Avret Pazarları (), or female slave bazaar, was a market of female slaves located in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire (modern-day Turkey), operating from the mid-15th century to the early 20th century. Many households owned female slaves, employing them as domestic servants. The Ottoman state regulated the slave market and imposed taxes on every slave transaction.
Women were captured from diverse African, Asian, and European regions and traded in Istanbul markets. In contrast to male slaves, women were often subject to sexual exploitation, with their sexuality considered the personal property of their owners. Female slaves were frequently valued based on physical attributes like beauty and entertaining skills, especially when chosen by elite men as slaves or concubines.
Slaves were sold to both commoners and the elite, including members of the Imperial Palace. Turkish media often overlooks non-elite or commoner women in slavery, instead focusing more on relatively privileged slaves in the Ottoman Imperial Harem. However, descriptions of Ottoman times do mention slaves owned by commoners in contemporary slave narratives, travelers' accounts, folk songs, late Ottoman Turkish novels, and 20th-century poems.
The Avret Pazarları slave market was officially closed during the Disestablishment of the Istanbul Slave Market in 1846–1847, though in practice the slave trade in Istanbul continued clandestinely until the early 20th century.
History and context
The general slave trade of men and women was referred to as .
A sizable majority of the slaves traded in the Ottoman slave trade were women; every substantial household and many less substantial households owned female slaves, including many as domestic servants. In history as well as in conventional scholarship on Ottoman historiography, non-elite slaves and women are underrepresented.
The Ottoman Empire adopted practices akin to those of other slave societies, particularly preceding Islamic states such as the Caliphates of al-Mu'tasim and the Mamluk Sultanate. Across various Muslim societies, slavery was governed by a common legal framework rooted in Islamic law. Harem slavery, in particular, played a central role in the households of early modern Ottoman imperial and elite families.
In 1453 AD, Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) became the capital of the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the centuries, it evolved into a hub for captive slaves, particularly women. From the 15th to the 18th centuries, a significant number of female captives were transported to Constantinople from various warfronts, including regions such as Greece, the Balkans, the northeastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and parts of Southeast Europe lying north of the Black Sea, such as modern-day Georgia and Circassia. These captives were enslaved, many of them ending up in concubinage within the Imperial harem of Ottoman sultans. Unlike the Atlantic slave trade, which typically had a male-female ratio of 2:1 or 3:1, the Ottoman slave trade often exhibited a higher proportion of females to males, suggesting a prevailing preference for female slaves. The incentive for importing (often European) female slaves lay in concubinage and reproduction, although many were also brought in primarily to perform household tasks.
Avret Pazary had become fully established by the 16th century. It is estimated that the number of women captured and enslaved by the Ottoman Empire exceeded a thousand per year. The demand for enslaved women was met through the capture of women by Corsairs, Tartars, and various slave dealers.
Slaves typically did not appear in written records unless reported by their masters, usually for absconding. Therefore, while knowing the exact number and composition of slaves remains difficult, an analysis of 16th-century absconders from Ottoman records indicates that some were captured in Ottoman war campaigns in the Balkans, while many others were captured from Russia and Poland by the incursions of the Crimean Khanate into those regions. Among absconding slaves, 39 percent were Russians, 31 percent were Serbs-Croats, 11 percent were Bosnians, and the remaining 19 percent were from Hungary, Bulgaria, and Walachia.
Ottaviano Bon, an early 17th-century Italian ambassador, made observations about the "Avret Pizary" in Istanbul:
Bon goes on to say that slave girls in Istanbul were bought and sold like animals – ascertaining their country of origin, plus examining their bodies all over thoroughly to confirm that their buyer did not feel swindled. Virgin and beautiful girls received higher prices, and traders could be held responsible if an enslaved woman did not turn out to be a virgin as they had promised.
While Turkish free women, i.e., Muslim women, could not be enslaved and Muslim Turkish women had some level of legal prerogative against sexual exploitation, the same protections were not extended to non-Muslim foreigners. Sexual exploitation of female slaves could not be punished legally.
By 1717, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of a British ambassador to Istanbul, reported in her later published letter that the women slave market of Istanbul was somewhat dwindling.
The slave market was supervised and taxed by the Ottoman state. Control of the slave market was the authority of an official called the "esirci emini." A standard fee, set at 1/40th of the value of the slave, was imposed as a tax. A guild of slave merchants existed (known as the "esirci esnafi"), headed by a sheikh (the "esirci seyhi"). He was elected by the members of the guild and appointed by the Sultan's decree. Apart from Muslims, Jews were also involved in the slave market, but it is not known whether they were organized in guilds. According to the memoir of Elviya Celebi, the slave traders' guild "esirci esnafi" had around 2000 members, and their shops had slave rooms.
