could not understand each's function very well, but with as much as I learned one dealt only with the girls and Harem duties while the other one had the privilege to meet and talk to the Sultan. I don't know if it was a racial separation or a luck separation.

After the odalisques, us came the gözde or the favourites. These were those beautiful girls with their fancy dresses who had the privilege to stay on the second floor. I envied them somehow. They had servants, servants! We had to serve our own food to our own selves and then take the tables and the dishes and take them to the kitchen. Like it wasn't enough all the work we would do up and down the Harem. These favourites had attracted the Sultan and slept with him, or did halvet. Not all of them had the luck to be called again, but once is enough for them to brag at us. Poor us.

If the favourites managed to make the Sultan fall for them, and get pregnant they would be called Sultans, or Sultanas as I called them to make the difference, because in ottoman is the same word for both genders of the term. Now, if these women managed to give birth to a daughter as the first time, they wouldn't have the same privilege as the one who had given a son. This was really bad and pure discrimination. Although the Ottomans weren't the first to do that because even in Europe, every King fights to have male heirs. Different from Europe, in here, women could not ascend the throne. That's why the Harem existed, to make the continuation of the Ottoman dynasty more secure.
There was one Sultana called Haseki Sultan because she was the most beloved or favourite of his Majesty.

So far, the Harem's hierarchy was only by slaves, non-free women. All of them belonged to the Sultan. On top of them were his sisters or daughters, females of the royal blood, which were more valuable than all of us in here together with our clothes on. That Sultan's sister that I had the luck to see, she was a royal blood woman, about my age maybe, which had all the freedom in the world and all the reasons to smile and be happy.