Faith Freedom International - Forum Indonesia

Every Good Muslim has to have a HAREM !


http://www.allaboutturkey.com/harem.htm
The reasons for harem existence can be seen from Ottoman cultural history. Ottoman tradition relied on slave concubines along with legal marriage for reproduction. Slave concubines was the taking of slave women for sexual reproduction that did not carry the risks of marriage, mainly that of the potential betrayal of a wife.

Although they had no legitimate claim to power, as their favor grew with the Sultan, they acquired titles such as "Sultan Kadin" ...

http://www.wright-photo.com/istanbul7.htm
The Harem is the private apartments of the Sultan and his family, and up to 1000 concubines!

http://www.likesbooks.com/harem.html
The picture of a harem that most of us have in our minds is the harem of the Sultan in Constantinople during the height of the Ottoman Empire. Doreen Owens Malek's book The Panther and the Pearl gives a picture of life in a harem toward the end of that time that is quite accurate. The Sultan, who was an absolute ruler, had a harem of several hundred women along with eunuchs to guard them. Although all the harem women, from the mother of the Sultan to the lowest kitchen maid were technically slaves, they were not of equal rank, and rank was guarded jealously in the harem.

The highest ranking woman was the Valide Sultana - the Mother of the Sultan. She had her own apartment and wielded power over the harem inhabitants and even over her son, since she could choose some of his concubines for him. The next highest rank belonged to women who had given birth to the Sultan's children. These women were called kadins and they had their own households with their own slaves.



The highest ranking kadin was the mother of the Sultan's oldest son. But being the mother of the oldest son did not necessarily make one the Sultan's favorite. Jealousy among the kadins and concubines led to intrigue, attempted poisoning and downright assasinations. Small wonder that a food-taster was a necessary part of the harem. The vast majority of the women in the harem were called odalesques. Depending on their beauty and skills, they were concubines, entertainers, or general servants. Some odalesques were given by the Sultan as wives to territorial governors, a mark of favor on his part and an honor to the odalesque.

The harem was under the supervision of the Kislar Aga - the Chief Black Eunuch. He was the third highest ranking man in the Empire after the Sultan and the Grand Vizir. The Kislar often became very wealthy (from bribes) and wielded much power. The Kislar was the official who executed a woman if she displeased the Sultan. He had a corps of eunuchs who served under him. These eunuchs waited upon and guarded the women of the harem, were all Black, and were chosen for their supposed ugliness. But beauty is always in the eye of the beholder and attachments between the women and the eunuchs were not unknown.

The harem women seldom went outside its walls and when they did they were heavily veiled. Inside the harem they could play various games, smoke the turkish water pipe, eat (and the food was very good), dress up, or indulge in the favorite activity - spending hours in the bath.

A bath in the harem was not just lathering up and then rinsing off. From descripion's I've encountered, a bath was akin to a day at a spa. The women were soaked, depilitated, massaged, steamed and hennaed until they glowed. For women who had lots of time and not a lot to do, a long period of being pampered in the bath was a relaxing way to pass the day.

But one couldn't bathe all the time, and for most of the harem women, life was very dull and very boring. And forget any fantasies of non-stop sex. For most of the harem women, sex was a very rare thing. Since not very many of them ever slept with the Sultan, the women sometimes formed lesbian relationships with each other or developed sexual relationships with the eunuchs.

How? Well, there were degrees of castration. A eunuch might have lost his testicles but still have his penis intact. He could have sexual relationships with women, and since that was the case, a eunuch of this type did not directly serve the harem women. Instead he would serve the Sultan or the male officials in the Sultan's household. Yet, even eunuchs who were totally castrated sometimes formed relationships with the harem women. There were many sex aids to be found at the marketplace. Sexual relationships with eunuchs were against all rules and a woman risked death if the relationship became known, but rules have never bound the human heart.

If the Sultan took it into his fancy to sleep with one of the women, she was prepared by spending a long period of time in the bath. She entered the Sultan's bedchamber and crawled under the covers from the foot of the bed. The next day, she went through his pockets since custom dictated that all the money and jewels he brought into the bedchamber were hers. If she pleased the Sultan, she might become one of his regular concubines, and if she bore a son nine months later, she would achieve the title of kadin. For many of the women, that one time in the Sultan's bed might be the only time.

Since the Sultan was the absolute ruler over his kingdom, he had the power of life and death over the harem. If a woman displeased him, the usual method of execution was to have the Kislar tie her in a sack and throw her in the ocean. The insane Sultan Ibrahim (1640-1648) drowned his entire harem when he heard that one had been having a relationship with a eunuch. One of the odalesques swam free and lived to tell the tale.