Limitations of enslaved women Although women slaves were mainly taken from war zones, referring to them as captives or prisoners of war was blatantly incorrect. It is significant to note that the women's religion was not the same as that of their captors, and most of them were not active combatants but were taken while going about their normal business as civilians, despite any sign of hostility. The women were captured from various African, Asian, and European territories and sold in Istanbul markets. Like male slaves, female slaves were considered the personal property of their owners. Although using female slaves for prostitution was technically illegal, selling a slave woman to another man for sex was permissible, and slave women had no legal protection over their sexuality. While slaves could seek recourse from Islamic courts for any other physical injury, the sexuality of women slaves was not their own to lose. As a result, they were unable to appeal to the courts or to the Sultans. Under systemic biases introduced under the Ottoman judicial system, enslaved women, most of whom were non-Muslims, were barred from testifying as witnesses against Muslims. The loss of a slave's virginity was not a matter for herself but rather for her owner, unlike physical injuries to a woman slave by a non-owner, for example, to the arm, leg, eye, or other part of the body. For instance, in the winter of 1817 AD, a female slave owner received compensation through the courts from a man who had raped her slave because the woman's virginity had been compromised, and it would no longer be possible for her owner to sell her as a highly priced virgin.
The literature on slavery-related Fatwa, covering Ottoman legal commentaries, is full of discussions about past, present, and future access to female slaves' sexuality. Queries were asked and answered about disputed paternity, prostitution, adultery, joint ownership of slaves, childbirth, marriage, violation of woman slaves by those other than the owner, and sexual relations with a wife's slave woman without the wife's consent. Muftis used to hold special authority as religious opinion givers, given that the interface between a slave's condition and the domestic household was problematic.
While some intellectuals debate whether individuals labeled as slaves would fit the Western understanding of slavery, scholars assert that there were instances where enslaved women faced abuse and lacked legal protections and rights. Some historians challenge the notion of contrasting law and society, yet law is inherently influenced by society, and Islamic law and culture contain provisions for enslaved individuals, aiding their integration into society over time. However, despite variations in application and practice, those in positions of power often impose legal systems to secure significant advantages for themselves. From the perspective of marginalized slaves, it's plausible to view the imposition of a legal system from outside as encroaching upon the micro-society of the enslaved.
Regarding the Ottoman legal system's treatment of slavery, individual rights to choice and consent were significantly restricted. Abuse and constraints were common, and female slaves were often regarded as mere possessions, listed in inheritance records alongside household items or livestock, or described in physical terms in court. Nineteenth-century European women visitors observed that slave women in harems enjoyed considerable leisure time and freedom of speech and action. They perceived the lives of these slaves as more desirable than those of domestic servants in the West.
Female slaves had limited opportunities, often based on physical attractiveness and talents for pleasing and entertaining male counterparts with flattering words and gestures. Elite men would select some as slaves or concubines, with a few chosen for the Imperial harem, others gifted to elite men, and the most attractive reserved for royal males or the Sultan himself. Slaves who bore a male child for the Sultan received extra privileges, but if they did not convert to Islam, they would be separated from their child, who would be raised as a Muslim. Only a rare few concubines had the chance to become an official wife of the Sultan, and even fewer became beloved wives. Among them, those whose child was selected as Sultan would receive the highest honor as the "Walide" (Mother) of the Sultan.
According to Lidia Zhigunova, women in the Caucasus faced multiple colonizing influences during the Ottoman era. Western and Russian narratives often fixated on stereotypes of beauty and sexuality, particularly focusing on elite "Circassian beauties" involved in the Circassian slave trade, while overlooking their agency, voices, resistance, and diversity. Zhigunova and Tlostanova argue that unlike Western slavery, Ottoman slavery did not completely strip slaves of their rights and humanity. Slaves were better absorbed and integrated into society, with opportunities for status change, particularly for women through marriage possibilities.
For instance, if an enslaved woman bore a child by her owner, she could not be easily resold, and her children were considered free. If the owner acknowledged them as his children, they had inheritance rights similar to those of children from a legitimate marriage. Consequently, several generations of slaves were gradually integrated into society. Additionally, female slaves could gain freedom upon their owner's death through a declaration known as "tedbir," wherein the owner promised manumission prior to death to earn religious merit.