Mehmed III was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 until his death in 1603. Mehmed was known for ordering the execution of his brothers and leading the army in the Long Turkish war, during which the Ottoman army was victorious at the decisive Battle of Keresztes. This victory was however undermined by some military losses such as in Gyor and Nikopol. He also ordered the successful quelling of the Jeleli rebellions. The sultan also communicated with the court of Elizabeth I on the grounds of stronger commercial relations and in the hopes of England to ally with the Ottomans against the Spanish.
Osman II, also known as Osman the Young, was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 26 February 1618 until his regicide on 20 May 1622.
Ibrahim was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1640 until 1648. He was born in Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I by Kösem Sultan, an ethnic Greek originally named Anastasia.
The Topkapı Palace, or the Seraglio, is a large museum in the east of the Fatih district of Istanbul in Turkey. From the 1460s to the completion of Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856, it served as the administrative center of the Ottoman Empire, and was the main residence of its sultans until the 17th century.
Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was either deaf and used sign language or both deaf and could not speak. The term continues to be used to refer to deaf people who cannot speak an oral language or have some degree of speaking ability, but choose not to speak because of the negative or unwanted attention atypical voices sometimes attract. Such people communicate using sign language. Some consider it to be a derogatory term if used outside its historical context; the preferred term today is simply deaf.
Hurrem Sultan, also known as Roxelana, was the chief consort and legal wife of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She became one of the most powerful and influential women in Ottoman history as well as a prominent and controversial figure during the era known as the Sultanate of Women.
An odalisque was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the eroticized artistic genre in which a woman is represented mostly or completely nude in a reclining position, often in the setting of a harem.
A seraglio, serail, seray or saray is a castle, palace or government building which was considered to have particular administrative importance in various parts of the former Ottoman Empire.
The Kafes, literally "cage", was the part of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Palace where possible successors to the throne were kept under a form of house-arrest and constant surveillance by the palace guards.
The recorded history of sign language in Western societies starts in the 17th century, as a visual language or method of communication, although references to forms of communication using hand gestures date back as far as 5th century BC Greece. Sign language is composed of a system of conventional gestures, mimic, hand signs and finger spelling, plus the use of hand positions to represent the letters of the alphabet. Signs can also represent complete ideas or phrases, not only individual words.
The köçek was typically a very handsome young male slave or a Romani dancer (rakkas), who usually cross-dressed in feminine attire, and was employed as an entertainer.
Harem refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic servants, and other unmarried female relatives. In harems of the past, slave concubines were also housed in the harem. In former times some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygamy has varied depending on the family's personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. Similar institutions have been common in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations, especially among royal and upper-class families, and the term is sometimes used in other contexts. In traditional Persian residential architecture the women's quarters were known as andaruni, and in the Indian subcontinent as zenana.
Turkish Sign Language is the language used by the deaf community in Turkey. As with other sign languages, TİD has a unique grammar that is different from the oral languages used in the region.
The Kapi Agha, formally called the Agha of the Gate of Felicity, was the head of the eunuch servants of the Ottoman Seraglio until the late 16th century, when this post was taken over by the Kizlar Agha. In juxtaposition with the latter office, also known as the Chief Black Eunuch as its holders were drawn from Black African slaves, the Kapi Agha is also known as the Chief White Eunuch.
The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire was the Ottoman sultan's harem – composed of the wives, servants, female relatives and the sultan's concubines – occupying a secluded portion (seraglio) of the Ottoman imperial household. This institution played an important social function within the Ottoman court, and wielded considerable political authority in Ottoman affairs, especially during the long period known as the Sultanate of Women. Multiple historians claim that the sultan was frequently lobbied by harem members of different ethnic or religious backgrounds to influence the geography of the Ottoman wars of conquest. The utmost authority in the Imperial Harem, the valide sultan, ruled over the other women in the household; the consorts of the sultan were normally of slave origin, and thus were also his mother, the valide sultan.
Ottoman court was the culture that evolved around the court of the Ottoman Empire.
Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state. The time period which he reigned in the Ottoman Empire is known as the Hamidian Era. He oversaw a period of decline, with rebellions, and he presided over an unsuccessful war with the Russian Empire (1877–1878) followed by a successful war against the Kingdom of Greece in 1897, though Ottoman gains were tempered by subsequent Western European intervention.
The Sultanate of Women was a period when wives and mothers of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence.
Şehzade Mahmud was an Ottoman prince, the son of Sultan Mehmed III and Halime Sultan. He was the grandson of Sultan Murad III and Safiye Sultan, the half-brother of the future sultan Ahmed I and the brother of Mustafa I.
Şehzade Kasım was an Ottoman prince and the son of Sultan Ahmed I and his wife Kösem Sultan. He was the brother of Murad IV and Ibrahim, and half-brother of Osman II.
Ottoman Mute (dilsiz)
Ottoman "Mute" (Dilsiz)
