Ahammam (Arabic:حمّام,romanized: ḥammām), also often called aTurkish bath by Westerners,[1] is a type ofsteam bath or a place ofpublic bathing associated with theIslamic world. It is a prominent feature in theculture of the Muslim world and was inherited from the model of theRomanthermae.[2][3][4] Muslim bathhouses or hammams were historically found across theMiddle East,North Africa,al-Andalus (IslamicIberia, i.e.Spain andPortugal),Central Asia, theIndian subcontinent, and inSoutheastern Europe (notablyBalkans andHungary) underOttoman rule.
In Islamic cultures the significance of the hammam was both religious and civic: it provided for the needs ofritual ablutions but also provided for generalhygiene in an era before private plumbing and served other social functions such as offering a gendered meeting place for men and for women.[2][3][5]Archeological remains attest to the existence of bathhouses in the Islamic world as early as theUmayyad period (7th–8th centuries) and their importance has persisted up to modern times.[5][2] Their architecture evolved from the layout of Roman andGreek bathhouses and featured a regular sequence of rooms: anundressing room, acold room, awarm room, and ahot room. Heat was produced byfurnaces which provided hot water andsteam, while smoke and hot air was channeled throughconduits under the floor.[3][5][4]
In a modern hammam visitors undress themselves, while retaining some sort of modesty garment orloincloth, and proceed into progressively hotter rooms, inducingperspiration. They are then usually washed by male or female staff (matching the gender of the visitor) with the use ofsoap and vigorous rubbing, before ending by washing themselves in warm water.[5] Unlike in Roman or Greek baths, bathers usually wash themselves with running water instead of immersing themselves in standing water since this is a requirement of Islam,[3] though immersion in a pool used to be customary in the hammams of some regions such asIran.[6] While hammams everywhere generally operate in fairly similar ways, there are some regional differences both in usage and architecture.[5]
The word "hammam" (حَمَّام) is a noun meaning "bath", "bathroom", "bathhouse", "swimming pool", etc. derived from theArabictriconsonantal root H-M-M (ح م م) which yields meanings related to heat or heating.[7][8][9] From Arabicحمّام, it passed on toPersian (حمام) andTurkish (hamam).[2][10]
In English, hammams are also called "Turkish baths" because in the past, Western writers often called all Muslims "Turks" and because they presented hammams largely as an Ottoman cultural feature.[11] The first recorded use of the term 'Turkish bath' in English was in 1644.[12]
Public bathhouses were a prominent civic and urban institution in Roman andHellenistic culture and were found throughout theMediterranean world. They remained important in the cities of the earlyByzantine Empire up to around the mid-6th century, after which the construction of new bathhouses declined and existing ones were gradually abandoned.[13][14][15]
Following theexpansion of Arab Muslim rule over much of the Middle East and North Africa in the 7th and 8th centuries, theemerging Islamic societies were quick to adapt the bathhouse to their own needs. Its importance to Muslim society lay in the religious requirement to perform ablutions (wudu andghusl) before praying and because of the general Islamic emphasis onphysical and spiritual purity,[2][5] although the scholar Mohammed Hocine Benkheira has argued that hammams were not in fact necessary for religious purposes in early Islam and that this relationship was partly assumed by later historians.[16] He suggests that the hammam's initial appeal derived at least in part from its convenience for other services (such asshaving), from its endorsement by someMuslim doctors as a form of therapy, and from the continued popular appreciation of its pleasures in a region where they had already existed for centuries.[16] He also notes that there was initially strong opposition from manyIslamic scholars (ulama), especiallyMaliki scholars, to the use of hammams.[16][17] These scholars viewed hammams as unnecessary for full-body ablutions (ghusl) and questioned whether public bathing spaces could be sufficiently clean to achieve properpurification. They also worried that spaces for collective bathing could become spaces for illicit sexual activity. Nevertheless, this opposition progressively faded and by the 9th century most scholars were no longer interested in debating the validity of hammams, although it continued to be seen with suspicion in some conservative circles.[16]
The earliest known Islamic hammams were built inSyria andJordan during theUmayyad Caliphate (661–750) as part of palaces anddesert castles atQusayr 'Amra,Hammam al-Sarah,Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, andKhirbat al-Majfar.[2][4][5] Shortly after this period, archaeology reveals the existence of Islamic bathhouses across much of the Muslim world, with hammams appearing as far west asVolubilis (itself a former Roman colony) inMorocco during theIdrisid period (late 8th to early 9th centuries).[18] Historical texts and archeological evidence also indicate the existence of hammams inCordoba and other cities ofal-Andalus in the 8th century.[17] InIran, which did not previously have a strong culture of public bathing, historical texts mention the existence of bathhouses in the 10th century as well as the use ofhot springs for therapeutic purposes; however, there has been relatively little archeological investigation to document the early presence and development of hammams in this region.[19]
Muslims retained many of the main elements of the classical bathhouses while leaving out functions which were less relevant to their practices. For example, the progression fromcold room tohot room was maintained, but it was no longer common practice to take a plunge in cold water after leaving the hot room, nor was exercise incorporated into bathing culture as it was in classicalgymnasiums.[18][2] Likewise, Muslim bathers usually washed themselves in running water rather than immersing themselves in standing water.[3] Although in early Islamic history women did not normally patronise hammams, by around the 10th century many places started to provide separate hours (or separate facilities) for men and women.[2] The hammam then took on an important role in women's social life as one of the few public spaces where they could gather and socialise apart from men.[16][20] Some hammams were privately owned or formed parts of palaces and mansions, but in many cases they were civic or charitable institutions which formed part of larger religious/civic complexes. Such complexes were governed bywaqf agreements, and hammams often acted as a source of revenue for the upkeep of other institutions such as mosques.[5][21]
In the 11th century theSeljuk Empire conquered much ofAnatolia from theByzantine Empire, eventually leading to the complete conquest of the remnants of the old empire in the 15th century. During those centuries of war, peace, alliance, trade and competition, these intermixing cultures (Eastern Roman, Islamic Persian andTurkic) had tremendous influence on each other.
