Out of Africa, Into the Palace: The Ottoman Chief Harem Eunuch

LIVING IN THE OTTOMAN REALM Empire and ldentity, lith to 20th Centuries Edited by Christine Isom-Verhaaren and Kent F. Schull Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis 'Lo/b '-::.i i Lcavitry f'ritrrcc, "'l'urrrirtg'l'urk," llecorting Ottoman l,i. l.('ii('!.iionr lJorrrrcval to hrs brother', lunc t7"1r, in l-igne, Nlinutirc sur le comte de Bon- 15. [.('tler iront lJttnneval to VoltJlre, September 1743, in l]euclirfi, Oeuvrcs contplitcs 1743, in Ilcuchot, Ocuyres L6 tlt Yi)!lutrc, r87. :(r. (l.isiuir,!.1, ilistory o-f Nly Ltt'e,:7o. .17 l.rtrt'i'ilrur IJonueval to Voltairc, Seplunber lirlt. t, rr,, r :ti;,. it rt t t t j9. i, The Ottaman Chief Harem Eunucl't conplites dt .lti. l-L:tlcl lrorii lJoilllcvill to his brother, )trtre t7.1r, in Ligne, N[imoire sur le conte lj Out of Africa, into the Palace fane llathaway tlc origin.rl). Lctrrrl'ronrlionrrevaltoVoltairc,Septenrbcr1743,inLlcstcntt.a,n,Voltuirc. y'r.t r78 (cnrpl rJsis irr W,,.* r'sl VtiNmtaN anrbassaclor ()tta,,,iano llorr wrotc his descriptiorr of the ()ttoman irnperial palirce,'fopkapr, at thc bcginning of the seventeenth centrrry, he reporte:d that the mothcr r,rf Sultarr Ahmed I (r. 16o3 1617) l'ud "at her galc a black eunuch, the clrief of the totally castrated black cunuchs, who, nirrnbcring perhaps thirty, likc him remain ronstantly gualding thc alolcsaid gate."r 'I1-rcsc gate guardians represented only a tiny fl'action o1'the cr.rnuchs employcci in tire harenr as a whole; according to modcrn-ciay estinlatcs, thc corps ol halem eu- { t j I i ; 1 ) r ii 'l I i i l i i i i I * q I 1l i I l I i i ,1". nuclis in Bon's day nurnbered between 8oo and r,zoo. 'lhere had nevcr lrccn, nor would there ever be again, so many eunuchs erupkrycd in the Ottoman harenr. What is more, virtually all ol'thenr were liom trast Africa, particularly Ethiopia (known as Abyssinia). Bon hirnself never set fbot in thc harcrn, r,vliicli rvas otf lirnits to any ullcastr:rted adult male apart fror.n the sultan himsclf.'lhc rvorlcl of the haren'r thus acquired all the mysterl. and allure til arly secret, liiglily rcstricted place. That thc sultan's wives, concubines, mother, and unm:lrried sistcrs ar-rd daughters were secluded there adtled to the aura ol'nrysLcry but so, tot.r, clitl the large nurnbers of East African eunuchs who guardetl tiie haren-r prcciult. 'lb Iruropean observcrs, they were doubly exotic. Not only were thcy "outsiders" liom faraway Africa; they had been castrated betbre puberty ancl colrscrpeltly bore the marks of early hormonal deprivation: r,rnnatr.rrally high voices, abserrce of facial hair, unusual height, and extrenre thinncss r"lr obesity. (See ligurc r6.r.) Did C)ttoman observers iikc'wise regard the harem eunuchs as e-xotic atd outlandish? Did the eunuchs then'rselves harbor a consciousuess of Aliican idcntity that marked thern out ticlm other Ottclman courtiers? -lircse questions lic at the hcart of this chapter, which, by way of conte xtu.rlization, also cxanrincs the ovcrall phenomenon ol'Atrican, morc specilically lithiopian, harcru cunuclrs irr the Ottornan palace. The principal focus is ttre chiel'lrarem cunuch, who llnr the creatiou of the ollice ir.r r574 through the mid-ciglrteenth .cnlury became ur.rc.ts ingly infiuential; as a result, he was also increasingly well lepresentetl in Ottornrrn ar-rd lluropean accounts of the strltan's court. 216 | Hathaway Out of AJrica, into the Palace | ,rl ls Europeatr travclcrs'accouuts, sLlggcsts tlr.rt lLrc trrriLnisr Iribcs ol tlit, southern ancl southwesteru rcgions o1'lithiopia wcre ltcy sr,urccs ol'siar.'ts.r l.rrturing court sc'rvice ns slitves rneant couvcrtin* to tlrr brarrtl ol-(lIrrir;tiirniti, pr';ic, ticed by the Ethiopian en)pcrors sitrce the sixth ccntur1,, ltr oll.slroot ul' l,.riy,pt's as wclI {' Ooptic sr'ct. ..: .{ .\.. Il: ,ir ,ffiE u ii,,,,r.,r{.., 1i;1rL.rpr1).ri.icttiritlrcrirrrc6l-,\[urecllll.(r\cla1,ttdirornIlillcnbraud, Isl,.luirArt.,tt;i1...q58. lirplotiuccd br pcrnrissron ol iIr[tert Ilillulbrantl and [itlinburgh LJniversity \i, i'...,s i ii' rr \,..Lirl)tlbl isi)iI)g.eoi;rl.) Yet slaves fl'oin thesc geograplrically rn.rrgirrrrl Iitirirrpiarr i)\)puliliion: \\urr regularly trrtttsportetl to the coastal regions ol'Ihe Hortr o1'Afl-i.:rr. ()rice rlrclc, nlaily lvere cilstratecl and scrved as curruchs al the cour'ts of thrr l\'liislini liirrg cloms that clominateci the Rctl Sca coasl during the N'li*IJIe Agi:s. t)rlrurs rvct; shipped by traders in the por.t citics ol'Ivlrrssawa, tocl.ry irr Lritrea, urrd Sr-i;.Li.ii,, torlay in Sr-rdan, across thc Reci Sca to the llijaz arrcl Ycn'i.ru.'WithotLt rlu.