𝗞𝗛𝗔𝗬𝗭𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗡, 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗕𝗘𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡

𝗞𝗛𝗔𝗬𝗭𝗨𝗥𝗔𝗡, 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗟𝗔𝗩𝗘 𝗪𝗛𝗢 𝗕𝗘𝗖𝗔𝗠𝗘 𝗤𝗨𝗘𝗘𝗡

Orientalist paintings depicted Muslim harems as places of pleasure and idleness, both sensual and sexual, but also somewhat grotesque and bizarre. Concubines were assumed to spend their days either engaged in all manner of sexual activity or lying around in boredom. They were also seen as slaves with no agency, used by their owners as sex dolls. This Orientalist obsession was so ingrained that representations of Muslim women outside the harem were almost non-existent.

Meanwhile, in the elite harems, most women were literate, either because they were princesses or because they attended a special school within the harem where they were taught to read, write, dance, recite and compose poetry and music, as well as subjects such as history, religion, and in some cases even philosophy, arithmetic and science – making them more educated than the majority of people in both the Muslim and Christian worlds.  

Many wielded considerable power, partly because their children were not considered bastards but were brought up on an equal footing with the children of royal women with impeccable pedigrees. They therefore had the same rights of succession, with the result that a disproportionate number of Muslim rulers were the sons of slave girls. For example, 36 of the 39 Abbasid caliphs who ruled between 750 and the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258 were the sons of slave mothers.

Many concubines also became rich. This gave them even more agency, as they could spend their money as they pleased.

One such woman was a Yemeni who had been captured during a war and then sold to none other than the founder of Baghdad, Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur, who gave her to his son and successor, al-Mahdi. 

In the harem she was given a new name, Khayzuran, which means bamboo, suggesting that she was slender and graceful, but perhaps also deceptively fragile. She joked, made fun of the prince, and was certainly intelligent, studying so hard that she was soon able to quote poetry and the Koran without error. 

The prince loved her so much that, after ascending to the throne in 775 he freed her from slavery and made her his official wife, even though he was already married to a woman of impeccable breeding who had given him two boys. Khayzuran gave him two more and then persuaded him to make them his official heirs. Both became caliphs of an empire stretching from Morocco to Persia, although the first ruled only a year before his untimely death. The second, however, is credited with ushering in the Golden Age of Islam.

Her power was immense, for the Caliph trusted her in all matters, both financial and political. Courtiers took notice, and she interceded on behalf of so many that her quarters were often filled with high-ranking petitioners.

Coins were minted in her name, the first woman in Islam to be so honoured, palaces were named after her, and the cemetery where later Abbasid rulers were buried bore her name. She also opened a number of successful factories through agents who reported directly to her, and eventually became the second richest person in the caliphate after her husband.  According to the 10th-century historian al-Masudi, by the time of her death in 789, her annual income had reached 160 million dirhams, about half of the state's total revenue.

Examples of her spending include large payments to her doctor, the release of several slaves and a valuable gift to the man who settled a dispute between her and her husband. Much money was also spent on two pilgrimages to Mecca in 776 and 778. Generous to the poor she met along the way, she ordered wells and fountains to be dug wherever she thought they were needed, and even bought the house where the Prophet was born and turned it into a mosque. 

When she died, her youngest son and Great Caliph Harun al-Rashid mourned her publicly and without shame, accompanying her coffin to the burial ground barefoot.

The power behind the throne of three caliphs, her only limitation was that she had to exercise her will through men and could not take the throne for herself to rule in her own right.