Female Officials of The Abbasid Court: The Qahramānas

Abstract

The Abbasids, who established the vizierate for the first time in Islamic history, also added new divāns and improved the existing ones, making the state more bureaucratic and centralized compared to their predecessors, the Umayyads. These changes in the administrative structure also enabled the palace organization and the harem, which was a part of this organization, to become more institutional. In the period after the center of the caliphate was moved from Samarra to Baghdad (279/892), especially during the caliphate of Muqtadir (295-320/908-932), there was a significant increase in the number of harem members. The harem section of the palace, known as harīm dār al-khilāfa, was inhabited by the caliph’s mother, his wives, his children, and members of his dynasty, including his widowed or divorced sisters and aunts. Within this structure, thousands of cleaners, male and female servants, khājibs, guard troops and slaves were employed to serve them. This study focuses on the female officials, the qahramāna, whose responsibility was to provide for the needs of the harem members and to take care of the income and expenditures of the harem, but who gained a highly influential position politically and administratively. This study focuses on the qahramānas, a female official whose responsibility was to take care of the needs of the members of the harem and the income and expenditure of the harem, but who had a highly influential political and administrative position. The study, which examines the qahramānas who served in the Abbasid court from the early period of Muqtadir’s caliphate, when a qahramāna was officially appointed for the first time in the court, until 493 (1099), when this practice was abolished, follows a chronological order on the one hand, while on the other hand, a thematic perspective is tried to be presented by reflecting the prominent characteristics of the qahramānas in the headings.