Later theOttomans became prolific patrons of hammams. Since they were social centres as well as baths, they were built in almost every city across their European, Asian, and African territories. The Ottomans were thus responsible for introducing hammams to much of eastern and central Europe, where many still exist today in various states of restoration or disrepair. Such Turkish baths are found as far asBosnia and Herzegovina,Greece, andHungary.[22][23][24] Many early Ottoman hammams survive inBursa andEdirne, as well as in Eastern Europe andAnatolia, but hammams became even more numerous and architecturally ambitious inConstantinople (Istanbul), thanks to its royal patronage, its large population and its access to plentiful water.[25] The city'sGreek inhabitants had retained a strong Eastern Roman bath culture, with theBaths of Zeuxippus constituting one early example.[26] Ottoman architects expanded on the experience ofByzantine architects to create particularly well-balanced designs with greater symmetry and regularity in the arrangement of space than could be seen in hammams in other parts of the Muslim world.[5] Some of the city's oldest monumental hammams are theTahtakale Hamam (probably built right after 1454), theMahmut Pasha Hamam (built in 1466), and theBayezid II Hamam (built some time between 1500 and 1507).[22] The monumental hammams designed by the 16th-century Ottoman architectMimar Sinan (1489–1588), such as theÇemberlitaş Hamamı, theSüleymaniye Hamam (in the complex of theSüleymaniye Mosque), and theHaseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam, are major examples of hammams that were built later in the era of classicalOttoman architecture.[22] When SultanMustafa III issued a decree halting the construction of new public baths in the city in 1768, it seems to have resulted in an increase in the number of private hammams among the wealthy and the elites, especially in theBosphorus suburbs where they built luxurious summer homes.[25]
In Iran, many examples of hammams survive from theSafavid period (16th–18th centuries) onward, with the historic city ofIsfahan in particular containing many examples.[21] The spread of Muslim rule in theIndian subcontinent also introduced hammams to this region, with many examples surviving inMughalarchitecture (16th–19th centuries).[27]
Hammams continued to be a vital part of urban life in the Muslim world until the early 20th century when the spread ofindoor plumbing in private homes rendered public baths unnecessary for personal hygiene.[2] This has resulted in a decline in their use – although to varying degrees depending on regional cultural practices. In many regions hammams have been abandoned, demolished or converted to serve as commercial buildings or cultural venues. Some have been converted into museums orart galleries, as with the examples of theBayezid II Hamam inIstanbul, which now houses a hammam museum, and theDavud Pasha (or Daut Pasha) Hamam inSkopje,North Macedonia.[28]
In Turkey many historic hammams continue to operate either for locals or for tourists; in some cases this has led to neglected historic hammams such as theKılıç Ali Pasa Hamamı and theHürrem Sultan Hamamı being renovated and returned to their original function, while others were abandoned or repurposed.[29][30][28] In Morocco, many hammams continue to serve locals in historic cities such asFes andMarrakesh, where they are especially useful to the urban poor residing in the old cities (medinas).[18][3][31] In many other regions, however, hammams have become obsolete and have either been abandoned or converted to other uses. In Iran, some baths continue to operate in the historic districts of cities like Isfahan where they continue to serve religious functions, but there is an overall decline in their numbers. Many surviving Iranian examples have been converted to other uses, most notably as restaurants andteahouses.[21] InDamascus,Syria, only thirteen hammams were still operating in 2004, mostly in the old city; many others had been either demolished or repurposed.[3]Cairo inEgypt contained an estimated 77 operational hammams at the beginning of the 19th century but only eight were still in business by the start of the 21st century, with many others abandoned or neglected.[32] In the former European territories of the Ottoman Empire such asGreece and theBalkans, many hammams became defunct or were neglected in modern times, although some have now been restored and turned into historic monuments or cultural centres.[24][33]
Prayer is one of theFive Pillars of Islam and it is customary to performablutions before praying. The two Islamic forms of ablution areghusl, a full-body cleansing, andwudu, a cleansing of the face, hands, and feet.[34] Mosques always provide a place to wash, but hammams are often located nearby for deeper cleansing.[3] Many are actually part of mosque complexes.
Hammams, particularly in Morocco, evolved from their Roman origins to meet the needs of ritual purification according to Islam. For example, in most Roman-style hammams, there was a cold pool for submersion of the body, a style of bathing that finds less favour with Islam which regards bathing under running water without being fully submerged more appropriate.[3]
Al-Ghazali, a prominent Muslim theologian of the 11th century, wroteRevival of the Religious Sciences, a multi-volume work discussing the appropriate forms of conduct for many aspects of Muslim life and death. One of the volumes, entitledThe Mysteries of Purity, details the proper technique for performing ablutions before prayer and the major ablution (ghusil) after anything which renders it necessary, such as the emission of semen.[35] For al-Ghazali, the hammam is a primarily male institution, and he cautions that women should only enter a hammam after childbirth or illness. However, even al-Ghazali thought it admissible for men to prohibit their wives or sisters from using the hammam. For al-Ghazali the main point of contention surrounding hammams was nakedness, and he warned that overt nakedness was to be avoided ("… he should shield it from the sight of others and second, guard against the touch of others.")[36] His writing focused especially on the need to avoid touching the penis during bathing and after urination, and wrote that nakedness was decent only when the area between a man's knees and lower stomach was hidden. For women he suggested that only exposure of the face and palms was appropriate. According to al-Ghazali, nakedness in the hammam could incite indecent thoughts and behaviours, hence its controversial nature.[37]
In Islam ritual ablution is also required before or after sexual intercourse.[38] Knowing that,May Telmissany, a professor at theUniversity of Ottawa, argues that the image of a hyper-sexualised woman leaving the hammam is anOrientalist way of looking at things that sees leaving or attending the hammam as an indicator of sexual behaviour.[32][39]
Most hammams expect their clients to undress down to a modesty garment orloincloth, before proceeding from a cold room to progressively hotter rooms. Men are usually washed by male bath attendants and women by female attendants before they are given a massage. Some details of the process vary from region to region, such as the presence or absence of pools where visitors can immerse themselves in water.[5] In more conservative areas women are less likely to bathe in just their underwear while in areas where hammams have become the preserve mainly of tourists there is more likelihood that women will bathe naked. Some hammam complexes contain separate sections for men and women; elsewhere men and women are admitted at different times in which case the hours for women are usually far more limited than those for men.
