Matthieu Labaudinière

Ottoman Empire
October 5, 2010
Essay the First

Somewhere in the Middle

The Ottoman Empire began in northeastern Anatolia in the early 14th century. Sultan

Osman was the mastermind behind the original growth of a state that would eventually one of the

great empires in history. Although situated between two large powers, the Byzantines and the

Seljuks, it still became a force to be reckoned with and reached its height in terms of land mass

by the mid 16th century. Like every great kingdom, it had a unique culture, institutions, and

beliefs. These singularities left the empire open to criticism from others. For example, what

Europeans saw and heard influenced the way they treated their Middle Eastern counterparts. In

this case, Turks became known to be savages because of their treatment of women. On the other

hand, the Ottomans perceived Frankish women to be loose, and concluded that this infidelity was

a result of honorless men, therefore making the Europeans barbarians. Finally, when a Moroccan

scholar, Ibn Battuta, makes his way through the Ottoman State, he, a third party, is shocked by

the leniency shown to Turkish women. Each of these positions are critical to the understanding

of the role and treatment of women in Ottoman Society and should therefore be studied together

to attain a comprehensive view of the issue.

The peoples who inhabited the geographic region of Europe struggled to define

themselves as a culture. In order to do so, they needed a power to bounce off of. Eventually, they

formulated themselves as the opposite of the Ottoman Empire where “the greatest difference was

the treatment of women.”1 The Europeans saw themselves as having “a social system built upon

1
M. E. Yapp, “Europe in the Turkish Mirror,” Past and Present 137 (1992): 152.
the relative freedom of women.”2 Therefore, they defined themselves as opposite of the barbarian

Turks, who mistreated their women. In Turkish society “women were perceived as slaves, and by

many also as debauched and vicious.”3 This perception was due to stereotypes of common

polygamy and controversy over the status of women in society. In reality, “most Turks had only

one wife.”4 The flaw in the European view is that the only women they could really have access

to were the wives of Sultans. The average Turk was not visible to the average European, so by

seeing this small sample of society, a stereotype arose. Looking at the Sultans, they had multiple

wives and many slaves, some who were women, and so this led to a skewed view of the place of

Ottoman women in middle class society due to the small sample. Women were treated badly

when they were slaves, and due to polygamist Sultans, they were perceived as lower in their

society than European women. This difference in culture meant that “[a]ttempts to naturalize the

Ottomans failed, and the prevailing image of the Turk became first of the infidel and second that

of the alien savage.”5 The motive of the Europeans was to find an aspect of culture in the

Ottoman Empire that varied from their own so they could show themselves superior and

consequently call their neighbors savages. One of the variations they chose was the place of

women in society and although there are some differences, a historian must take into account the

uniformity of the individuals chosen as data.

Like the Europeans, the Turks also had their views on their neighbors. Usama, a Muslim

living under Crusader rule in the Middle East observed the culture and customs of the Franks

quite closely, living among them, and so was able to identify the differences between them. Even

though the Ottoman Empire would not be conceived for another few hundred years, the subjects

2
Ibid, 153.
3
Ibid, 149.
4
Ibid, 149.
5
Ibid, 142.
that Usama covers still ring true. At one point, Usama describes a Frank bothering him during his

prayers by lifting him up to face him towards the east instead of south. The Templars in the

temple get the fanatic away from Usama and apologize for his behavior. They say that “he is a

foreigner…and he has never seen anyone pray facing any other direction than east”.6 An

important note is that in Usama’s writings he uses the term “Frank” as a slur, and in this case

foreigner takes on that same derogatory connotation. He understands that the reason that this

man bothered him so was because he was a Frank and not an assimilated Christian, and so this

incident was “an example of Frankish barbarism, God damn them!”7 While the Europeans saw

the Turks as savages because of their customs and culture, the Muslims saw the Franks in the

same light. This carries over to the treatment of women debate perfectly. In an encounter with

Frankish women and their place in society, Usama perceives them as loose and without virtue.

He attributes this to the men, who “are without any vestige of a sense of honour and jealousy.”8

Muslims saw how men acted towards their wives and were shocked by the lack of any apparent

“honour and jealousy” and so they arrived at the notion that Franks must be frail, which

consequently leads to loose women. This observation paired with “a readiness to take offense” as

an addition personality trait led to the concept of Franks as savages.9

The Europeans and the Turks both had strong opinions about eachother’s cultures. Even

though each case is based on evidence and observation, it is important to incorporate a non-

involved party to create a complete sphere of understanding about the role of women in Ottoman

Society. Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan scholar, visits the Middle Eastern lands as part of a long

journey and writes a memoir of it many years later. As he is travelling through the Muslim lands

6
E. J. Costello, trans., Arab Historians of the Crusades (New York: Donset Press, 1957), 80.
7
Ibid, 79.
8
Ibid, 77.
9
Ibid, 78.
and through the land of Osman, he notices differences between how women are treated here as

opposed to back in his homeland. His general consensus is that Turkish women have much more

freedom than the Muslim women back in Morocco. He is shocked by this and writes that “a

remarkable thing…was the respect shown to women by the Turks.”10 Ibn Battuta lived in a

society where Muslim ideals governed the treatment of women and therefore is shocked to be in

a Muslim area and experience situations where “the wives of the merchants and commonality…

face[s] [are] visible, for the Turkish women do not veil themselves.”11 In addition to this, he

observes that “anyone seeing [her husband] would take him for one of her servants.”12 Although

the latter description may be slight hyperbole, it is clear that the disparity between men and

women in Ottoman society is not as large as it is in some other Muslim areas, such as Morocco.

Ibn Battuta is a little disgusted by how high the status of the average woman is compared to a

man because he is used to growing up in a culture where gender status is more divided.

Consequently, Battuta is also surprised when he finds princesses loaded with power. In fact,

when visiting a region, he needs to appeal to a woman and eventually the princess “gave orders

that I should be taken under her protection.”13 It seems that Ibn Battuta is confused that a woman

is assuming the role of guardian over him as opposed to a man and although she is a princess,

later he witnesses a greeting where “the commanders and princes…kissed her stirrup.”14 This

symbolic gesture is putting the princes and princesses, usually of similar status, or if not with the

men being of higher rank, on such an uneven level that the men are literally kissing the feet of

the woman. Clearly Battuta is astonished by this custom, an almost exaltation of women in his

eyes.

10
Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354, tr. and ed. H. A. R. Gibb (London: Broadway House, 1929).
11
Ibid.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
 Europeans saw the treatment of women in Ottoman society as too constricting and took

pride in the “relative freedom of women.”15 They were right in their observations of polygamy

and it is true that there was slavery, including sexual slavery in the Middle East. However, their

argument is not uniform across the whole area or even the Ottoman Empire. The Turks also

studied Frankish women and saw something unpleasant in them too. Muslims observed that

Franks had little control over their wives and thought that this was simply due to weakness.

There is also evidence that infidelity was an issue among European women at this time in

historical accounts so the Turks weren’t wrong in their observations either. In addition to this

European versus Middle East debate, there are also the viewpoints of other areas represented by

Ibn Battuta which saw the Turks as being too lenient towards women. This entire picture shows

that in order to really begin to understand how women played a role in Ottoman society, all

views and all descriptions need to be taken into account and weighed. The Europeans thought

their neighbors were too strict towards women, and some other Muslims thought the complete

opposite. In reality it was probably somewhere in the middle. Each culture viewed the issue of

female status differently, and so it is important to include all of the judgments in order to

formulate a defendable opinion about the subject.

15
Yapp, 153.