(:srioit, tlie Ottomans, ollce thcy cnterecl rite Horn ol'r\lr ica, tappd(l into Llris trallic, lol Iowing iu the lbr-rtsteps, no cloubt, o1'carlicr regimes in llgypt. Arrri rvhiic I noL insigni{icant trutuber olt ['ithiopian curtuchs caurc Irour tlrc Sutlancse slavc t-.rr'.t vi.lns, LIic najority, it appcars, cirrne by Li,oat thr.oLrgh tlic ii..:d Sca. Ottoman .Attitudes torvard ltthiopiar i ,iri.r1,1.11i l:urtuclts itr tlrc Ottt>nlal1 [larenl ir,,'tl,r iiriie tiic h.ilcut rt()veJ to'l'trpkapr Palace in the early l53os, East At'rican i,,r,i,tr.lrs irrre llrole rrvaile[:]c to tlre Ottotrialls thall thcy had ever beel].'lte Ott-i,1i.,i)s l',rd corrtlur:red ilgypr irr r5r7, attcl wht'rcvcr rulecl ligypt had direct access [\r tliJ t.()Lrtcs iLkng rr.hich annual siavc caravaus tral]sited thror.rgh Suclan, carrying si.;\,r.: lrt:rirr both Suilirn itstll'ar-rd l)eighboring regions of East Africa. Furthernrore, il,)rrir!'dsrrl-r Sr,rtlan, along, lvit[r thc coastal regiolls oi the l-lorn of Afiica, crruc il)ri(f ()irollr.rit colitrol ilr tlre r55os, cluring the'reign ol'Siilcyman l, "the lvlag- n,licirit." l;rciru thcn utttil thc r8zos, whetl the regime ollVlchmcd AIi Pasha, thc .rri.Ir)ir()ll]()Lls govcrrx)r ot'Lgypt, oce Lrpied Surliru, the tlvo key slave caravail routes .i.rtir;s tlrr: ci.lstel'rr Slhara lay partially in Ottottratt-controlled territory. With the t,lrrlticsl ()l thc part oithc Wcster-n Arabian Peuinsula knttwn as thc llijaz (r517) .r jr!l (/l Ycirren (r53li), nrorcover, tl-rc l{ed Sea becamc a virtttal Otttltlan lake, across r,lriuli l:tiiiopiln slavcs werc ofien transportcd.'Ihose destined to becottre eultuchs guirur'rrllv castrated irt Ctiptic Christian villages in Upper ligypt. Llust()pts in liast At'rie a itse lf ri)ay also lurve played a role in the popularity ol' l,.ilriolri.rri crlrru.lls at tl)e Ottonlall aourt. While it is unclear whetlrer the Chrisr;.iir i.iirgrltirir ol-lithiopria hircl recourse to court eunuchs belilre the- llineteetttll (..iy.11r \,, 1[c crlperors unritrcsti()nably entployed large trumbers oislave L]oLtl licrs ir{}r.it !\itiiin tlreir own donlaius. t.ike contelllPorary and earlier en)Pires in Atl 1.1, i\r;iir, and Europe, the lJthiopian kingdom preterre'd to acquire such elitc rrir\ts ir'r;n tltc nrargins ()f its tcrritol-y, il'not titlm outside, alld frol11 ethtlorcli..ritirr' *r',)ui)s (,utsicle tlrc rr-rling elite. Scl)ol.lrsliip on the lrthiopian slavc tt'ldc, ir.'ic rs [lthiopians, knowu in Ara[ric as llabasiri (lla[reshi irr (iIt,ruran 'liir'iiisli) ,"r,.:r.e historically regarded as a diflererrt ethuoregionni .rrtegoly trorn llic Zarrj, tli.: blanliet Arabic fernt coveriug thc sub-S.rlrar-an A1l'icun pt:r)plts wcsl r)l-tlrc Nilt. In mcdicval Arab classifications of thc lvorlci's pcopls5, thc c:rregor1, ll.ib.rslri scetns to encotnpass not only litl-riopians but also Sonr.rlis anri flritrc.rrrs. ln lravelers'accollnts atrtl mcrchants'rnanuals ll-orl this pcriod, in llhich sl.ncs' piaces of origin, appcarrnce, arrd perccived positivc and negativc tlurlrtius artr viscerally atrcl oftetr crucicly describcd, llabashis, nrak: an.l ternlle rrlil.c, rc.cir., considerably better treattnent thati the Zanj, rvho arc i'rctprcntiy rier.idctl ds Lriily, lbul-srnclling, greecly, antl lecherous-stereotypes applicd [o thriu [r1' airtirors wl'ro hacl tinly tl.re n'rost (leeting filsthand accluaiutancc, il'any, w,ith Alii..ans although their loyirity ancl simple piety are occasiunlliy praistd. llaliashis, iri cor)trrst, are sornetimes praised lrlr their prhysiciil beauty rnti intclligenee. ,.\s il-to cortlirrtt thc validity ol-these inrirressions, thc Irgyptiair histori;rr.r r\Lrcl al Ilahtlan al-|iibarti (r753 rttz5), whose ancest()l's cilrlre ironi what is rrorv I)jitroLrti, oit the Hcirn o1'All'ica jtrst cast ol'Ilthiopia, in his lengthy obituary ot-his tiitlrcr (d. ryli, cites the filllowing quatrain-r'vhicLr, it niLrst bc a.lmitted, is nor i'r'ec ot cssentialist sexual ovcrtones: r\n Abyssinian girl-- I asked ab,rut hcr rrce , And she smiled, revealing tceth likc pcarls. 