Traditionally hammams, especially those for women, doubled as places of entertainment with dancing and food being shared. It was common to visit hammams before weddings or religious holidays, to celebrate births, to swap beauty tips, etc. Women also used visits to the hammam to size up potential wives for their sons.[citation needed]
Some accessories from Roman times survive in modern hammams, such as thepeştemal (a special cloth of silk and/or cotton to cover the body, like apareo) and thekese (a rough mitten used for scrubbing). However, other accoutrements of the hammam experience such as jewel boxes, gilded soap boxes, mirrors, metalhenna bowls, perfume bottles andnalın (wooden or mother-of-pearlclogs that prevented slipping on the wet floor) can now only be seen in museums.[citation needed]
Traditionally, the bathhouse masseurs (Turkish:tellak) were young men who soaped and scrubbed their clients. However, thetellaks were replaced by adult attendants during the 20th century.[40]
A massage in a hammam is likely to involve not just vigorous muscle kneading, but alsojoint cracking—"not so much a tender working of the flesh as a pummelling, a cracking of joints, a twisting of limbs".[41][42] Hammams aiming for a tourist clientele are likely to also offer an array of different types of massage similar to what might be offered in a spa.
Arab hammams are gendered spaces where being a woman or a man can make someone included or excluded. Therefore, they represent a departure from the public sphere in which one is physically exposed amongst other women or men. This declaration of sexuality merely by being nude makes hammams a site of gendered expression. One exception to this gender segregation is the presence of young boys who often accompany their mothers until they reach the age of five or six when they switch to attending the male hammam with their fathers.[43][38]
Women's hammams play a special role in society. Valerie Staats finds that the women's hammams of Morocco serve as a social space where traditional and modern women from urban and rural areas of the country come together, regardless of their religiosity, to bathe and socialise.[44] The bathing regulations laid down by al-Ghazali and other Islamic intellectuals are not usually upheld in the everyday interactions of Moroccans in the hammam. Staats argues that hammams are places where women can feel more at ease than in many other public interactions.[45] In addition, in his workSexuality in Islam,Abdelwahab Bouhdiba cites the hammam as a place where homosexual encounters in general can take place.[46][47] He notes that some historians found evidence of hammams as spaces for sexual expression among women, which they believed was a result of the universality of nudity in these spaces.[46] Hammams have also been associated with male homosexuality over the centuries and up to the present day.[46][48]: 14 [49]
The hammam combines the functionality and structural elements of theRomanthermae with the Islamic tradition of steam bathing, ritual cleansing and respect for water.[50] Islamic bathhouses were often constructed as a part ofmosque complexes which acted as both community centres and places of worship.[5]
Although there were variations across different regions and periods, the general plan and architectural principles of hammams were very similar. They consisted of a sequence of rooms which bathers visited in the same order: the changing room or undressing room (corresponding to the Romanapodyterium), the cold room (like the Romanfrigidarium), the warm room (like thetepidarium), and the hot room (like thecaldarium). The nomenclature for these different rooms varied from region to region. The changing room was known generally asal-mashlaḥ oral-maslakh inArabic, or by local vernacular terms likegoulsa inFez (Morocco) andmaḥras inTunisia, whereas it was known as thecamekân inTurkish and thesarbineh inPersian. The cold room was known as thebayt al-barid inal-Andalus,el-barrani in Fez,bayt awwal inCairo, andsoğukluk in Turkish. The warm room or intermediate room was known asbayt al-wastani in al-Andalus and many other regions, asel-wasti in Fez, asbīt əs-skhūn inTunis, and asılıklık in Turkish. The hot room was called thebayt al-sakhun in al-Andalus,ad-dakhli in Fez,harara in Cairo,garmkhaneh in Persian, andhararet orsıcaklık in Turkish.[5][2][51][3][18][29]
The main chambers of the hammam were usually covered with vaulted or domed ceilings, giving them a distinctive profile. The domes and vaults of the steam rooms (especially the hot room) were usually pierced with small holes orskylights which provided natural light during the day while allowing excess steam to escape.[2][5] The ceiling and walls were clad with steam-proof materials such as varnishedplaster or (for the lower walls and floors)marble.[5] The vestibule, or changing room, was often one of the most highly decorated chambers, featuring a central fountain surrounded by benches.[19][5] In Ottoman baths, the main changing room often offered multi-level wooden galleries giving access to smaller changing rooms.[22]: 160 Toilets orlatrines were often included in the complex.[3][19]
Most historic hammams made use of some version or derivation of the Romanhypocaust underfloor system for heating.[2][3] A furnace or set of furnaces were located in a service room behind the walls of the hot room and set at a lower level than the steam rooms. The furnaces were used to heat water (usually in a largecauldron above them) which was then delivered to the steam rooms. At the same time, hot air and smoke from the furnaces was channeled through pipes or conduits under the floor of the steam rooms, thus heating the rooms, before rising through the walls and out the chimneys. As hot water was constantly needed, they were kept burning throughout the hours of operation. Although wood was continuously needed for fuel, some hammams, such as those in Morocco, Turkey andDamascus, also made use of recycled organic materials from other industries such as wood shavings fromcarpenters' workshops andolive pits from theolive presses.[3]
