Concubinage in Islam in the context of History of concubinage in the Muslim world

A harem (Arabic: حَرِيمٌ, romanized: ḥarīm, lit. 'a sacred inviolable place; female members of the family') is a domestic space that is 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 sons, unmarried daughters, female domestic servants, and other unmarried female relatives. In the past, during the era of slavery in the Muslim world, harems also housed enslaved concubines. In former times, some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygyny have 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 (Persian: اندرونی, lit. 'inside'), and in the Indian subcontinent as zenana (Urdu: زنانہ).

Although the institution has experienced a sharp decline in the modern era due to a rise in education and economic opportunities for women, as well as the influence of Western culture, the seclusion of women is still practiced in some parts of the world, such as rural Afghanistan and conservative states of the Persian Gulf.

Nilüfer Hatun (Ottoman Turkish: نیلوفر خاتون, called also Lülüfer Hatun or Ülüfer Hatun, died c.1363), was a concubine of Orhan, the second Ottoman sultan, and the mother of Murad I, Orhan's successor. She was the first slave of Christian origin to become the mother of an Ottoman Sultan.

In the Islamic world, the title of umm al-walad (Arabic: أم الولد, lit. 'mother of the child') was given to a slave-concubine who had given birth to a child acknowledged by her master as his. These women were regarded as property and could be sold by their owners, a practice that was permitted at the time under regulations from Prophet Muhammad.

After Muhammad’s death, Umar authorized a policy during his time as a caliph, that prohibited owners from selling or gifting their umm al-walads, and upon their owners deaths, they would be granted freedom. Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, initially concurred with Umar's decision. However, after Umar's death and the death of Uthman, who maintained the policy, Ali reversed it in the later period of his caliphate, declaring that umm al-walad was still sellable despite having given birth to the owner's child.

The Sultanate of Women (Ottoman Turkish: قادينلر سلطنتى, romanized: Kadınlar Saltanatı) was a period when some concubines, mothers, sisters and grandmothers of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire exerted political influence.

This phenomenon took place from roughly 1534 to 1715, beginning in the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent with the rise of Hürrem Sultan and ending with the death of Gülnuş Sultan. These women were either the concubines of the sultan, referred to as haseki sultans, or the mothers of the sultan, known as valide sultans. All of them were of slave origin, as was expected during the sultanate, since the traditional idea of marriage was considered inappropriate for the sultan, who was not expected to have any personal allegiances beyond his governmental role; however, Hürrem Sultan managed to become the legal wife of Suleiman, and Nurbanu Sultan, Safiye Sultan, and Kösem Sultan might have also married their respective sultans.