The fate of the harem women when the old Sultan died and the new one came to the throne was a sad one. They were forced to leave the Grand Seraglio and move to smaller and much drabber quarters called The Palace of Tears, where they lived out their lives in isolation.

The harem of the Sultan was abolished after the Ottoman empire fell, but it still lives on as a romantic fantasy in some people's eyes. Somehow I don't think the isolated and almost celibate life of the majority of the women who lived in the harem is all that romantic, but when has real life ever gotten in the way of a good story?

Abolished ?? The harem lives on !

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... -4,00.html
Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef's chief interests lay in his harem (40 concubines), his garage (60 cars), and his afternoon game of tennis. Yet, as Imam (Commander of the Faithful), he became the man around whom Moroccans in the new Istiqlal (Independence) Party centered their hopes.

http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/sultan.htm
SAUDI:
Sultan Abdul Aziz

He has two immense urges: spending money and having sex. If any normal Saudi citizen is asked to name Sultan's trademarks, the answer would almost invariably be his generosity and his sexual appetite. To foster his beneficent image and to ensure public support, Sultan "borrows" from the government at will and gives away billions of dollars a year to constituents in a variety of ways (See Northrop Scandal), including: ... flying an elderly man to Europe on his private plane to get emergency medical treatment, caring for the scores of women he married on the spur of the moment and, just as quickly, divorced. Sultan pays for all this and more with money from the coffers of the Government of Saudi Arabia.

Sultan is known to keep several harems throughout Saudi Arabia. His harems are perpetually supplied by women who come from all over the world. They are treated like queens, showered with gifts and a lifetime supply of cash. Because of Sultan's generosity, there have been almost no scandals related to his love nests. Just by joining a harem, a woman is provided with at least $100,000 in cash and an annual salary that she could only have dreamed of making. The women are pampered, treated well, and kept away from the eyes of the curious as well as from Sultan's personal friends. Because Sultan is pushing into his seventies, his sexual prowess, no matter how adequate, can never satisfy the number of women he keeps. The likelihood that any of these women sees Sultan more than once in six months is so dim that their stay at the harem is truly an extended paid, dream vacation. In these harems, a woman can flaunt her beauty anytime, but not her individuality. Sultan is known not to be patient of women who ask too much. He wishes them loyal, subservient, and sexual.

Harem di Keraton Jogjakarta :
http://realtravel.com/yogyakarta-journals-j1777663.html

Next stop was the Water Palace. The Water Palace is basically described as an extravagant water park playground built for one of the Javanese Sultans a really long time ago. The "Palace" is thus not really a palace, but a big garden with gigantic pools built for the sole purpose of the Sultan's entertainment. Our guide explained that the Sultan had a few harem (groups of mistresses), that he would bring to the pool. He would then stand and gaze over the pool and select a woman from the harem to come visit him in his private pool. The Queen would then approve the girl and if approved, the girl and the Sultan would retreat to another area. Very interesting....

http://images.realtravel.com/media/md/4 ... b32be3.jpg
Dari sini sang Sultan memandang para wanita mandi dan memilih gundiknya.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/f ... _a_source=

I was wife No2 in the King's Harem
By Elizabeth Sanderson, The Mail on Sunday
Last updated at 08:58am on 9th July 2006


'I want justice': Janan Harb says her fight is about not just money but also her memories of her husband

Janan Harb is not just another anonymous wife of a multi-millionaire from the Gulf States.

The daughter of a restaurateur, Janan was born into poverty in Palestine but by the age of 21 she had married the man who would become King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, once the richest man in the world. Hers is, by any standards, an extraordinary tale.

Now permanently based in London, Janan is one of the few 'Westernised' women to experience life inside a harem of the Royal House of Saud. She was party to the opulence and extravagance, her every whim catered for by scores of servants.

But as a Christian, she also paid a terribly high price. Trapped like a canary in a cage, she was not allowed out of the palace walls, was forbidden from having children and had to obey the strict customs of her husband, the future guardian of Islam.

It was, perhaps, inevitable that Janan could never fit in to such a regime and she was eventually ordered to leave the country by the Saudi royal family, who disapproved of her marriage. But they couldn't break the lifelong bond that she and her former husband shared. Throughout her years of exile in America and London, he continued to provide for her until he suffered a stroke ten years ago.

It was then, according to Janan, that his relatives failed to honour Fahd's promise that he would always take care of her. Two years ago, Janan made international headlines when she launched a legal action that, if successful, would have led to the world's largest maintenance settlement.

