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Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul
Inside the Seraglio takes us behind the doors of Topkapi Sarayi and the other palaces of the Ottoman sultans who for more than six centuries ruled one of the world's most powerful empires. The heart of the palace was the Harem, the women's quarters, ruled by the Valide, or Queen Mother.
Described here and illustrated throughout with images of this sequestered court, is the history and life of this remarkable palace in all its colour and opulence, and the story of its influence on a great empire.
Described here and illustrated throughout with images of this sequestered court, is the history and life of this remarkable palace in all its colour and opulence, and the story of its influence on a great empire.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionTravel
384 pages, Paperback
First published August 3, 1999
9 people are currently reading
242 people want to read
About the author
John Freely
88 books77 followersJohn Freely was born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrant parents, and spent half of his early childhood in Ireland. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 to join the U. S. Navy, serving for two years, including combat duty with a commando unit in the Pacific, India, Burma and China during the last year of World War II. After the war, he went to college on the G. I. Bill and eventually received a Ph.D. in physics from New York University, followed by a year of post-doctoral study at Oxford in the history of science. He worked as a research physicist for nine years, including five years at Princeton University. In 1960 he went to İstanbul to teach physics at the Robert College, now the Boğaziçi University, and taught there until 1976. He then went on to teach and write in Athens (1976-79), Boston (1979-87), London (1987-88), İstanbul (1988-91) and Venice (1991-93). In 1993 he returned to Boğaziçi University, where he taught a course on the history of science. His first book, co-authored by the late Hilary Sumner-Boyd, was Strolling Through İstanbul (1972). Since then he has published more than forty books.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
November 23, 2011
I gave this book a fair shake, but I threw in the towel just passed halfway. It is as dry as they come and chock-a-block full of names, names, names.
It is one of those books that is flooded with names. Names aplenty in every paragraph. Not the same names, different names. Names of people, of places, of buildings, of villages, of streets, of gates and not much substance in between. It reads more like some random stranger's family tree on ancestry.com.
The 'private lives of the Sultans of Istanbul' came in snippets. But most of the time the author lost me at sea while he spoke of this guy, who was the son of this guy, who married this woman, who's father was this guy, who had seven children by this woman, and built this palace called whatever, and conquered this place in a war with this other guy who was the eldest son of who gives a damn.
It was all too much and it made my head hurt.
It is one of those books that is flooded with names. Names aplenty in every paragraph. Not the same names, different names. Names of people, of places, of buildings, of villages, of streets, of gates and not much substance in between. It reads more like some random stranger's family tree on ancestry.com.
The 'private lives of the Sultans of Istanbul' came in snippets. But most of the time the author lost me at sea while he spoke of this guy, who was the son of this guy, who married this woman, who's father was this guy, who had seven children by this woman, and built this palace called whatever, and conquered this place in a war with this other guy who was the eldest son of who gives a damn.
It was all too much and it made my head hurt.
August 29, 2021
Captivating by the coherence of the story and shocking by the information that reveals the primitivism that characterized the Ottoman imperial court to the threshold of the modern era. Because, unlike the power of the empire and the orientation towards meritocracy of its first sultans, including through the functioning of the imperial school Enderûn Mektebi in the Topkapi Palace - those who were to become sultans, rulers of the empire, were only human wrecks, minds damaged by isolation and fear of death. Fantastic. The book exposes a little-known part of Ottoman history, a kind of "forbidden history", but which unintentionally explains the reasons for the decline of the empire that the Turks created, and indirectly, why the peoples they dominated in Asia, Africa and Europe have suffered hundreds of years of poverty and disorder, remaining with a civilizational delay that is difficult to recover even today.
A book written from the passion for history and past of a brilliant mind, passed through places with a fantastic load of mixed emotions coming from hundred of years of fear, suffering, joy, sensuality, opulence and decadence.
Without being perfect, this book is a special and appreciable one.
A book written from the passion for history and past of a brilliant mind, passed through places with a fantastic load of mixed emotions coming from hundred of years of fear, suffering, joy, sensuality, opulence and decadence.
Without being perfect, this book is a special and appreciable one.
September 16, 2022
You think there will be scenes of enviable decadence, but instead you get insanity, drunkenness, and killing 19 of one's brothers. On the same day. After they were ritually circumcised.