Some hammams were "double" hammams, having separate facilities for women and men.[2] Several of Istanbul's larger hammams were like this, including theBayezid II Hamam and theHaseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam.[22][29] Unusually for Morocco, theHammam as-Saffarin inFes is another example.[18]
Regional variations in hammam architecture usually relate to the relative proportions of each room or the absence of one type of room. In theMaghreb, and especially in al-Andalus, the largest and most important steam room was typically the warm room (al-wastani). TheArab Baths of Jaén is one of the more extreme examples of this since the warm room is as large as both the cold and hot rooms combined, possibly because it was also used forbody massages and other services.[17] The changing room was also fairly large and was typically the only space to feature any significant architectural decoration.[4]
.jpg)
![Room at the Baños del Almirante, a historic Andalusi bathhouse in Valencia, Spain (c. 1320)[citation needed]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSala_t%25C3%25A8bia_dels_banys_de_l%2527Almirall_de_Val%25C3%25A8ncia.JPG)
_(51210944632).jpg)
In Ottoman baths the cold room is often either omitted completely or combined with the changing room (known as thecamekân orsoyunmalık).[22]: 160 [52][29] This room is often the largest domed chamber in the complex, with the dome supported onsquinches, "Turkish triangles", or decorativemuqarnas. It usually features a central fountain (şadırvan) and is ringed with wooden galleries and is used as a place to relax, drinktea,coffee, orsherbet, and socialise before and after bathing.[22]: 160–161 In contrast with hammams in al-Andalus or the Maghreb, the warm room (ılıklık) was de-emphasised architecturally and was sometimes little more than a transition space between the cold and hot rooms.[29]: 27
The hot room (hararet orsıcaklık) was usually the focus of the richest architectural embellishments.[22]: 161 Its layout typically consisted of a central domed space flanked by up to four iwans to form acruciform layout.[22]: 161 [52] The corners between these iwans are often occupied by smaller domed chambers, orhalvets, which were used for private bathing.[52][22]: 161 The center was usually occupied by a large heated marble table (göbektaşı or navel stone) for customers to lie on.
![Küçük Mustafa Paşa Hamam in Istanbul (c. 1477)[53]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=https%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aMustafa_Pasha_Hamam_DSCF9319.jpg)
In Iran a shared pool or basin of hot water is commonly present in the middle of the hot room where bathers could immerse themselves, a feature which was rare or absent in the hamams of other regions (except Egypt).[19][6][2] Iranian hammam architecture was also characterised by the polyhedral shape of its rooms (sometimes rectangular but often octagonal or hexagonal), which were covered by a dome with a central skylight. The Iranian hot room (garmkhaneh) was in some cases divided into several rooms: a large main one with a central pool (chal howz) and smaller ones for individual ablutions or which could be used as private rooms for special guests.[21]
.jpg)
Jordan contains several hammams from the Umayyad era (7th to 8th centuries), making them the oldest known examples of Islamic bathhouses. Many of these are attached to the so-called "desert castles", includingQusayr 'Amra,Hammam al-Sarah, andQasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi.[2][4][5] Qusayr 'Amra is particularly notable for the frescoes in late Roman style that decorate the chambers, presenting a highly important example of Islamic art in its early historical stages.[54]
Although the traditions of the hammams eventually disappeared in the centuries after theend of Muslim rule on theIberian Peninsula in 1492, many historic hammam structures have nonetheless been preserved to varying degrees across many cities, especially inSpain. Many of them are now archeological sites or open to tourists as historical attractions. These hammams are partly distinguished from others by their larger and more monumental warm rooms (bayt al-wastani) and changing rooms (bayt al-maslaj), a feature also shared with some Moroccan hammams.[17][55]
An early example (partially destroyed now) were the 10th-centuryCaliphal Baths which were attached to theUmayyad royal palace ofCordoba (later turned into theChristian Alcazar) and later expanded by the Almohads (12th to early 13th centuries).[56] Other notable examples of preserved Andalusian baths include theBañuelo ofGranada, the Arab Baths ofRonda, theArab Baths of Jaén, and the baths in theAlcazar ofJerez de la Frontera. TheAlhambra of Granada also contains two preserved bathhouses: a small one near its main mosque, and a much more lavish one attached to theComares Palace.[57][55][17] In 2020 a well-preserved 12th-century Almohad-period bathhouse, complete with painted geometric decoration, was discovered during renovations of a localtapas bar inSeville, near theGiralda tower.[58]
The ruins of the oldest known Islamic hammam in Morocco, dating back to the late 8th century, can be found inVolubilis.[18] Many historic hammams have been preserved in cities such asMarrakesh[31] and especiallyFes, partly because they continue to be used by locals.[3][18] Among the best known examples is the 14th-centurySaffarin Hammam in Fes, which has been restored and rehabilitated.[3][59][60][18] Moroccan hammams were typically smaller than Roman or Byzantine baths. They are often close to mosques to facilitate the performance of ablutions. Because of their private nature, their entrances are often discreet and their façades are typically windowless. Vestiges of the Roman bathing style can be seen in the three-room layout, which was widespread during the Roman/Byzantine period.
