The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order: 1905-1922

by Edmond Taylor

The fact that the harem was a whole slave society led to disastrous results. Its considerable population — under Abdul Medjid, the Red Sultan’s father, there were 900 women in the harem, served by innumerable domestics (300 cooks alone), black and white eunuchs, mutes, guards, pages, etc. — being utterly dependent upon the favor of a despot, waged continual war among one another for first place in that favor, using the arts of sycophancy, flattery, bribery, spying, denunciation, wheedling, and pandering to all the weaknesses and vices of the Sultan, which were sedulously cultivated to provide opportunities to curry favor by satisfying them. It was in this atmosphere that the future Sultans spent the formative years of their lives.

Women are property in islam