Prof Dr. Ahmed Akgündüz

1- It is alleged through the exploitation of the term Ich Oghlan, Court Page, that some Ottoman Sultans were indulged in perverted relationship. It is even alleged that Sultan the Conqueror did not act chastely in this regard. In fact, there happened to occur allegations of some Anatolian-Greek historians on this matter. What is really the essence and truth of this matter?

Some Western historians and authors of books of our day have alleged that the Ottoman Sultans indulged in perverted relationships and have repeatedly brought up the subject of the court pages, which has been studied at length by Ottoman historians. The term Ich Oghlan refers to the boy servants who had been recruited according to the Dawsihmah System, and who worked in the Andarun, that is, Inner Palace, one of the three parts of Topkapı Palace. In other words, they were the Inner Palace servants, or in the language of today, the staff serving in the head of state’s residence. The same term was used for certain members of the Janissaries. Those interested may consult İsmail Uzunçarşılı’s book Kapıkulu Ocakları.
 

It is necessary at this point to reply briefly to those who attach disgraceful meanings to the term court page, and offer the readers an example of their distortions.

Certain writers have shamelessly asserted that the Sultans kept beautiful youths in the Inner Palace, called içoğlan, with whom they had illicit relations, even making some of the veil their faces due to their jealousy, and that some of the Sultans had a passion for men only. The things they claim about the Qabusnamah are complete nonsense like this.
 

Here, as evidence for this, I want to quote some lines from a letter written by the daughter of Sultan Selim the Excellent, Fatimah Sultan, to her father to complain about her husband Mustafa Pasha, which is taken from the Qabusnamah, thus showing to readers how those who make the above claims distort them, and that they make other distortions similar to these.
 

They state that in addition to all the warped relationships in the Ottoman Harem, the Sultans and people of the Inner Palace had deviant relationships with both men and the boy pages known as Ich Oghlan, and that Murad IV was one of these. Since “illustrating falsehood leads simple minds astray, rather than reiterating their assertions”, I want to reply to them. One of the principal proofs they put forward to support what they claim is this:
 

It is a sentence taken from the work entitled the Qabusnamah, which was written in the style of the Nasihatnamah, which was written by Emir Qaiqawus of the Ziyarids in 475/1082 for his son. They claim that one of the pieces of advice in the book, which was accepted as authoritative by the Ottoman Sultans, is the following, which is in fact about sexual relations with women: “In summer incline to women, and in winter to boys, then health and well-being will be found. For the bodies of boys are hot, and if two hot bodies come together in the summer it is detrimental to the health. And womens’ bodies are cold, and if two cold bodies come together in the winter, it dries up the body.” They state that it is recorded that foremost Murad IV and some other Sultans resorted with women in the summer and boys in the winter. They accept, however, that the Qabusnamah was translated by Marjimak Ahmed during the time of Murad II, Mehmed the Conqueror’s father, and that the idioms of that period are used.
 

They go even further, saying that it is known that these activities were practised also by the sons-in-law of the Sultans and that Yavuz’s daughter Fatimah Sultan made complaints about this in connection with her first husband, the Bey of the Antalya Sanjaq, Mustafa Pasha. They try to prove these claims with a sentence they quote from a letter written by Fatimah Sultan, to according to them an unknown correspondent. The sentence is this: “My Illustrious Father. I have no peace of mind. I have ended up with a person who does not regard me even as a dog. He wrongfully seizes youths (Oghlan) from their parents, and immediately sets about them.” They claim that these sentences refer to the Ottoman Beys and prove their relations with males. However, they agree that this letter was written in the 15th century, and we know from dictionaries that at that time the word oğlan referred to both boys and girls.
 

Here I have to state that it is very meaningful that at the beginning of the relevant distorted passage, one writer quotes the Qur’anic verse, “For you practise your lusts on men in preference to women.”

Now, to explain the matter:

Firstly, a further matter should be explained: the Qur’anic verse quoted above is part of what Lot said about his own people, who practised sodomy. The whole passage is: “He also [sent] Lut. He said to his people: ‘Do you commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before? For you practise your lusts on men in preference to women; you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.’” Following this the Qur’an states that Lot’s people made moves to drive him out of the country and that God Almighty meted out a terrible chastisement on them for their excesses in committing the sin of sodomy. It may be seen clearly that there is no connection between these verses and the matter under discussion.
 

To come to the second matter: it is well-known that every era has its own idiom and way of speaking. That is to say, words bear different meanings in different ages. People from different regions also use the same words to express different meanings.

In this way, the word Oghlan (youth), which is used both in the Qabusnamah and in Fatma Sultan’s letter, is given the wrong meaning. Its meaning in Turkish texts of the 14th and 15th centuries is significantly different to its meaning today. From the sources we understand that in those centuries the word Oghlan had two basic meanings. Firstly it referred to children, both male and female; and secondly it referred to the youth, again both male and female. That it referred to male gender only occurred in later times.
 

