Mughal Harem
women's quarters in the Mughal court
The Mughal Harem was the harem of Mughal emperors of the Indian subcontinent. The term originated with the Near East, meaning a "forbidden place; sacrosanct, sanctum", and etymologically related to the Arabic حريم ḥarīm, "a sacred inviolable place; female members of the family" and حرام ḥarām, "forbidden; sacred". It has the same meaning as the Turkish word seraglio and the Persian word zenana. It is also similar to the Sanskrit word anthapura, meaning ‘the inner apartment’ of the household. It came to mean the sphere of women in what was usually a polygynous household and their segregated quarters which were forbidden to men.
The harem, being a forbidden place, was constant topic of speculation and curiosity. It was a vibrant and large physical space where women were arranged in regard to their proximity to the emperor.
History
The women
Harem women were composed of consorts (wives and slave concubines), female relatives of the Mughals emperors and slave maids. Most women usually entered the harem through marriage, birth, appointments or as gifts (slaves).
The women were governed through strict rules of Purdah, and they could not move out of the harem as they liked, but many women travelled for affairs of pilgrimage to local shrines, hunting and sightseeing with the emperor.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mughal Harem” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.