Those proceedings ended with the King's death last July but last month Janan won the right to take her claim for a £400million share of his £32billion estate to the European Court of Human Rights.

Now she has agreed to speak out for the first time about life inside the House of Saud. Rarely, if ever, has anyone dared talk publicly about the kingdom where secrets are kept safe via generous 'gifts' or barely veiled threats. AT 60, Janan retains the striking features that once made her such a sought-after beauty.

While she loved her husband, the restrictions of their marriage were becoming increasingly difficult to bear. Desperate for a child, she tried to become pregnant, succeeded three times and was forced, on every occasion, to have an abortion.

Then. in 1970, after two years of marriage, Janan was suddenly ordered to leave the kingdom by Fahd's brother. She was given two hours to go and her belongings were forwarded to the Saudi embassy in Beirut. Janan was 23.

She says: 'I did not see Fahd before I left but I did speak to him on the phone. He asked me to go to America - I was not allowed even to stay in the Middle East - it was the worst time of my life. I was devastated and virtually suicidal. I didn't know anyone and had lost my husband.'
The family told her that Fahd had divorced her.

JANAN says: 'Once he had become King in 1982, it became more difficult but we always made sure to speak to each other. I realised that the circumstances realistically prevented us from staying together but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a genuine love story.

'My husband was a kind and fair man and this is a betrayal of everything he stood for. I think his family believe I am going to just sit back and be a victim of this injustice but I do not operate on a victim level. I will take this all the way if I have to.'

http://www.awiu.org/Saudi-Arabia/Mother ... iarch.html

Marianne alireza was born and raised in southern california, but in 1943 married a saudi man and lived in a saudi arabian harem for fifteen years.

...

Marianne sought permission to get the children out and to the seashore, not only for their benefit, but for hers as well. The outings relieved some of the feeling of claustrophobia that living in the closed quarters of the house and compound generated. It also offered a new challenge for her to take on, teaching the children of the household as well as caring for their general needs.

Gradually, her focus turned away from comparing her current position with her native culture and rested increasingly on the family and her children. She noticed that when other children—visiting or those of other members of the family were around—they wanted to join in the games that Marianne played with her children. "There was an aimlessness among these children that concerned me," she said.

The lack of stimulation and the few, very simple games they did play were just to fill time. As a result, Marianne turned to teaching the children as much as she could, both through play and more formal lessons. Able to access materials and equipment through the family's business connections, the household became partly a school and allowed Marianne to teach long-remembered childhood lessons, games and activities and even a correspondence English language course.

Twelve years and five children into the marriage while in New York on a visit, Marianne received a telephone call from a mutual friend to inform her that she was legally divorced. "Stunned. Simply stunned,” she said when asked for her reaction. The only explanation Marianne received from her husband for the sudden and devastating blow was: "It won't work, I know myself."


http://www.geocities.com/saudhouse_p/theshack.htm
Saudi women are victims of a set of rigid traditions that celebrate a godlike superiority of men and hold women responsible for their mystical honor. It is a society in which women are little more than chattels. Denied many basic human rights, responding time after time to society's demand to reproduce, haunted by the fear of a second wife, spending her time in the emptiness of shopping and tea parties, a woman exists to serve men. During my four years in Saudi Arabia, I watched with feelings of pain and anger how Saudi women live, I talked with them, I wrote about them, and I publicly suffered many of the same indignities that they suffer. Out of these experiences I learned to care deeply for these women, and, as a woman, I developed a deep empathy with them. In no other facet of Saudi culture have the shock waves of modernization struck as strongly as they have for women. And in no other area is the potential fallout from development so difficult to evaluate. On the surface women have reaped enormous benefits from the opening of Saudi Arabia to the outside world.

Yet, beyond the new educational opportunities, women themselves appear unwilling to struggle for their stake in the new society. From a Western point of view, women show an alarming obedience to the basic presuppositions of the Saudis' traditional culture. Although there are pockets of resistance, the vast majority of women continue to accept their imprisonment at the hands of men.

http://www.eastwestdocumentary.com/history.php


THe most opulent and intriguing Harem in the Islamic world was the Harem of the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul. Young girls of extraordinary beauty, plucked from the slave market, were sent to the sultan’s court, often as gifts from his governors. The girls were all non-Muslims and came from around the world, but mostly from the Caucasus region, Asia and Africa. Once the slave girl was confined in the harem, her given name would be changed to a Persian one that suited her particular qualities. She was forced to convert to Islam and hence began an arduous training in palace etiquette and Islamic culture. They were taught to dance, recite poetry, play musical instruments, and master the erotic arts.