It is sometimes difficult to identify hammams from the outside but the roof has a series of characteristic domes that indicate the different chambers.[61] They often occupy irregularly shaped plots to fit into the dense urban fabric. They are significant sites of culture and socialisation as they are integrated into city life in proximity to mosques,madrasas (schools) andsouqs (markets). Magda Sibley, an expert on Islamic public baths, wrote that many specialists in Islamic architecture and urbanism found the hammams to be second in importance only to the mosques as the most significant buildings in Islamicmedinas (historic cities).[61]
The architecture of historic hammams in Algeria can be divided roughly two types: those with linear floor plans, influenced by Andalusi architecture (mostly up to the 15th century), and those with a centralized floor plan, influenced by Ottoman architecture (mostly from the 16th century onward).[62] The oldest known Islamic baths in Algeria are those uncovered by archeologists, including one inTahert from theRustamid period (8th–9th centuries), one near the mosque of Agadir (part of present-dayTlemcen), and one at the 10th-centuryZirid palace of'Ashir. A more significant example has also been found in the Qasr al-Bahr palace atQal'at Bani Hammad, theHammadid capital, likely dating from the 11th to mid-12th century.[62]
Several medieval hammams also survive in and around Tlemcen today, including the Hammam al-Sabbaghin (late 11th or 12th century), the Hammam al-Bali in nearbyNedroma (12th century), and the Hammam Sidi Bu Madyan which, along with the baths of the ruinedDar al-Sultan nearby, belonged to the 14th centurycomplex of Sidi Bu Madyan.[62] The first two examples have a floor plan arranged around twoorthogonal axes and a large central warm room occupying the center, while those of the Sidi Bu Madyan complex are of the linear type planned around one main axis.[62]
InAlgiers, a large number of hammams were built during theOttoman regency period (16th to early 19th centuries). A study by Nabila Chérif, published in 2009, identified nine hammam buildings that are still preserved or partly preserved in the city. The best-preserved ones are Hammam Sidi Ramdan (pre-Ottoman, possibly from the 10th or 11th centuries), Hammam Basha Sidna (circa 1550), Hammam Sirkadji (mid-17th century), Hammam al-Fitwa (mid-17th century), and Hammam Sidi 'Abd Allah (late 18th century).[62] Apart from the older Hammam Sidi Ramdan, most of these are organized into two main sections: the cold section, which included the changing room and provided a place to rest after bathing, and the warm section, which included the heated warm and hot rooms. The hot room is generally much larger than the warm room and is centrally-planned, consisting of a square room covered by a dome, with a platform for massages in the center and various private alcoves around the edges.[62]
A legend claims thatDamascus once had 365 hammams, one for each day of the year. For centuries, these hammams formed an integral part of community life and some 50 of those in Damascus survived until the 1950s. However, by 2012, as a result of modernisation and the installation of home bathrooms, fewer than twenty Damascene hammams were still working.[63]
According to many historians,Aleppo was home to 177 medieval hammams before the Mongol invasion when many of the city's vital structures were destroyed. Until 1970, around forty hammams were still operating. In 2010, before the start of theSyrian War, roughly eighteen hammams still operated in theancient part of the city.[64] Notable examples included:
.jpg)
As in neighbouring regions, bathhouses had existed in Egypt for centuries before thearrival of the Arab Muslims in Egypt in the 7th century.Greek bathhouses were present inAlexandria, a capital ofHellenistic culture, as well as in other cities likeKaranis in theFaiyum.[66] During the subsequent Islamic period, bathhouses continued to be built by Muslim rulers and patrons, sometimes as part of larger religious and civic complexes. Although not many have survived intact to the present day, numerous public baths were built by theFatimids (10th–12th centuries), theAyyubids (12th–13th centuries), theMamluks (13th–16th centuries), and the Ottomans (16th–19th centuries).[67][68] One well-preserved medieval example is the restoredHammam of Sultan Inal, dating from 1456 and located atBayn al-Qasrayn in Cairo.[69] Private hammams were also built as part of palaces, with surviving examples at thePalace of Amir Taz (14th century) and theHarim Palace (19th century), and of local aristocratic mansions such asBayt al-Razzaz (15th–18th centuries) andBayt al-Suhaymi (17th–18th centuries).[69] In many Egyptian hammams a pool of hot water is present in the hot room and used for immersion and bathing,[2] a feature shared with the hammams of Iran.[19]
Today, the cultural practice of visiting hammams has significantly receded in Egypt. Cairo contained an estimated 77 operational hammams at the beginning of the 19th century, but only 33 were operating in 1969 and only eight were still operating at the start of the 21st century, with many others abandoned or neglected.[70][32] Of the few still functioning hammams, many are also in precarious condition and scholars have indicated that they are likely to disappear or stop functioning in the near future.[70] A few hammams, mainly in the neighbourhoods ofHistoric Cairo, have been restored or earmarked for restoration as historic monuments, including the Sultan Inal Hammam, the monumental but ruined hammam of Sultan al-Mu'ayyad (behind theal-Mu'ayyad Mosque), the Hammam al-Gamaliyya (in the Gamaliya neighbourhood), the Hammam al-Sinaniya (inBulaq), and the Hammam al-Sukariya (inDarb al-Ahmar).[70]
Public baths were a feature of life inTurkey in Ancient Greek and Roman times, and theSeljuk Turks continued to build hammams here.[5] The majority of historic hammams, however, survive from the Ottoman period (14th–20th centuries). Many examples of early Ottoman hammams remain, particularly in the early Ottoman capitals ofEdirne andBursa, where many of their early structural and decorative features were established.[22] Many were built in association with particular mosques or religious complexes (külliyes). Notable examples from the pre-1453 period include the Orhan Bey Hamam in Bursa (built around 1339[71]), the Demirtaş Hamam in Bursa (14th century[72]), the Hacı Hamza Hamam inIznik (late 14th or early 15th century[73]), the Çelebi Sultan Mehmet Hamam inMerzifon (1413[74][75]), the Mahkeme Hamam in Bursa (1421[76]), the Gazi Mihal Hamam in Edirne (1422, now partly ruined[77]), theEmir Sultan Hamam in Bursa (1426[78]), the Beylerbeyi Hamam in Edirne (1429, now partly ruined[79]), and the Karacabey Hamam inAnkara (1444[80]).