'liren I askecl rtbout tl'rc solii'ress of u,lrat,,vas lritldcn. She said, "Why ask? I ani of Anrharic Lacc."' Out of AJrictr, ittlo the Palacc Hathuwcty Liy thc nincteelith century, in any case, a castrated Habashi rnale slave was so higli pricecl as to be alTordable only to the rvealthiest members of Ottornan society,: the imperial lamilp grandees, :rnd overseas merchants. Notwithstanding such t'avorable attitudes toward Ethiopians, detractors of Etl,iopian eunuchs, and ol Afiican eunuchs more generally, were not absent in the OLtornirn court and bureaucracy during the sixteenth and seventeenth cenrr-rries. A lew of these have left behind fhmous, or infarnclus, diatribes against the Al'ricarr eunuchs. The farnous sixteenth-century bureaucrat and intellectual Nlustafi Ali (154r-16oo), who stopped in Cairo on his way to take up the governoi'ship ol')idda, thc port city serving Mecca, in 1599, composed a description o1'Uairo in which he deplores the corruptitrn wrought in Egypt by the insidiotrs iniluence of the African eunuchs who, even at that early date, were exiled tl're re or, aitcrnatively, launched their careers there. What he calls "the uniirnited s.ltrandcrrtrania" in Egypt can alsti be seen f}om the encroachnent of the rrgftas [eurluchs] of Nubian or !.thiopian origin with a daily pay of ter.r or tweive gold pieces, in other words, fi-orn the donrination of this prosperous country by eunuchs. . . . When the eunuchs rnake their appearance in Egypt. . . and the star oftheir luck reaches its .rpogcc, when tl-rcy enter that kingdorn in splendor, this will be . . . the downl.rll ol'all tl.re coirntry, and tl're deatl.r of its nlaster; on both sides of the Nile nobody will be lbund, the houses will be in ruius and without walls, gardens and plantations will be rvithout tree, without fruit, and of all the plants no othe r tr€e rvill gr:ow in ligypt but the tamarisk, and that tree too will have only sickly leavcs. Now . . . , that ilk has iucreased in the capitirl of Cairo, and they help and assist cach other. Tl're lolvest ones of thern have obtained excellent salaries with assigrrrnent of barley [ftrr their horscs] and wheat. Some expert and unprejudiced senior persons tell ttrrrt from the tirne when Sultar.r Selim [I] succeeded irr the corrrluest of Egypt until this ruoment, that is, until the days of the reign of Suliar-r Murad [III], ttrere never were twenty or thirty euuuchs together in Lgypt. . . .'the total of the daily pay of all of them together was not more than tirrec, four hundred aspers [Ottornan silver coins]. Now, however, the black aghrrs cannot bc counted any rnore. Those of the lowest rank have obtained salaries of ibrty, fifty aspers and abundant allowances of barley and wheat. 'Ihosc of rcspected rank are not only given honor . . . but also come to Egypt r,vith ir claily pay of [already] ten or twelve g<lld picces. Afterwards, their honors ;.irt irrcreased througl.r the boundless rnercy of the beylerbeyis [provincial gor' er nors], aud they get holcl of many, many salary raises through the indulgence irnrl conrpliance of the lbrturrate ones who are grand vezirs.s tl-rat Nlustafa Ali's patron was the powertul Venetian eunuch Gazant'er Aqha, hc'ad of the contingent oilargely white eunuchs who guarded the threshold Civcn in tiont o1'the sultau's audience chamber in Topkapr tlir rival corps Palace, his hostility toward of Alrican haret.u eunuchs is not surprising. | ,rg More outlandish is the treatisc of the late seventeenth-century autlrt-rr l)ervish Abdullah Ef-endi, a former scribe for the corps of 'feberclars, o, u*.-,.,,.r,, o,- tached to Istanbtrl's old palace, who devotes his entire worh to an..exposc,,ol tlic Africa, eunuchs, who were closely alfiliated with the T'eberdars. o..virn Abciullah goes so thr as to blame virtually all misfortunes in world history, even belbre the advent of Islam, on African eunuchs, including some historical and Koranic figures who are incorrectly identified as such. wheie the ottoman Ernpire is con_ cerned, he attributes all military defeats, all unrest in Ottoman territgries, antl all corruption and discord at the Ottomall court to the insidious influence of Atrican eunuchs. "|ust as accursed Satan ,rade Eve our mother domirant over the Prophet Adam, peace be upon him," he asserts, "so these black eu,uchs mtke the sultan's mother and hi.s favorite concubine clomirant over our empcror. ln their hands, our emperor remains powerless and is resigned to doing ihoteue. tlrey want."6 Recounting the inf-amous episode in which Krisem sulta;, the rn<ither of Sultan Ibrahim (r. 164o-1648) and grand,rother Sulta, Mehmecr IV (r. r64tt'f instigari.n of 1687), was killed in 165r by harem eunuchs at the lvlehmed rvi Turhan Sulta,, he claims that the chief eunuch, uzun (..rall,,) Siileyman 'rother, Agha, deliberately turned the two women against each other: A black eunuch called Uzun siiley,ra, [said to Ktisenr], "My lady, the Jurri.r Mother [I'urhan] covets your wealtrr. you shoulcr guartLyourserf weil, bccausc she is deterrni,ed to kill you o,e night. I have experie,ced your ki,dncss previously, and fbr this reason, I have