Visiting the old homes of fallen dynasties always makes for a deep contemplation – the right and wrong of what they did in the hindsight of history stays with me for a long time. In that sense, the Ottomans were in a very interesting position. As an international power controlling a substantial amount of land in Asia, Europe, and Africa, they competed with European powers. Simultaneously, they competed with Iranians over dominance in the Islamic world. This competition intensified as the Safavid dynasty gained power in Iran claiming that they are the righteous kings as Shi’a Muslims, and became violent at times, particularly under Shah Abbas and Nader Shah. As a result of it all, it is not surprising to see that their decisions were impacted by these rivalries. If the Safavid had A’ali Qapu to watch polo and horse racing, the Ottomans had Bab-e A’ali, and if Europeans had royal palaces, the Ottomans built their new palaces with European architecture.
Topkapi and Dolmabahche palaces are very different places but I was wow-ed many times walking through them watching the beauty of the architecture. Topkapi is significantly older and witnessed the heyday of the Ottoman empire. Given this fact, Topkapi Museum showed all the artifacts that the Ottomans gathered from the lands they had under control: The sword of David, the beard of Muhammad, the dress of Fatima (Muhammad’s daughter), and the list goes on. The exhibition goes on to cover multiple areas of the palace and they are, of course, interesting from a historical perspective. However, the harem and its administrative structure were mind-boggling. There were multiple groups of women that were brought into the harem for the Sultan: concubines, ordinary women, favorites, and favorites who had sons. These people, in most cases 12 to 13-year-old girls, are guarded and managed by slaves who are intentionally maimed to act as eunuchs in the harem. The slaves then had a headmaster with direct access to the sultan or at a minimum the ministers. He was the one deciding who saw the Sultan, who moved up in the world (quite literally as the entrance to the harem is a two-story building), and he also ran a large net of spies to ensure the harem was properly controlled. After all, true human stories are always stranger than fiction and Lord Varys of Game of Thrones had to be based on a real human model. I have strived to be a student of history for one reason: to constantly remind myself of the disasters that humans have caused and how to avoid them. However, witnessing this level of human cruelty in one place was certainly overwhelming. I have foregone certain aspects of running the harem, such as the categorization of slaves based on race as I am not an expert on the subject, but as always throughout human history, there was racism involved.
Dolmabahche palace was constructed after the Battle of Vienna and during the demise of a once-strong dynasty. It is a palace that was designed and built in European fashion to act as the administrative center and to host Sultan’s meetings. The palace’s architecture is exquisite and there were parts of it such as the Ceremonial Hall that made me simply stop and quietly appreciate the beauty of it. In today’s money, the palace would have cost close to two billion dollars, which by itself gives an idea of the amount of work needed to complete it.