After theconquest of Constantinople in 1453, Istanbul became a centre of Ottoman architectural patronage. The city's oldest hammams include theTahtakale Hamam (built soon after 1453), theMahmut Pasha Hamam (built in 1466 and part of theMahmut Pasha Mosque complex), the Gedik Ahmet Pasha Hamam (built in 1475), theBayezid II Hamam (built some time between 1500 and 1507), and the Küçük Mustafa Pasha Hamam (built before 1512 near theGül Mosque).[22][29]
Several major hammams in the city were designed by the famous Ottoman architectMimar Sinan in the 16th century. These include theÇinili Hamam (built in 1545 in theZeyrek neighbourhood), theSüleymaniye Hammam (part of theSüleymaniye Mosque complex built in 1550–1557), the Mihrimah Sultan Hamam (part of theMihrimah Sultan Mosque complex built in 1562–1565), the Kılıç Ali Pasha Hamam (part of theKılıç Ali Pasha Complex completed in 1580), as well as a lesser-known but architecturally interesting hammam inOrtaköy.[81][22][29] TheÇemberlitaş Hamam (onDivanyolu Street in theÇemberlitaş neighbourhood), completed in 1584 or earlier, is also attributed to Mimar Sinan.[29] The largest hammam designed by Sinan is theHaseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam which was commissioned bySüleyman I's consort,Hürrem Sultan, and completed in 1556 on the site of the historicalBaths of Zeuxippus for the religious community of the nearbyHagia Sophia.[22][29] Outside Istanbul, Sinan also designed the Sokullu Mehmet Pasha Hamam in Edirne around 1568–1569.[82] Among the hammams built after the 16th century one of the most famous is theCağaloğlu Hamam, finished in 1741 and one of the last major hammams to be built in Istanbul.[29]
Turkey also has a number ofhot springs which have been developed as public baths for centuries. The Eski Kaplıca ("OldThermal Baths") of Bursa, built by SultanMurad I (ruled 1360–1389),[83] and the nearby Yeni ("New") Kaplıca built byRüstem Pasha in 1552,[81] are two of the most notable examples and are still used today. Several older hot-spring baths were also built by theSeljuks in the 13th century and theAkkoyunlu in the late 14th century, some of which are still operating today.[83]
Although far fewer in number than in the past, many Turkish hammams still operate today. With the growth in tourism, some have been restored or modernised recently with differing degrees of historical authenticity.[29][30][28] Other hammam buildings have ceased functioning as public baths but have been repurposed as markets or cultural venues, as for example theTahtakale Hamam in Istanbul which contains shops and cafes, the Hoca Paşa Hamam in Istanbul which is used for performances by whirling dervishes, the Küçük Mustafa Paşa Hamamı in Istanbul which is used for art exhibitions, and the Orhan Bey Hamam in Bursa which is part of the Covered Bazaar.[28][29][84] In some cases hamam buildings have been turned into storage depots or factories, though this has usually led to neglect and damage to their historic fabric.[28]
Hammams have traditionally been important in the lives of Azerbaijanis, and more than seven have been named in Azerbaijan'sList of historical reserves. For centuries, local benefactors would build hammams to serve the needs of the people in their vicinity, often naming them after themselves, a practice still evident as late as the nineteenth century.[85] At the other extreme lies the 15th century hammam within the Palace of the Shirvanshahs built solely for the use of the shah and his family. Discovered during archaeological excavations in 1939, the hammam had twenty-six rooms. The ruins lie withinIcherisheher, theOld City of Baku, historical core of the capital, and a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.[86]
.jpg)
Within the Old City, the building of baths continued over the years. TheYeraltı Hammam is said to have been built in the 17th century and, like others, is located underground, helping to maintain steady temperatures inside.[a] The 18th centuryAgha Mikayil Bath near the fortress gates, is the oldest hammam still open in Baku and is one of the few with women's days. Its four central pillars allow large square bathrooms with pointed arches, covered with a variety of cupolas and domes. Another 19th century bath, the Agha Zeynal Hammam, is atypical in that it is housed in a residential building, although the interior maintains the more traditional layout.[87] In the centre of Baku, the Tazabay Hammam was built in 1886 in Islamic style, though with separate rooms. It was fully 'restored' in 2003 and currently has many additional modern facilities, such as manicure and three saunas, which help to make it popular with tourists while still attracting local residents.[87]
Two other important 19th century hammams are to be found in northwestern Azerbaijan inSheki, where the centre of the city was inscribed in theUNESCO World Heritage List in 2019. The first isDara Bathhouse which has been unusable since the 1980s, but is protected and included in the list of architectural monuments. The bath is 6 metres underground, has pools with hot and cold water, and is lit from above by small holes in the domes which cover it. The second is the Yeraltı Hammam, also known as theUnderground Bath or Abdulsalam Bath. In fact, it is located within the Juma Mosque, and only part of it is 4 metres below ground. The building is no longer used as a hammam.