told you,,, u,",i he began to cry. When [Kosem] asked, "what is the renredy for thrs?" this brack hyio.rii. ,,,1rrr.."a, 'we have all agreed to crepose sultan Mchmed and enthrorr" srlton Srilcy,ran [Ir]. lhey are both your sons [i, fact, rrer grandso,s]. This treacr-rery,rrurt u. stopped imrnediately.' No sooner had he warned Kosem than he we,t [o Turha, a,d, similarly weeping, t.ld her, "soon they are going to kill all yo*r black en,uchs a^d in-rpriso^ you, tbr I have learned that the Senior Mother's eunuchs have agreed to depose Sulta, Mehmed and enthrone Sultan Srileyman." As other iristoria,r. ...,rur-,r, 'I,urha,,s eu^uchs chased the sixty-two-year-old Krisem through the harem. She attempted to hide in a cupboard, but the hem of her robe protrutrecr, giving her away. the eu'uchs dragged her out and, by sonle accou,ts, stra,gred hei witrr her ow. lrraids; they then threw her naked, bleeding body before thc ]anissaries. Dervish Abdullah does not supply these gruesome details. r^stead, he emphasizes thar as a result of uzun Siileyman's treacherous hypocrisy, "those black i,fidel eunuchs nrartyred the Senior Mother [K<isem], Mother of the Believcrs,,-a term orclinarily reserved for the Prophet Muha,rmad's favorite wife, Aisha-..ar.rd plu'clered most of her jewels."7 Ir contrast to this bla,ket indict,-rent of Atiicar-r eu,uchs is Dispelling ttrc [)orkness: The Merits oJ the Ethiopiaris by the early seventeenth-ce,turi ottor]ra, Out oJ AJ'rictt, irrto the Peilace Hathaway I : jtrdgc Nltrliah Ali. A nltive Ethiopia, he wils enslaved at a young age trnd later eunuch l-labeshi Mehmed Agha (temr t574iirst chiel'harcm irleil to ttic irrcse r59r), lrho nrairurnitted him ancl set hinr ott the path to a judicial career. ln his trcittisc, clrarvilg heavily on Arabophonc authors of earlier centuries who adrlrcssecl this topic, Vtullah Ali tttempts to counter widespread popular belief in tiru "c-urse rii'LIam," rvirich had been adapted by early Musiirn theologians tiom rh.' story in thc biblical llook of Gettesis. According to the Muslim versiou of thc story, Noah's sou Hant mock.s Noah tbr exposing his nakedness during a .lrunken stupr)l'; on awakening, Noah curses Ham with black skin and declares thrrt his.lcscendants will serve ti"rose of his tw<l brothers, Shenl and )apireth, as sirl'cs. Nlullah Ali takes soure paius to clemoustrate that the skin colors of the e iirrh's ,n nrious peoplcs wcre created equal, and that piety and good deeds, rather tli.iir skin color, are the tueasure <.if a person's worth. Those with dark skin "were tiyctl rvith this color and tannecl witir this pigment tiorn the beginning; it is clear thilr it clid not rcsult merely lrottr a curse or punishment or clinrate or [geographical] locatitru."s'lhlt such a wori< wlts cven produced, howcver, attests to the atnros1'rir.'re ol'tension created ['ry thc burgeonir-rg inlluence of Atiican haretn eunuchs, r() s.ry n()thing o[the participation o1'the Ottornan Empire's East Atiican peripht'ries iu tire empirc's political and intellectual lifb. | ,1, ! r.rt \t t ) 1 il ' I t l: 1 r\frrclrn I}.inuc:hs in Otioman Miniatures lllicuu l.ialeur eunuchs are dcpicted not only in chronicles arld treatises of the tvpc iiescribed abotc br.rt in Ottomau t-nitriature paintings as well. Since most siiiviving L)ttoman nriniatures are cotlrt productions, it is not surprising that .'uriuchs rppear in tl.rem in a favorable, or at least neutral, light. What is striking il Iircsc prir-torial ciepictittus, however, is ttre increasing trequency with which li.rr'erir cuuuclrs appear in palace rniniatures l'rom the sixteeuth to the eighteenth .dntLrry arrd the changes in the pigr:rents and physical attributes employed to "nrarli" a pie-tolial subject as a harem eunuch. Habeshi Mehrned Agha, the first to hold tlic ollicc of chicf harcm eutruch, which was created for him by Sultan Mura.i llI in 574, is likcwise the iirst African eutluch to appear in court-sponsored lirir-rirturc paintings. Indeed, he is believed to have directed the imperial artists' sItrdio hirrrsell. In a series of illurnirtated chronicles produced by this studio, he Irpp(,urs sparingly arrd itr ratiter muted fashion as a pale lrlue ligure standing or sitrirrg near N,iurad. Witli the maritcd exce;rtion of the t58r Book of the King oJ 1..l,rgs,'' lic appears in tto tttore tiran oue or twtl fblios per work. (See ligure 16.2.) Altirough a lcw iliuminatetl urirnuscripts procluced in the Ottoman palace c [iLi.1vri iroin the sevcnteeuth Century, t[-re chief harem eunuch does not, to the bcst ot mv knorvir,clge, appear in then.r. On the other harnd, a sirtrple