To be a slave to the sultan was a privilege and an opportunity. Many free-born Muslims bribed or cajoled their way into the sultan’s household or voluntarily gave their girls to the harem. The slavery system in the Ottoman court was different than the "Western" idea of slavery. With talent, smarts and manipulation, any slave could rise to become a powerful person in the Empire. Accepting the status of slave to the Sultan was to become an Ottoman. To be an Ottoman was to accept the duties of a caste: absolute loyalty and obedience. In return the sultan provided a career, a status and a salary for life.

The oppressive system and the elusive promise of absolute power motivated the harem women to act in fierce competition for the coveted title of the "Sultan’s Mother". Violent murders, betrayals, poisonings became the norm in the Royal Harem. Over time the dominance of the harem system became a cancer within the Empire. The excessive interference of the harem women in state politics was instrumental in the ultimate decline and fall of the Ottomans.

JOKE:

Three guys were on a trip to Saudi Arabia. One day, they stumbled
into a harem tent filled with over 100 beautiful women. They
started getting friendly with all the women, when suddenly the
Sheik came in. "I am the master of all these women. No one else
can touch them except me. You three men must pay for what you have
done today."

"You will be punished in a way corresponding to your profession,"
said the sheik, then he turned to the first man and asked him what
he did for a living.

"I'm a cop," said the first man.

"Then we will shoot your penis off!" said the sheik. He then
turned to the second man and asked him what he did for a living.

"I'm a firemen," said the second man.

"Then we will burn your penis off!" said the sheik.

Finally, he asked the last man, "And you, what do you do for a
living?"

The third man said with a sly grin, "I'm a lollipop salesman!"

CARMEN BIN LADEN
http://collectedmiscellany.com/archives/000257.php


It tells the story of how Carmen, caught up in the optimism and naivete of youth in the 1970's, fell in love with Yeslam Bin Ladin the 10th son of Sheik Mohamed Bin Ladin (clan patriarch and founder of one of the largest and wealthiest construction companies in the middle east). They met in Switzerland (Carmen's mother was Persian but her father was Swiss), travelled to Los Angles to attend USC, and generally enjoyed the wealth supplied by their families. Things began to unravel when she moved to Saudi Arabia when Yeslam took up a position in the family business.

The middle section of the book traces her growing unease as she experiences the suffocating Saudi culture where women are mere possessions whose lives are limited to serving their husbands and sons. Transported from the freedom of Geneva and California to the harsh world of Kilometre Seven, the Bin Ladin compound in Jeddah, Carmen experiences a culture shock she was never prepared for. She is forced to be covered from head to foot in black fabric whenever she is in public, she can't even speak to her brother-in-laws let alone strangers in public, she is trapped inside the house for days with little intellectual stimulation surrounded by desert, in most aspects of her life she is wholly dependent on men.

The best part of Carmen Bin Ladin's story is her openness and honesty about herself and others, for good or bad. She not only lifts the veil and lets us see the lives of the ultra rich Saudi women she socializes with in their harem world, and how narrow, paranoid, arrogant and selfish they can become as shut-ins, deprived of intellectual stimulation and subject to the absolute power and whims of their fathers, husbands and sons, ...

Another meaning of harem — rarely used in Western languages, but important in Arabic — was to denote an area where uninvited or unworthy had no access. Hence, Mecca and the surrounding area is a harem — a religious harem. Into this harem, only Muslims are allowed to enter.
While the harem was firmly established as an institution in the society and in individual families, it spread with Islam to areas beyond the Middle East and into North Africa.

Harems still exist, but are today mainly limited to very conservative Muslim societies. Harems, and they are generally small, exist in societies as different as Saudi Arabia and Morocco. Until late into the 20th centuries, harems were rather common in practically all Muslim societies.

http://www.jeansasson.com/princess_trilogy.htm



Jean Sasson's international bestseller, PRINCESS, a New York Times bestseller named as "one of the best 500 books written by women since the year 1300."

This bestselling book has been called "riveting" and "heart-wrenching." Most importantly, PRINCESS has galvanized human rights activity all over the world, striking a chord with women of every age and nationality. Many educators are now listing PRINCESS as required reading for their students.

PRINCESS describes the life of Princess Sultana Al Sa'ud, a princess in the royal house of Saudi Arabia. Hidden behind her black veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband and her country.

Sultana tells of appalling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations:
thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning, or isolation in the "women's room."
PRINCESS is a testimony to a woman of indomitable spirit and courage, and you will will never forget her or her Muslim sisters."

*******************************************
PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS

Readers of Princess Sultana's extraordinary story, PRINCESS, were gripped by her powerful indictment of women's lives behind the veil. Now Jean Sasson and Princess Sultana turn the spotlight on Sultana's two teenage daughters, Maha and Amani.

As second-generation members of the royal family who have benefited from Saudi oil wealth, Maha and Amani are surrounded by untold opulence and luxury from the day they were born and which they take for granted. Stifled by the unbearably restrictive lifestyle imposed on them, they have reacted in equally desperate ways. Their dramatic and shocking stories are set against a rich backcloth of Saudi Arabian culture and social mores which are depicted with equal color and authenticity.

Throughout, Sultana never tires of her quest to expose the injustices which her society levels against women. Princess Sultana once more strikes a chord amongst all women who are lucky enough to have the freedom to speak out for themselves.

******************************************
PRINCESS SULTANA'S CIRCLE
(non-fiction-true story)

The powerful story of Sultana continues with PRINCESS SULTANA'S CIRCLE. Jean Sasson paints a horrifying reality for women of the desert kingdom. It is a haunting look at the danger of Saudi male dominance and the desperate lives of the women they rule.

In her international bestsellers, PRINCESS and PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS, Jean Sasson vividly depicted the harsh restrictions endured by Saudi women. These books described the lives of women who live in a society where they have few rights, little control over their own lives or bodies, and no choice but to endure the atrocities perpetrated against them. Now, in response to readers' tremendous outpouring of concern for Sultana, Jean Sasson and the Princess continue to expose the outrageous human rights abuses suffered by women in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

When Sultana's niece is forced into an arranged marriage with a cruel, depraved older man and a royal cousin's secret harem of sex slaves is revealed, Sultana's attempts at intervention in their various plights are thwarted. But when her nephews are caught committing an unspeakable act against a 12-year-old girl, Sultana is galvanized into action. Risking her personal status and wealth, she takes a stand against the complacency of her male relatives over the child's fate. Ultimately, Sultana and her sisters vow to form a circle of support that will surround and shelter abused women and girls.

As with PRINCESS and PRINCESS SULTANA'S DAUGHTERS, the reader is compelled to read just one more page, one more chapter, once they begin reading this Arabian nightmare.

HAREMnya BIN LADEN Senior
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/200112 ... /above.htm

The earlier part of Bin Laden’s life reads like a chapter from The Arabian Nights. Bin Ladens were, and are Arabs. His father Mohammed bin Laden, was a coolie working in the dockyards of Jeddah. He got into the business of building. He built roads, palaces, mosques, airfields, dams across the Arab world. He became a multi-billionaire. He built palaces for the Saudi Royal family and built one for himself. Then like other rich Arabs, he acquired a harem: 11 wives of which three were ‘permanent’, the fourth divorced every two years to be replaced by a fresh one. Between them these ladies produced 54 children (24 boys and 30 girls). Osama was his 17th son.

His mother Hamida was Syrian who did not get on with her husband and was given a villa out of town to live alone with her maid-servants. Osama continued to live with his father, his other wives, concubines, step-brothers and step-sisters. Since his mother had been discarded, he was tainted as ibn al abeda — son of a slave.

His father was killed when his helicopter crashed. Osama was then 10 years old. The eldest brother Salim became the head of the family.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/terror ... ebanon.htm
A son of Osama bin Laden has gone from Iran to Lebanon with the mission to organize terror attacks against Israel, it was reported yesterday.

Saad bin Laden, 27, one of the terror mastermind's eldest sons, was released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard last Friday, according to the German daily Die Welt.

"From the Lebanese border, he has the task of building Islamist terror cells and preparing them to fight with Hezbollah," the paper said, quoting intelligence sources.

The terror leader-in-training was born in Saudi Arabia in 1979 and is one of 11 children of bin Laden and his first wife, Najwa Ghanem, a Syrian. Osama has at least 23 children from his harem of wives.

Saad and his mother first went to Afghanistan in the '80s to be with Osama, then returned to Saudi Arabia in 1989. They were forced to move to Sudan when the Saudi government objected to bin Laden's extremist version of Islam.

Saad learned English and received most of his formal education in Sudan, then moved with his father back to Afghanistan in 1996, when he was 17. They fought British and U.S. troops side by side when the war on terror began, then fled into Pakistan.

Osama reportedly sent Saad to Iran because it became too difficult for him to direct operations from the mountains of Afghanistan.