Who had the biggest harem in history?

Yes, the late Ottoman empire may still seem like it's stuck in 1400 but the rest of the world had revolvers, railways and cigarettes which probably made their way in

Why?

This image is somewhat of a fantasy. Those women hated each other and would plot each other's and their son's murders to rise in power as the Sultan's favorite or Sultan's mother.

horny bastard(he traditionally wrote an rotic poem in the bible).
Also, political alliances.

An Ottoman court of 1800 probably doesn't look much different than the royal court of 1000 honestly

Harems were still around by the time cigarettes were invented.

Dude, people have been smoking since the invention of fire.

Shah Jahan had 3-5 thousand concubines or so I've seen

Based on the architecture, those are Moroccans

That general architectural style spans an area from Morocco to Uzbekistan, you can't really just arbitrarily determine it's from Morocco

Are we talking any one person or an empire of sort?

Any one person: Ghangis Kahn I'm guessing?

Empire: Ottomans hands down.

But cigarettes?

Maybe the cig is a clue that the painting is set more recently than you might at first think...

>Maybe the cig is a clue that the painting is set more recently than you might at first think...
This could have easily been in pre-WW1 MENA desu.

Are you a man?

It looks 15th century to me.

1000 BC People start using the leaves of the tobacco plant for smoking and chewing.
--wiki

confusing Morocco with Turkey is like confusing Russia with Italy of course there's some similarities but there's also so much difference
pic related typical ottoman interior

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Jin
"In 281, Emperor Wu took 5,000 women from Sun Hao's palace into his own, and thereafter became even more concentrated on feasting and enjoying the women, rather than on important matters of state. It was said that there were so many beautiful women in the palace that he did not know whom he should have sexual relations with; he therefore rode on a small cart drawn by goats, and wherever the goats would stop, he would stop there, as well. Because of this, many of the women planted bamboo leaves and salt outside their bedrooms — both items said to be favored by goats."

Tobacco is a new world plant

>ywn have 5,000 qt's compete for your cock
Why even live?

Ya but I can still fuck 'em right?

Likely more than than that. He probably already had some before getting the 5000 from Sun Hao.

That entry was talking about Mayans.

I'm sure it depends on your definition of "harem." If some king reserves the right to rape any woman in his kingdom, does that make it one big "harem?"

You'd have to accommodate them for it to be a harem.

Accommodate them how? If he's an absolute ruler than everyone is effectively his slaves.

A harem is also as much a place and a rule as it is a group of concubines.

>absolutely rulers were invincible
T.knows nothing about history.

If the king owns the state, then he accommodates them.

Indirectly, you could argue so. I'm not sure an owner always pays close attention to making sure every wife of each stinking farmer has a cushion to rest their ravaged arse on after taking the droit du seigneur on a walk.

Don't be that guy

I'm sure the other big names listed here (Solomon, Genghis Khan) watched every one of their hundreds(?) of concubines.

They did in the form of maintaining harem palaces for them, with guards tasked to keep them segregated from other men.

But that's because they were their concubines. That's it. It was their designation, with which certain traditions were followed or established.

This we cannot argue is the case with "an absolute ruler who can fuck everyone he wants" for that is not them determining a harem per say, just doing what they want to parties that will only accede to authority and not designation.

No. The word harem is derived from a clear designation of what is forbidden, as in all the women in a harem are forbidden for any man but the one who owns the harem. A king who reserves the right to have any woman he wants, which was never really a thing, doesn't also have the right to say no other man can't have the women he rapes.

Thus he doesn't have a harem, just victims.

Until one of them decides her son's position as the next Sultan is assured and finds a way to get you killed, yeah. Better make sure those Eunuchs are very well paid or one of them will find a way to make you trip down the stairs.

Genghis Khan had all of Asia, that's pretty big.

Most likely your mother would vet and then present one to you for the night if you ever found the time between war and politics.

You have that backwards.

>The Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire occupied one of the large sections of the private apartments of the sultan at the Topkapi Palace which encompassed more than 400 rooms.
>After 1853, an equally lavish harem quarter was occupied at the new imperial palace at Dolmabahçe.

>Ismail ibn Sharif holds the distinction of fathering probably the maximum number of children in history – not surprisingly he also had one of the largest harems, housing more than five hundred concubines2. The Moroccan ruler was second in line of the Moroccan Alaouite dynasty and reigned from 1672 to 1727.

>The distinction for owning the largest harem in history could well belong to 6th century BCE King Tamba of Banaras. It is believed that his harem included some sixteen thousand inmates and was presided over by the chief queen Sussondi.

>The 15-century Sultan Ghiyas-ud-Din Kilji's harem numbered fifteen thousand4 and required him to build a separate walled city to house them.

>During the 1800s, King Mongkut of Siam housed his nine thousand women5 in a totally contained city with its own government, recreational facilities, and a theater. The 19th-century ruler was eventually featured in the autobiographical book Anna and the King of Siam, which became the inspiration behind the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I and a later film version, titled Anna and the King.

>One of the most feared warriors of all times, Genghis Khan is best known for founding the Mongol Empire which after his death became the large contiguous empire in history.
>Apparently the inmates of his harem numbered anything between two to three thousand6. The myth is now borne out by science as well since after analyzing tissue samples in populations bordering Mongolia, scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences believe the brutal ruler has 16 million male descendants living today which is nearly 8% of the population of Central Asia7.

>inmates

Yeah, sounds like a comfier life than 99.9% of the world at the time.