illustration t'r'onr severrtccnth-ccntury Egypt shows a pair of young eunuchs, one black, one rr,1.,it.r:, hrrnting a stag witl-r a bttw ancl arrow. Here, the African eunuch's slcin color ar 16.z The Third court of ropkapr palace, ltom Lokrnan and osman, Hi)nerntntc [Manual of achievementsl. Sultan Murad III and Habeshi Mehrned Agha appear in thc lowcr uriddle of the left-hand pagc. (Wikimedia Comrnons.) Figure is rendered in what art historians might consider rnore "conventional" fashiol, using a dark, charcoal-gray pigment.r0 Interestingly, the matched set of one black and one white eunuch would become something of a trope in ottoman printing, well as in paintings by European observers of the ottonlan court. In such settings, the two eunuchs often appear side by side on horseback. (see figure 16.3.) By ryzo, when the powerful Chief Eunuch el-Hajj Beshir Agha (ternr r7r7_ as in numerous folios of the Book of Festivr,lls, comrnissioned to comurelnorate the circurncision of the four sons of Ahmed III (r. r7o3-r73o), ir new protocol had apparently emerged tor depicting African harem eunuchs. Giver.r that Beshir Agha is thrlught to have comrnissioned this work hirnseif, it is pe.rhaps no surprise that he is prominently positioned in a number of paintings, often front and center. c)n the other hand, he is a n-ruch rnore visible and inrptls1746) appears ing presence in the manuscript than his counterpart, Habeshi Mehrned, in the late sixteenth-century rnanuscripts rnentioned above. His skin is painted a clark Hathuwuy' , | ,;.t arcoal gray, and his features are subtly ditferentiated tiorn those of the noni;an, and noneunuch, figures around him. The t-eatures of the young harem I princes are treatccl ' s who accompany three of the soon-to-be circ umcised ,rrwugh in different fblios of the work, their skir.r color cau range liont l'il I, ilr ilr ay to deep coffee brown.tr ie greater visibility ofharenr eunuchs, and the chietharem eunuch above r,rr, rrr r isual sources may be explained by the chief eunuch's increasitrg inil"rerrce in shaping imperial policy during the crisis period of the seventeenth century and during the lengthy tenure of el-Hajj Beshir Agha, arguably the most powerlul chief eunuch in Ottoman history, during the first half o1'the eighteenth century. Beshir Agha's considerable influence on paiace painting, architecture, and intellectual life must also have contributed to the harem eunuchs' visibility during the latter era. 1b quote the eighteenth-century Ottoman statesman Ahmed Resnri Efendi, author of a compendium of chief eunuch biographies, "He <lccupied the illustrious position fbr thirty years continuously and cheerfully devoted hirnself to all these things; he was a trusted counselor in the impcrial government, firm in manner, great in glory, a genius of the era."D His importance is reflectecl in the frequency with which he, not to mention lower-ranking hareln eunuchs, appears in the ryzo Book oJ'Festivcls, composed by the Ottoman court chronicler Vehbi and with illustrations by the court painter Levni.'r In one illustration fionr near the end of the volume, he is shown leading thrce of the princes, each escorted by two viziers, through the Third Court of Topkapr Palace to the Circunrcision Room in the Fourth Court. His placement at the front of the picture iiarne irnplies that he is the most significant figure in the illustration, surpassing the viziers-even the grand vizier, directly behind him-in iufluence. At the center of the miniature, furthermore, is the Library of Ahmed III, built the previous year, which is thought to have been Beshir's brainchild. (Sce figure 16.4.) Eunuch Ethnoracial Consciousness il, ,ii ln light ofthese frequent depictions ofAfrican harem eunuchs' racial distinctive in the output of the Ottoman court studio and provincial studios, it may seem rather surprising that there is very little evidence tl-rat the harem eunuchs themselves shared this intense consciousness of their ethnic and racial dif[erence fiorn much of the rest of the Ottoman ruling elite. At least, there are virtually no il, ness rl li ll ili ii .l l ref-erences 1 in the availalrle sources to harem eunuchs voicing such a conscious- ness. The only story that cornes close concerns the deposition clf Yusuf Agha, i wlro was chief eunr"rch fi'om 167r to 1687, under Sultan Mehrned IV. Yusuf Agha rvas removed from ofEce in connection with the military rebellion that lbrced Mehmed IV to abdicate. By the late seventeenth centr"rry, deposed harem eunuclis were routinely exiled to Cairo; accordingly, Yusuf and his entouragc set out ltrr ; Figurer6.3El-HajjBeshirAglraridingitrprocessiotlwiththechiefwhiteeunuch,fronrLevrri, MS A. :lq:, fol' Sarayr Mtzesi Kiiti.iphanesi, srrtu.urrc_ivchbi [Book of titivarsr. 