Then again, the job description for being a sultan was pretty basic: be born male into the Osmanli dynasty, maintain some degree of sanity while imprisoned for your entire life in the "Cage" within the harem, and escape being strangled by your brothers or father or even your mother, in the case of Roxelana's son Prince Mustafa, heir apparent to Suleyman the Magnificent. One vizier who was not torn to pieces and thrown in the Bosphorus by enraged Janissaries gave this sterling advice: "Never heed the advice of a woman, never allow one of your subjects to become too rich, always keep the treasury well-filled, always be on horseback, and keep the army constantly on the march."
Freely's rendering of five hundred years of rulers of the Ottoman Empire is wry and literate. I now walk around Istanbul with a greater understanding of why, for example, a four hundred year old structure can be called the "New Mosque." Unfortunately, it became difficult to differentiate between the twenty three generations by the end, but that might have been the point: the abuses of inherited, absolute power are distinguishable only in the details, not in their unalloyed destructiveness.
Freely is a marvelous guide through this legend-laden history. (It is true that one sultan valide, Kosem, battled four men and initially survived strangulation. It is not true, however, that a distant relative of a French king was kidnapped into the seraglio.)
What a tremendous high school teacher he must have been!
Then again, the job description for being a sultan was pretty basic: be born male into the Osmanli dynasty, maintain some degree of sanity while imprisoned for your entire life in the "Cage" within the harem, and escape being strangled by your brothers or father or even your mother, in the case of Roxelana's son Prince Mustafa, heir apparent to Suleyman the Magnificent. One vizier who was not torn to pieces and thrown in the Bosphorus by enraged Janissaries gave this sterling advice: "Never heed the advice of a woman, never allow one of your subjects to become too rich, always keep the treasury well-filled, always be on horseback, and keep the army constantly on the march."
Freely's rendering of five hundred years of rulers of the Ottoman Empire is wry and literate. I now walk around Istanbul with a greater understanding of why, for example, a four hundred year old structure can be called the "New Mosque." Unfortunately, it became difficult to differentiate between the twenty three generations by the end, but that might have been the point: the abuses of inherited, absolute power are distinguishable only in the details, not in their unalloyed destructiveness.
Freely is a marvelous guide through this legend-laden history. (It is true that one sultan valide, Kosem, battled four men and initially survived strangulation. It is not true, however, that a distant relative of a French king was kidnapped into the seraglio.)
What a tremendous high school teacher he must have been!
August 26, 2025
I have read a number of books by John Freely and enjoyed them immensely. I can't help find Freely himself fascinating as a type of academic and author which we will never see again:
"John Freely was born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrant parents, and spent half of his early childhood in Ireland. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 to join the U. S. Navy, serving for two years, including combat duty with a commando unit in the Pacific, India, Burma and China during the last year of World War II. After the war, he went to college on the G. I. Bill and eventually received a Ph.D. in physics from New York University, followed by a year of post-doctoral study at Oxford in the history of science. He worked as a research physicist for nine years, including five years at Princeton University. In 1960 he went to İstanbul to teach physics at the Robert College, now the Boğaziçi University, and taught there until 1976. He then went on to teach and write in Athens (1976-79), Boston (1979-87), London (1987-88), İstanbul (1988-91) and Venice (1991-93). In 1993 he returned to Boğaziçi University, where he taught a course on the history of science. His first book, co-authored by the late Hilary Sumner-Boyd, was Strolling Through İstanbul (1972). Since then he has published more than forty books."
How our world has changed but Freely wrote brilliant, intelligent and vastly readable books. That I am passionately interested in the Ottoman empire perhaps explains my enthusiasm. It has been awhile since I read this book but I have no hesitation in recommending it or awarding four stars. I expect if I read it again that ratin g might be higher.
"John Freely was born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrant parents, and spent half of his early childhood in Ireland. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 to join the U. S. Navy, serving for two years, including combat duty with a commando unit in the Pacific, India, Burma and China during the last year of World War II. After the war, he went to college on the G. I. Bill and eventually received a Ph.D. in physics from New York University, followed by a year of post-doctoral study at Oxford in the history of science. He worked as a research physicist for nine years, including five years at Princeton University. In 1960 he went to İstanbul to teach physics at the Robert College, now the Boğaziçi University, and taught there until 1976. He then went on to teach and write in Athens (1976-79), Boston (1979-87), London (1987-88), İstanbul (1988-91) and Venice (1991-93). In 1993 he returned to Boğaziçi University, where he taught a course on the history of science. His first book, co-authored by the late Hilary Sumner-Boyd, was Strolling Through İstanbul (1972). Since then he has published more than forty books."
