Abbasid harem

This institution played an important social function within the Abbasid court and was that part were the women were confined and secluded.

[1][2] In modern usage hijab colloquially refers to the religious attire worn by Muslim women, but in this verse it meant "veil" or "curtain" that physically separates female from male space.

[3][4] Although classical commentators agreed that the verse spoke about a curtain separating the living quarters of Muhammad's wives from visitors to his house, they usually viewed this practice as providing a model for all Muslim women.

[1][5] In contrast to the earlier era of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun Caliphate, women in Umayyad and Abbasid society were ideally kept in seclusion and absent from all arenas of the community's central affairs.

[6] The growing seclusion of women were illustrated by the power struggle between the Caliph Al-Hadi and his mother Al-Khayzuran, who refused to live in seclusion but instead challenged the power of the Caliph by giving her own audiences to male supplicants and officials and thus mixing with men.

[9] In the wake of the conquests an elite man could potentially own a thousand slaves, and ordinary soldiers could have ten people serving them.

The choicest women were imprisoned behind heavy curtains and locked doors, the strings and keys of which were entrusted into the hands of that pitiable creature – the eunuch.

In the harem resided also the unmarried or divorced daughters, sisters and other nonmarried female relatives of the Caliph.

Princess Ulayya bint al-Mahdi only performed in private, chaperoned family functions to avoid any potential impropriety, such as to be compared to the slave-qiyan, jawaris or mughanniyat, but she was referred to as a qayna as a tribute to her musical ability.

[13] A slave concubine who was selected to have sex with the caliph and then gave birth to a child by him, attained the coveted position of an umm al-walad.

During reign of the Caliph al-Amin (r. 809–813) in Bahgdad, there was a category of female entertainers known as ghulamyyat, slave-girls dressed as boys, who were trained to perform as singers and musicians and who attended the drinking parties of the sovereign and his male guests.

Another example was qahramana Zaydan, who acted as the jailkeeper of high status prisoners: after having been the jailer of the vizier Ibn al-Furat, who had fallen from favour, she managed to have him restored to power through her harem contacts and was rewarded by him with lands and wealth, a cooperation which continued for the rest of their careers.

With the exception of the legal wives and female relatives of the Caliph, the inhabitants of the harem—concubines, entertainers and eunuchs—were all enslaved people.

In accordance with the Ma malakat aymanukum, the principle of concubinage, women could be legally kept as concubines in the harem if they were of non-Muslim origin.

The four main ways to enslave a person were by kidnapping, by slave raids, by piracy, or by buying a child from poor parents.

The inventory proved that the Abbasid harem at that point contained 1000 eunuchs and 700 women, whom the Caliph claimed had never seen sun nor moon.