1i'opt "p, of the'fopkirpr Palace Museunr') ,7ut,. R"prutlu.etl by permission : , *[., . Hathaway | ,:-; Egypt, first crossir.rg the Bosphorus and heading east into Anatolia. 'lhey lvcre stopped, however, near thc western Anatolian towr.r of Iznik (the ancient Nicaea) by a party ofthe rebels who had deposed the sultan. "Iaken into custody by thcsc insurrectionists, who had rnanaged to obtain an edict frorn the new sultan, Siileyman II (r. 1687-169r), condoning their actions, Yusuf was imprisonecl in thu infamous Yedi Kule (Seven Towers) prison at one end of Istanbul's Byzantine land walls while the belongings he had Ieft behind in the city were inspected. At the same time, the new sultan sent orders to the governor of Egypt to coniiscate arrd sell all the property, including slaves, that Yr-rsul'had accuurulated there in preparation for his retirernent. Faced with financial ruin, Yusuf, as quotetl by an early eighteenth-century Ottornan court chnrnicler, cried, '1 used to bc the chief harern eunuch. Now I'm just a ten-kurug [two-bit] Arab!"''' ('Arab" was a colnmon Ottoman term tbr a sub-Saharan Atiican, as was "ftara Arab," or black Arab.) Yusuf did ultimately make his way to Egypt. Pardonecl several ycii.rs.[ater, he served during the early r69os as head of the eunuchs who guarded the Irrophet Muhammad's tomb in Medina, then returned to Cairo, where he died in r717 at the age ofninety-six. I 1.. {.', r \Y1w ,.lrm fi i f, t $ t I of the sons of Sultan Ahmed III through the Figur.e 16.4 EI-Hajj Beshir Agha leading three .piird Court of'r.rpt opr Palace, t1om Levni, Surnanre-i vcftDi [Book offestivals]' (Topkapt Reproduced by permission of the Topkapr N4!'rzesi Kiitiiphauesi, MS A' lsg:, f<rl' r73b' I Srrayr Paiace Nluseurn.) t ii ..r*.. To this highly personal account of a harem eunuch's consciousness oi his humble origins may be added a 1654 episode that was rccorded in Ottornan chronicles as "the Abyssinia Incident." The Bosnian Mustata Pasha had purchased thc governorship of the Ottornan province of Habesh (literally, Abyssinia), which included present-day Eritrea and parts of today's Sudirn and Sornalia, but had named a deputy to oversee the day-to-day administration of the province; the deputy in tum narned an inexperienced young mall as his <-rwn depLrty. However, the notables and wealthy nlerchants of Habesh complained of the excessive customs dues that the two deputies collected at the Red Sea port of Suakin and joined with the Ottoman garrison there to oppose them. A garrison soldier known as Deli Dervish (Crazy Mystic) started a revolt by imprisoning the two deputies. When the absentee governor sent ir delegation from Mecca ald Jidda to Suakin to negotiate, Deli Dervish killed them all, along with the younger deputy. The governor now sent a ship to attack Habesh but was rebutfeci. He then appealed to tl're govemor of Egypt, who sent a two-thousand-man expedition to crush the rebellion. Before setting out, however, the oflicers of this army cor1lplained to the governor, We are always assigned to quash the Bedouin bandits and send the tribute [to Istanbul] and serve the pilgriruage commander; we llever lack for service. lhis time, let the eunuchs' slaves and lbllowers go to pertbnn this service. They have so much money and property fiorn the sultan'.s state that they should do sourething.Is 46 | Out of Africa, into the Palnce Ilerc, thc soldiers were ref'erring to the thirty-odd Ethiopian eunuchs who hiid been cxiled to Egypt fiom 'Iopkapr Palace and were now living comfortabll, ir.r Cairo while pertbrming no ollicial service. Arnong them was Uzun Siileyman r\gha, whom Dervish Abdullah accuses of engineering the rnurder of Kosem Sultan iri 165r. Or.rtraged at the soldiers' accusations, the eunuchs themselves staged a prrolest, and violence broke out between their tbllowers and the soldiers. As pi.inishuic'nt, the governor of Egypt briefly imprisoned Uzun Stileyman and sevcrri other eunuchs in the fortress of lbrim, f-ar to the south on Egypt's border rryith Sudrn. As tbr the soldiers, although they ultimately followed orders, going to l{irbesh ar-rd putting down the rebellion, their complaint demonstrates that tlicy rccognized the exiled eunuchs as a coherent cornmunity and that they were olVirrc of their Ethiopian origin, in addition to the privileged lifestyle that they enjoyed. 'Ihe eunuchs themselves lived in a tightly circumscribed area around aud nerr the pond, located just west of Cairo's citadel, known as Birkat al-Fil, or L',lcphant Pool, becar-rse its shape resernbled the head and trunk of an elephant. 'li.reir concentration in this neighborhood, which at the time was the hub of elite rcsidencc in the city, likewise indicates their own consciousness of ethnoregional solidarit;, and perhaps exclusivity. A key indicator of this sort of ethnoregional consciousness would naturally bc Aliican eunr.rchs'contact, or at least attempted contact, with their homelands arrd tar.r.rilies of origin. We now know that a cclnsiderable number of noneunuch elite slavcs employed in the Ottoman palace and in the households of provincial grandecs maintained such contact. 'lhis would have been no simple task since lrlany of these olficials were either products of the devSirme, the distinctively Ot[(irniu] practice of collecting b<lys from among the subject Christian population of tire Ottorrran llalkans and Anatolia, or elite military slaves (mamluks), captured ii r slirve raids i n the Caucasus and sold in the slave markets of Istanbul and Cairo. At least a f-ew eunuchs of European origin are likewise known to have nurtured srrch rics-most famously, no doubt, the Venetian Gazanfer Agha (d. 16o3), who, as notecl above, headed the corps of white eunuchs who guarded the threshold o1' tlie sultan's audience chamber.'u Among African eunuchs, however, such ties are irtualll, impossible to find. this may result largely from the nature of the East African siave trade, wiricl-r tended to be massive and anonymous. In contrast, (lazant'er and other Venetiarr courtiers, including his brother, mother, and sister, were specificaily recruited by Ivturacl III's favorite concubine, the Albanian Safiye Suitan. Only in the early twentieth century is it possible to lind an Ottoman court e,ruuch atternpting to locate his remaining farnily in Ethiopia.'7 F-rom this evidence, we might well conclude that there was littlc or no susiained, nreaningful identification as Ethiopian, and certainlynot as "African" rvlit r, large, anrong Ottornan hirrem eunuchs, at least before the twentieth century. Yet such a conclusion scems premature in the fhce of the unmistakable consciousue,ss, Llathaway | ,sz evt:n hyperconsciousness, <lf Habashi diflerence-often in contradisti,ctio, to a venetian, Balkan, or riterally "Liiirc, caucasian alternative-among ottonra, courtiers and i,tellectuals. The n"rost stride,t rhetoric in oppositio'io Atiica, eunuchs seerns to date from the periocl at the encr of the sriieenth century arrd the beginning of the seventeenth century wrren African eunuchs were beconrirg steadily more intrue'tiar anil, intJeed, clallenging the white eu,uchs for i,fiuence' At the same time, however, the Afiica, eunuchs,ethnoregional a'd racial dillbrences, to say nothing of their emasculatior.r, coexisted with their inclusion in the broad category of ottornans and servants of the surta,-for iew peopre desired the weil-bei,g and continuatio, of a, empire rnore ferve.try tha, the court eunuchs employed by that empire. An intervievr with the last surviving court eunuch of Chinat eing empire $644-r9tl,Surr yaoting, who died in 1996, is revealing in this regard. A.cording to t r. tirog.opher, sun ihu.r ,.,"r.. stopped Ia,renting the fall of th_e i,rperiul .ylt",, he had aspired ro serve:.Ihat was the resret of his whole life.,,'ro In the ottoman Empire,.at least by the eighteenth ce,tury, thc eu^uch dittbrence attested most visceraily in Levni's Broi< oJ l:estivals had arguably beco,re sirnultaneously a mark of cristi,ction and a sig,ifier of power. A castratecr.Lrthio_ pian' el-Hajj Beshir Agha, had become orr. Jf the niost por..ruiiigu.es i' trrc entire erupire. Yet despite his origins outside the empiret f"rtfr"rt ,""rrfrern pcriphery, a,d despite his physical londition, he was as ottornan as the gra,d vizier' the sultan's mother, or even the sultirn hirnserf. The ottorran identiiy he had acquired by virtue of being ensraved, castrated, and trained rn the palace was ex_ traordinarily resilient, able to withstand the opposition and opprobriurn of rivai courtiers (including rival eunuchs) ana the misunderstarrai,rg orfo..; observers' His disti,ctive coror, features, and dress, as portrayecl by Levni, singred him out not as an outlandish misfit but as the most importanr person i. any given ,riniature. They signified, in fact, that the chief harem eunuch hair become the exernplary Ottoman. Suggestions for Further Reading Llathaway, Jane. Beshir Agrta.: Eunuch oJ'the ottorrutn Imperial Harenr. ox,.or.ti: .chief oneworld, zoo6. This biogriphy of th.,rort puw".ful ottoman chief harem - uuch is aimed at a