How our world has changed but Freely wrote brilliant, intelligent and vastly readable books. That I am passionately interested in the Ottoman empire perhaps explains my enthusiasm. It has been awhile since I read this book but I have no hesitation in recommending it or awarding four stars. I expect if I read it again that ratin g might be higher.
March 31, 2009
Interesting history of the Ottoman empire written from the perspective of the private lives of the sultans.
This is not a conventional history in that someone who reads this book will not learn anything about the Ottomans' near constant war against the Christian West in the Balkans or the changes in technology that turned the Ottomans into the sick man of Europe.
Instead what you get is a recounting of how the sultans lived, first as warriors of Islam, then as secluded ruling figures, then as figureheads.
The abiding impression one gets is how quickly the decline from powerful leader to powerless figurehead came.
This is not a conventional history in that someone who reads this book will not learn anything about the Ottomans' near constant war against the Christian West in the Balkans or the changes in technology that turned the Ottomans into the sick man of Europe.
Instead what you get is a recounting of how the sultans lived, first as warriors of Islam, then as secluded ruling figures, then as figureheads.
The abiding impression one gets is how quickly the decline from powerful leader to powerless figurehead came.
May 2, 2019
I have translated this book from English into Urdu for Nigarshat Publishers, Lahore, Pakistan. The title of Urdu translation is Haram Sara حَرَم سَرا.
March 6, 2018
Kitap adiyla paralel olarak topkapi sarayindan itibaren saraylari odagina olarak hanedanligin hikayesini anlatiyor. Dikkat cekici olan 19. yy'a kadar topkapi sarayi ile yetinen imparatorlugun maddi ve manevi en kötü durumda oldugu 19. yyda arka arkaya ciragan, yildiz, beylerbeyi, dolmabahce saraylarini yaptirmasi. kasirlara ve yazliklara deginmiyorum bile.
john freely tarihe hakim iyi bir yazar ve kaynakcasi da oldukca zengin. Kitabin bana gore en iyi tarafi venedik, fransiz, ingiliz kaynaklarini da kullanmasi ki aralarinda el yazmalari bile varmis. Gel gelelim sadece saray ve istanbul ekseninde kaldigi icin tek boyutlu bir tarih kitabi olmus. Uluslararasi gelismeler, savaslar, diplomasi neredeyse hic yok. dolayisiyla konjonktürü okumak mümkün degil.
osmanli torunu, osmanli ecdadi gibi unvanlardan hoslananlara bu ve bunun gibi tarih kitaplarini okumalarini tavsiye ederim.
john freely tarihe hakim iyi bir yazar ve kaynakcasi da oldukca zengin. Kitabin bana gore en iyi tarafi venedik, fransiz, ingiliz kaynaklarini da kullanmasi ki aralarinda el yazmalari bile varmis. Gel gelelim sadece saray ve istanbul ekseninde kaldigi icin tek boyutlu bir tarih kitabi olmus. Uluslararasi gelismeler, savaslar, diplomasi neredeyse hic yok. dolayisiyla konjonktürü okumak mümkün degil.
osmanli torunu, osmanli ecdadi gibi unvanlardan hoslananlara bu ve bunun gibi tarih kitaplarini okumalarini tavsiye ederim.
August 20, 2024
Had a fun time reading this. It is however a lot of information very rapid pace which towards the last 80ish or pages resulted in me feeling a it overwhelmed and co fused at times.
The amount of first hand information was great but the middle and early modern English passages that remained untranslated sent my brain for a tail spin and If I dint have prior experience with reading stuff like that I would have been hopelessly co fused. Let alone how difficult a time anyone with any form of reading disorder like dyslexia would have had.
Overall I'd say if you'd read things on the Ottoman empire before this covers a lot of good topics and bits of information, however, this is not a very accessible book for the average reader.