Public baths have ancient precedents inIndian civilisation. TheGreat Bath located in present-dayPakistan is a notable example dating from the 3rd millennium BC at the archeological site ofMohenjo-daro in theIndus Valley.[88] Islamic hammams were introduced after thespread of Muslim rule in the subcontinent starting mainly with theDelhi Sultanate in the 13th century and continuing through the laterMughal period (16th–19th centuries). Historically, however, public bathhouses in the Indian subcontinent were less common and less important than in other Muslim territories such as the Middle East and North Africa. This was due to the fact that, unlike most cities in those regions, water was readily available across much of India, making hammams less essential for bathing and performingfull ablutions. While there were many elaborate hammams in private palaces and mansions, few Indian hammams were as important as those of Muslim cities further west.[6]
Delhi,Hyderabad andBhopal inIndia still have multiple working Turkish baths, which date back to the Mughal period in the early 16th century.[89][90][91][92][93] Two prominent examples are theHammam-e-Qadimi andHammam-e-Lal Qila.[94]
In Pakistan,Shahi Hammam or the Royal Bathhouse ofLahore, located in the historicWalled City, is one of the best preserved examples of a Mughal-era hammam. It was built in 1634 by the Mughal governor of Lahore, Hakim Ilmuddin Ansari, during the reign of EmperorShah Jahan.[95][96]
_(16864981308).jpg)
Greece once had many historic hammams dating from the Ottoman period, from the late 14th century to the 18th century. Two of the oldest remaining examples are the Gazi Evrenos Hamam inGiannitsa, dating from 1392, and the Oruç Pasha Hammam inDidymoteicho, dating from 1398.[24] Most have been abandoned, demolished or survive in a state of decay, but recently a growing number have been restored and converted to serve new cultural functions as historic sites or exhibitions spaces. A 2004 study by Elena Kanetaki counted 60 remaining hammam buildings on Greek territory.[24]
_01.jpg)
InThessaloniki, formerly a major Ottoman city, theBey Hamam was built in 1444 by SultanMurad II. It is a double bath, for men and women, with notable architectural decoration. The baths remained in use, called the Baths of Paradise, until 1968. They were restored by theGreek Archaeological Service and are now used as a cultural venue.[97][24][98][99] The late 16th-century Yeni Hamam has also been partially restored and now serves as a music venue.[24][100][98] The Pasha Hamam, also known as the Phoenix Baths, was built circa 1520 or 1529 during the reign ofSuleiman the Magnificent and operated until 1981.[24][101][102] It now houses archeological finds from construction work for the Thessaloniki metro.[citation needed]
Elsewhere in Greece, the Abid Efendi Hamam, built between 1430 and 1669 near the Roman Forum inAthens, restored in the 1990s and converted to the Center of Documentation in Body Embellishment.[24] InRhodes, a double bath called the Yeni Hamam dates from the 16th century and was restored in 1992–1995. It is now one of only two Turkish baths still operating as a bathhouse in Greece.[24]
TheOmeriye Baths inNicosia/Lefkosia,Cyprus, date to the 15th century and form part of the larger complex of theÖmeriye Mosque (dedicated to theCaliphOmar). The complex was founded byLala Mustafa Pasha in the 1570s, soon after theOttoman conquest of Cyprus, repurposing the 14th-centuryAugustinian church of St. Mary which was damaged in the Ottoman siege.[103][104] The hamam was restored in 2002–2004 as part of the Lefkosia Master Plan and is still in use today.[105] In 2005 it won aEuropa Nostra award for conservations.[106]
On the Turkish side of the Cypriot border inLefkoşa, theBüyük Hamamı dates from the same period and is still in operation for men and women.[103]
Some significant historic Ottoman hammams have also been preserved inNorth Macedonia. Two of the major examples inSkopje are now part of theNational Gallery of Macedonia: the Daut Pasha Hamam (built in the late 15th century) and theČifte Hammam (mid-15th century).[22][33][107][108]
The city ofPlovdiv, which was the most important city in the area during Ottoman rule, had eight baths in the mid-17th century whenEvliya Çelebi visited.[109] Of these, only two have survived .[110] The best-preserved is the largeChifte Banya or Çifte Hamam (also known as the Ancient Bath), which now serves as an art gallery.[110][111] It was built in the 1460s, probably byIsfandiyaroğlu Ismail Bey, the deposed ruler of theIsfendiyarid Beylik in Anatolia. It is one of the largest preserved Ottoman hammams in the Balkans and its decoration includes somemuqarnas.[112]
Budapest, the'City of Spas', has four Turkish baths, all from the 16th century:Rudas Baths,Király Baths,Rácz Thermal Bath, and Veli bej (Császár) Bath (reopened to the public in December 2012).[113] Currently only Rudas and Veli bej are open to the public, Rácz was closed in 2003 while Király was closed in 2020 for renovations.Eger also has a working hammam, simply called Török Fürdő (Turkish Bath), from the early 17th century.[114]
In Bakhchisarai, by order of the Crimean Khan Sahib I Geray, the Sarı-Güzel hamam was built in 1532.[115][116][117]
Aside from Al-Andalus (the mainly Spanish and Portuguese parts of Europe which were Muslim ruled until 1492) modern Western Europe has no legacy of historic hammams. Nevertheless, derivatively named Hummums existed in London'sCovent Garden in the first half of the 18th century.[118] Sweating and bathing facilities were located there for some part of that period and, at other times, coffee houses, hotels, and houses of ill repute(bagnios) merged with, or replaced them, until a major fire destroyed them in 1768. But there have been no historic hammam structures in London which could have been considered part of the Islamic hammam tradition.