gcneral educatetl ,eadershiol'crvis' IJernard Race ' and sruvtry in tha MitJdle Ettst: eu_ Arr Hisloricnr Enquiry.o.rrbrt-l: oxford University press, r99o. This study oli'ers a broad historicar exarnir-ration of attitudes toward harem eunuchs ancl others ofAfrican origin. Necipo$ltr, G.,lru. Architecture, cerenonial, and power:'Ihe Topkapt palaca in the Fifieenth antr sixteenth ccnturies. New york: Architecturar History Foundation; Cambridge' MA: MIT press, r99r. This authorit.tive work anaryzes the rayout and tunctions of the Ottoman imperial palace. I 2Jd I Out of Africa, into the Palace ! i ignty in the ()ttonan Empire.New Yolk: Oxford Ur.riversity Press, 1993. this is a seminal study of the Ottoman harerr irorn the origins o1 the ernpire through the seventeenth century. Pcrrzcr, N. lvl. The HL7refl: Arr Account oJ thc Instittttion as lt Existed in the Palace of the 'l\rrkislt Sultuns, with a History of the Grand Seraglio from lts Foundations to N[od'l'inrcs. 1936. Reprint, New York: Dover Press, t993. Penzer's lively and opinione nt ated account of the Ottoman harem gives a visceral sense of Ottoman realities. Perrcc, Lcslie . )he Inperial Harern: Wornen and Sovere L7 The Province Goes to the Center The Case of Hadjiyorgakis Kornesios, Dragornan of Cyprus Antonis Hadjikyriacou N<ltes 1. Quoted in Filpo, Rclazioni di anhasciutori veneti al Senato,73 (my translation). 2. Sec,tirrcxanrple, lvtoore-Harell,"EconomicandPoliticalAspectsoftheSlaveTradein Ethiupia and lire Sudan," 4to. 3. lJruce, 'l'r"uv,cls to Discover the Source oJ'thc Nile, j:9t,416. 4. AI-Jab,rrti, Al-Jabartl's Llistory of Egypt,t:648. 5. ustat'a Ali, Mttsta.fa Ali's Descriptiotr of Cairo, 8r-82. 79b (my translation). 7. Ibid., tbls. 6ra-62b. fuzi'ili'lHuboi;," fbl. z7a (ny translation). See also 'l-ezcan, 8. Ali, "l{dti'ii'l-gubng s pclli ng the D arkness." 9. Fctvacr, Picturing Hislory tt the Ottonton Court,86, r53-r57. 10. Pctrtrsyan, Pages o-f Per.lbction,284. ll. Atrl, Levni arul lhe Surnume. I 2. I{esrrr i, H a rn ile t fi' I kiiberri, 63 (rny t ransla t ion). 11. Levrri, Surname-i vchbi. t4. Silohciar Frndrkhlr lvlehmed Aiy, Sildhddr tArthi, z:3o7 (my translation). 15. N;rirna, 'I'Arih-i Nu'infi, 4:164o (my translation). 16. Pedani, "Satiye's Household and Venetian Diplomacy," r4-r7, tg*23,25-27. Ok, Liaren diinyusr,To-72. Is. )ia Yinghua, quoted in F-aison, "The Death of the Last Emperor's Last Eunuch." IU 6. I)ervish Abdullah, "Risile-i'l-eberdAriye," lbl. i lj " D i ll. dragoman of Cyprus . . . [caused] sedition and discor.d . . . by pcrtbrnring deal of vi,ai,y. . . ro the rvruslim rvors,ippers. . . rH;r:;;ecl ti-.ru cyprus, andl when he arrived at Isra,bul he was'tridde, i, it" urtn. European states. . . . [He was] executed i, tio,t of the Subrinrc foiui., Grte, a,cr his corpse was put upside-down i, the basket of a broo,r-sclrer, .",ri.i'o.ur,,.r, and left outside the gate of the fish market; he thus b..;;. ; ,r.,r,,ig ," ers' ' ' ' He was g.i,g to escape to Russia ",,, by converri.g t,i. prop..if ,ird cas' . . His irorrse in ltegilitav was given . . . to the crrief taxl:^0-'llr^"t*rhange.. lnspector. . . . It was runr.red trrut ail his uroperty a,d cash totalcd rr,ooo purses I 5,5oo, ooo kur uSl.l 11re I I a g'e.r It is not very ofterl that one finds cypriot ofiicials cxecuted ir.r Ista'bul, iet alo^c their execution described in ottoman crrronicres. I{atljiyorgakis Kornesios is .,e of the most intriguing O*,1.:: in the history of Ortonran irrrr, ;;rJ,;iven rhe above passage, understandably so. He was at the center ,l'the poriticar, social, and econo.ric lit-e of the isla,cr fio,r the late eighteenth.e,rtury u,riiir,i, a.u,t irl r8o9. Thus, he is o,e of the best-docurne,tedsubjects or tn. btt,rrrran p"rrod of Cypriot history, a'cr i,r.rnrttio, o, his activities appears i, unconventio,al sollrces' such as folk songs, a, agrarian alnranac recording,ajor events, a,d a narrative written on the back of a church icon.r His case is particularly enlightening lbr understandi,g how a ,on-Muslim could rise to a position of prorni.e,ce iir a;,rorincial setti,g at the turn of thc nineteenth century. The emerging picture ,"u.ul, a ,ran who concelltrated an unprecedented degree ofpower and wealth for rode communul .Jnre,rsu. por itics, ard .*t"nd.'l'il: ;1 ity to the Muslims of trre island. More sig.ific"",ry, r,J.r,#;,Jl.n, beyoncr cyprus itself, extending as rar as Ista.bui ard Sai,t petersburg. ,i, fu.iti,r,, ,, clragoman of the provi,ce (i.e., i,terpreter tbr the rocar ottoman ad.rinistratio.)r allowed him to play irn integrai rore i' the rr.rn,i,g .*ilTi ?I:lii:ilfi_ of provi,ciar arlairs.