The amount of first hand information was great but the middle and early modern English passages that remained untranslated sent my brain for a tail spin and If I dint have prior experience with reading stuff like that I would have been hopelessly co fused. Let alone how difficult a time anyone with any form of reading disorder like dyslexia would have had.
Overall I'd say if you'd read things on the Ottoman empire before this covers a lot of good topics and bits of information, however, this is not a very accessible book for the average reader.
June 20, 2017
"Prywatne Życie Sułtanów" wbrew pozorom wcale nie jest książką, w której wejdziemy "z butami" do sułtańskiego dworu - jest bardziej podręcznikiem do historii w wersji light. Smaczków, faktów i ciekawostek z życia sułtanów osmańskich nie ma w tej książce aż tak wiele, więc jeśli tego się spodziewaliście, to może Was spotkać niemałe rozczarowanie .... Dla miłośników Bliskiego Wschodu (takich jak ja) książka nada się jako uzupełnienie dotychczasowej wiedzy, ale uwaga ! Jeśli ma być to Wasze pierwsze spotkanie z Osmanami - może lepiej przemyślcie wybór lektury !
June 4, 2017
I struggled through about two thirds of this before giving up... It was repetitious and just not interesting after the first few chapters. The histories were all the same... new sultan, kills his siblings and rivals, gets a harem, breeds multiple times, has an overbering mother who in reality welds the power... sultan dies, rinse & repeat
November 1, 2017
An interesting private history of which I knew too little before-hand. The book might have benefited from some illustrations, though (there are a lot of people and places described, the whole book is based around a specific place, after all, and sometimes it can be nice to see what it actually looked like to get a fuller picture).
November 23, 2022
Good read. Interesting history. Basically sulten installed, gets lots of women, his mother gains lots of pwer, he has lots of children, many die as infants and has all male relatives close to throne either killed or imprisoned. Add some wars, dethronements, and local uprisings every few years. Repeat.
January 6, 2024
A book about the Sultans... Not gonna lie, they make the European aristocracy look "good", which is saying something....
I must confess that i found the Ottoman empire completely aberrant in this book. The use of slaves and extreme practices like castration to such a systematic degree and until the 20th century!! , regimented infanticide, marrying 8 years old princesses.. , the incompetence and madness of the Sultans... When the Sultanate fell i was glad ( not that the people who took power were that great taking into account the Young Turks were the main culprits of the Armenian Genocide)
I must confess that i found the Ottoman empire completely aberrant in this book. The use of slaves and extreme practices like castration to such a systematic degree and until the 20th century!! , regimented infanticide, marrying 8 years old princesses.. , the incompetence and madness of the Sultans... When the Sultanate fell i was glad ( not that the people who took power were that great taking into account the Young Turks were the main culprits of the Armenian Genocide)
September 12, 2021
John Freely Osmanlı tarıhı üzerine pek çok kitabı olan bir araştırmacı bu kitabı hanedana giriş için kısa özet gibi düşünülebilir . Evlilikler, cinayetler, belli başlı olaylarla işlenen bir ön gösteri gibi…
March 9, 2022
Interesting history. There seemed to be a shortage of first names: so many sultans had the same first name. I had difficulties connecting with anyone in the book. Not enough details to bring their lives awake.
June 19, 2024
Really nice insight into the life of the sultans and pashas. I learned the most about them via the quotes from their contemporaries while the rest of the narrative felt a bit removed from the seraglio and private lives. Good nonetheless and a great companion to The Grand Turk
February 6, 2025
Full of details covering every facet of royal life through the rise and fall of the Ottoman Empire from grand occasions like the establishment of ceremonial procedures to minute details like a sultan's favorite books.
December 19, 2024
It was like a story rather than real life. But it is vivid and entertaining.
February 20, 2025
Don't remember anything about this book, must have read it in 2019/2020. It was okay.
January 7, 2008
Fun and relax reading which also fill you with easy to remember information.
January 2, 2012
The writing was uneven but the ghastly story of some of the treatment these sultans doled out and got was fascinating.
March 10, 2016
A must read for the millions who superficially know and indeed (negatively/positively) talk about Ottoman Sultans.
November 24, 2016
Way too many facts, as if I'm reading a lexicon. Many parts are copy-paste out of john freely's other book "Istanbul the imperial city"
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews