Harem wall painting fragments

Location: Samarra, Iraq
Culture: Ancient Middle East
Period: 9th century AD
Material: Paint and Stone

The two figures, displayed on these wall painting fragments, are probably slave girls from the harem of Caliph al-Muasim in Samarra. Although simply drawn, they have a distinct personality and conjure up images of the Arabian Nights stories, some of which were set in Samarra. The women of the palace were not just wives and concubines but were also poets and musicians. Harem girls were often highly trained in singing, music and literature and it was potentially an attractive career for a woman of humble origins.

What happened to Samarra?

Samarra was built as the new capital of the Islamic Empire in AD 836 and, at the time, was one of the largest cities in the world. Samarra was created to house the Caliph's court and army of Turkish slavesoldiers, after they increasingly came into conflict with the inhabitants of Baghdad. In AD 861, after the Turkish commanders assassinated the Caliph al-Mutawakkil, Samarra was abandoned. Samarra's decline mirrors that of the Islamic Empire, which became increasingly fragmented from AD 800 onwards.

• The narrator of the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade, is a female story-teller, perhaps like the figures in the paintings.

By Amira Bennison, Senior lecturer in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge

Slave girls could come from any part of the world. In Islam you are not technically allowed to enslave Muslims, so most of these girls come from border territories – from central Asia, from Ethiopia, from the Basque Country in Northern Spain. And they were actually brought first of all to training centres, one of the most important being the city of Medina in Arabia which was renowned in the Abbasid period as a place where girls could learn to play musical instruments like the Oud (the lute) and also learn poetry and dance.

It was only after they had been trained that they were purchased and brought into other households. Not only the Abbasid Royal households in Samarra but also royal households in Cairo and in Cordoba in Islamic Spain.

The freedom of slave girls was often slightly greater than that of free women in the sense that they did not have the same reputation to protect as free born women. To become part of the Caliph’s household (perhaps household is a better word than harem) was actually something women could aspire to and if you were of humble origins but you were good at singing or dancing and you got properly trained then this was a real career move.