There are numerous instances proving this, but the best evidence is the following passage from a Turkish translation of One Hundred Hadiths by Mustafa Darir of Erzurum, which was written in the 14th century, the century the Qabusnamah was translated into Turkish. It says: “The young girl (oğlan) should be fertile so that my community may be numerous. For I take pride in the great numbers of my community.” Those who distort this matter cannot claim that at the time of the Prophet (PBUH) young boys gave birth too!
 

A further point that corroborates what I say is that the translators of both the Qabusnamah and the One Hundred Hadiths lived in the same century, that is, at the time of Murad II, the father of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. In any event, chiefly the ‘Taramah’ lexicon and other philological sources confirm what I have said. However, I do not have much else to say to those who want to slander history and Islam using word games. What really makes me unhappy is a scholar like Uluçay attaching any importance to the same baseless gossip and in his work Harem Hayatının İç Yüzü (The True Face of Harem Life), which he contradicted in his book Harem II, agreeing with it or quoting from it.
 

Another piece that further clarifies the matter is the following:  “If the child (oghlan) is a girl, they have it suckled by a woman (avrat) who has given birth to a girl; or if it (oghlan) is a boy, they have it suckled by a woman who has [previously] given birth to a boy. Thus, in the 14th and 15th centuries, the word oghlan was used for both boys and girls; and the word (avrat) for older women. So too in the Persian original of the Qabusnamah the word Ghulam, the equivalent of Oghlan, means “a child and young; the period from birth to youth.”
 

Having seen these explanations, the expressions in the Qabusnamah and Fatma Sultan’s letter are more readily understood:

As was stated above, the Qabusnamah is a sort of Nasihatnamah; it consists of a ruler’s advice to his sons, illustrated with Qur’anic verses and Hadiths of the Prophet (PBUH) or the moral dicta of former notable persons. The Fifteenth Book of the Qabusnamah consists of recommendations about marital relations. One of these recommends the following to his son, who has more than one wife as well as female slaves: “In summer, incline to ‘avret and in winter, to oğlan so that you may find health. For oğlans’ bodies are hot, and if two hot bodies come together in summer, it is detrimental to the body. And ‘avrets’ bodies are cold; if two cold bodies come together, it dries the body. Wassalam.”
 

That is to say, if you have more than one woman, be together with the older ones in the summer and with the young ones in the winter, so you will find health and well-being. For the bodies of young women are warm, and if two warm bodies come together in the heat of summer it is harmful. And the bodies of older women are cool, and if two cool bodies come together in winter, it dries the bodies.
 

To distort this as meaning that he is advising his sons to have relations with men points only to lack of scholarship and knowledge of language.

As for Fatimah Sultan, she was writing that her husband favoured the young female slaves rather than herself. “My Illustrious Sultan Father, I have no peace of mind. My lot is a person who counts me not even as a dog. He forcibly seizes the young girls from their parents, and immediately expends all his energy on them.” How can her complaining thus to her father the Sultan be explained as her husband having relations with other males?
 

The writers who make these claims also know that it was actually forbidden for sons-in-law of the Sultan to take wives other than the Sultan’s daughter while married to them, let alone having deviant relations with men. This subject is discussed at greater length in the section on the Sultans’ marriages. But those who have not grasped the meaning of the above letter have tried to explain it as they understand it⁴⁸.

2. Would you then give us brief information about the institution of Ich Oghlan in the Ottoman State organization?

Firstly, it is necessary to define the term Ich Oghlan. The palace servants who were carefully chosen to work in the Inner Palace were called Ich Oghlan. In Ottoman history, it describes the Dawshirmahs (conscripts) who were trained in the palaces of Topkapı, Galata, ‹brahim Pasha, and Edirne and in the course of time were employed in various official duties. They were also called saray Ajemi Ognlanları or Jalab. There were also Janissary recruits who even if they were originally called Ich Oghlan, were later called Shadi in order to differentiate them from those in the Palace.
 

Thus, Ich Oghlan is merely a term. Oghlan does not necessarily mean a young boy chosen with evil intent. It denotes the recruits selected to work in the Inner Palace. The ‘Ich’ that is, ‘Inner,’ refers to their place of work. These recruits were also trained in the Palace School (Andarun Maqtabi), which at the same time fulfilled the function of training state officials. Numerous high-ranking officials were produced there, among whom were pashas, beylerbeys, and sanjaqbeys.
 

Secondly, the fact that some of the court pages who were trained to work in the Inner Palace were good looking was not in order to gratify the Sultan’s lusts, as some foreign travellers and historians inimical to Islam have suggested. It was rather a question of the careful choice of the staff who would work in the Inner Palace, that is, in the centre of government of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched at the time of its greatest extent over an area measuring twenty-four million square kilometres. Those who write these things know perfectly well that today even the staff chosen to work in a prime minister’s office or president’s palace possess attributes different to those of employees in ordinary government offices. Certainly, those employed in the Inner Palace had to be discreet, of presentable appearance, honest, and not inclined to treachery. In the Ottoman period there were various sciences like physiognomy to ascertain the characters of the candidates for the court pageship, just as today there are criminology and similar sciences. They could ascertain accurately a person’s moral character according to his physical characteristics. The court pages were chosen by people who were experts in this field. Another reason they were called Gilman or Ich Oghlan was that no female staff were employed in this position, like today. This is discussed in greater detail in the relevant section.
 

Thirdly, it may have been the case that since the court pages in the Inner Palace were handsome youths, any striking ones among them were commanded to veil their faces, not for the Sultan, but to forestall any illicit situations arising among themselves. This was not because the Sultan was jealous, but was the application of a ruling of the Shari‘ah concerning this matter. For there is a ruling in Islamic law which says: “A young teacher or tutor should not remain too long alone with young boys, for man’s instinctual soul prompts him to evil. Such youths may veil their faces and are called shabb al-amrad (beardless youths).” Some of the Ottoman Sultans conformed to this injunction with its extreme courtesy, ordering some of the court pages to veil their faces. So is there any way this scrupulous adherence to a Qur’anic command can be correlated with those totally discourteous distortions, which conform only to the calumnies of Christian historians like Hammer?
 

Fourthly, I want to draw attention to another matter. As is described a little later, the court pages performed various duties, some of which were the duties of the Privy Chamber (Has Oda). This was not somewhere the Sultan could have indulged in any illicit relations with the court pages. On learning what the Privy Chamber consists of, it is not possible not to tremble at such a suggestion.
 

Originally, the Privy Chamber complex had been the most esteemed place in the Inner Palace, and had been built by Mehmed the Conqueror. Thirty of his pages lived here. The complex, which was not in the Harem but in the Inner Palace, was subsequently enlarged by other Sultans. The Mantle of the Prophet PBUH (Hırqah al-Sharif) and other sacred relics were later housed there. The duties of the Privy Chamber pages were cleaning the rooms where the Mantle and other relics were kept, sprinkling them with rose-water and sweet scents on special occasions, reciting the Qur’an, and attending to the needs of the Sultan; that is, they were the Sultan’s personal servants inside the Palace.
 

Özellikle Fâtih Sultân Mehmed ile alakalı olarak Notaras’ın ve Franzes’in oğlu ve Erico’nun kızı ile ilgili isnatlar ise, Bizans tarihçilerinden bazılarının, İstanbul’u fethetmesinden dolayı duydukları kızgınlığın yalancı bir sonucu olmaktan öteye gitmemektedir ve hiç bir delile dayanmamaktadır.
 

Bütün bu bilimsel açıklamalara rağmen, hâlâ İslâmcı Gay’ler diye haber yapanların durumunu ilimden anlayanlar daha iyi takdir edebileceklerdir. Bunlar, Gelibolulu Mustafa Âlî’nin tıpkı Kâbusnâme’de olduğu gibi, erkek ve kadın hizmetkârlar ve câriyelerle ilgili verdiği bilgileri ve özellikle de genç kız ve erkek manasında kullanılan gulâm ve bunun çoğulu olan gılmân kelimesini dillerine dolayarak, Osmanlı devlet adamlarını ve hatta Şeyhülislâm ve kazaskerlerini bile, gay’likle itham etmektedirler. Halbuki aynı yazar, tıpkı Kabusnâmenin yaptığı gibi, hizmetkârlar hakkında bilgi verdikten sonra, toplumdaki ahlaksızlar hakkında da bazı açıklamalarda bulunmaktadır. Zaten, Osmanlı toplumunda tümüyle bu ahlaksızlıklar yok idi denilemez. Karşı çıkılan, bu ahlaksızlıkların Padişahlara ve âlimlere de isnad edilmesidir. Büyük Osmanlı Tarihçisi Âlî, bu rezillere ayırdığı kısa bahiste, gay tabir edilen cinsî sapıkların dinimize göre suçlular olduğunu, haram helal demeden kadınlarla beraber olanların ise, nefislerine mağlup olan reziller grubunu teşkil ettiğini; lezbiyenlerin ve homoseksüellerin de bunlar gibi reziller grubunda yer aldığını, toplumdaki grupları sayarken gayet açık beyan eylemektedir. Aynı eserde, meyhânelere ayrılan bir bölüm de vardır. Acaba böyle bir bölümde gayr-i müslimlerin meyhaneleri anlatıldığı ortada olduğu halde, bu başlığı okudukdan sonra, Osmanlı Devleti’nde herkes meyhâneye giderdi mi diyeceğiz?