_MADDEN%2c_Richard_Robert_in_Syrian_Costume.jpg)
In the 19th century, readers of books in English were not ignorant of the existence of hammams, and there was no shortage of contemporary accounts describing what they were, and how travellers were fascinated by them. Authors such asRichard Robert Madden (in 1829),[119]Edward William Lane (in 1836),[120] and, in lighter vein,William Makepeace Thackeray (in 1846),[121] had described them in their books, though most were typicallyorientalist in approach. In 1828, an anonymous (and still unknown) author self-publishedStrictures on the personal cleanliness of the English, with a description of the hammams of the Turks, &c.[122] in a limited edition of 250 copies. It was distributed by the radical publisher ofThe Republican,Richard Carlile, who had realised that inStrictures the author was not denigrating the Turks in the manner of orientalist authors; on the contrary, he was positioning them as a people to be emulated, by describing customs which his readers should adopt themselves. The unknown author wrote that he had wanted "to erect baths at the expense of government in different parts of London, after the manner of the Romanthermæ, publicly endowed like hospitals for the use of the people," and that in 1818 he had unsuccessfully tried to interest George III in his project.
.jpg)
In 1850, David Urquhart's travel book,The Pillars of Hercules, was published.[123] This recounted his travels in Morocco and Spain in 1848. Two chapters described the hammams of Morocco and Turkey in considerable detail, and Urquhart became an advocate of what were then known in the English-speaking world as "Turkish baths" because those most often described in travel books were located in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire.
The book had no direct impact on the construction of a hammam until it was read in 1856 byDr Richard Barter, an Irish physician andhydropathist. Barter, to the consternation of orthodox hydropathists, was already using the vapour bath cabinet therapeutically at St Ann's, his hydropathic establishment near Cork. He immediately realised that the bath described by Urquhart was a major improvement on his vapour cabinets. He contacted Urquhart and offered him men, money, and materials, "besides a number of patients upon whom experiments might be made", if he would visit St Ann's, and build one for their use.[124]
This first experimental beehive-shaped bath was unsuccessful, mainly because it had not been possible to heat the air to the required high temperature.[125] This is the only documented 19th century attempt to build a hammam in Western Europe, after which the attempt was abandoned.
Instead, Dr Barter sent his architect, also namedRichard Barter but unrelated to him,[126][125]: p.36 to Rome to study how the ancientthermae were constructed there. On his return he designed and supervised the building of what has become known as the firstVictorian Turkish bath—a hot-air bath using hotdry air instead of the moist air of the hammam.[127]
Back in England the following year (1857), Urquhart helped build the first such bath in Manchester.[128] As a Turcophile, he argued strongly for calling the new bath a Turkish bath, though others unsuccessfully maintained that it should be called an Anglo-Roman bath,[129] or as in Germany and elsewhere, the Irish,[130] or Irish-Roman bath.[131]
But all future 19th century hot-air baths in the British Isles were either based on the Irish-Roman model or later, and then only occasionally towards the end of the century, on the Russian steam bath. After Barter's initial attempt, the hammam is not recorded as appearing again in Western Europe until after World War I.
.jpg)
The first permanent mosque in modern France,La Grande Mosquée de Paris et Institut musulman, was not opened till 1926. Covering an area of 7,500 square metres, it also includes amadrasa (school), library, conference hall and, beyond the Moorish gardens, an annexe housing a hammam and a tearoom with a direct entrance to the street.
The building commemorates the many thousand Muslims who died fighting for France during World War I.[132] It was built by architects Robert Fournez, Maurice Mantout, and Charles Heubès, following the plans of Maurice Tranchant de Lunel, General Inspector of Fine Arts in Morocco. Constructed in reinforced concrete, the decorative green tiles, earthenware, mosaics, and wrought iron work come from Maghreb countries, and were fitted by craft workers from there. In 1983, the building was inscribed in theBase Mérimée, the database of French monumental and architectural heritage, created and maintained by the French Ministry of Culture.[133]
The hammam was originally open at separate times for men and women.[134] It can be seen as it was in the mid-1960s, because it appears in a scene in Gérard Oury's French-British comedy filmLa Grande Vadrouille.[135] Bathers are shown being served drinks while reclining on long continuous cushioned platforms which are divided into cubicles by bead curtains. The cool wading pool in one of the hot rooms also appears.
Some time after a major refurbishment in the 2010s, the hammam's admission policy changed. It appears that the mosque authorities now lease it to a private company which runs it, for women only, as a wellness centre with beauty treatments.[b]
.jpg)
The second half of the 20th century saw a new generation of war-weary, air-travelling holidaymakers returning from Turkey and other countries where they had discovered the hammam. But their discovery was not specifically seen as an extremely important part of Islamic culture, but as what had become, as a result of diminishing local use, a significant tourist leisure attraction.
It was not long before baths based on the internal appearance of the hammam, with its central area andgöbek tasi (belly-stone), started appearing in European hotels, health spas, and even as standalone hammam establishments. In Spain, for example, after nearly five centuries' absence, hammams are reappearing in cities such as Cordoba, Granada, Seville, and Madrid.[136] Drawing on centuries of mixed traditions, their signs in Spanish and English, they are promoting a new view of the hammam to a younger generation of bathers, thereby attracting both tourists and locals, a trend currently developing around the continent.
Within the Muslim world, hammams appeared in some artistic depictions such asPersian miniatures, including the work ofKamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (or Bihzad).[5]
InWestern art, especially in the context of 19th-centuryOrientalism, the hammam is often portrayed as a place of sexual looseness, disinhibition and mystery. These Orientalist ideas paint the Arab or Turkish "other" as mystical and sensuous, lacking morality in comparison to their Western counterparts.[137] A famous painting byJean Auguste Dominique Ingres,Le Bain Turc ("The Turkish Bath"), depicts these spaces as magical and sexual. There are several women touching themselves or one another sensually, while some dance to music played by the woman in the centre of the painting. More recently,Sylvia Sleigh, has painted a gender-reversal take on Ingres's painting. Her version also counters Ingres's orientalist fantasy brothel figures by using her husband and some of her friends as real life models in more realistic surroundings.
Turkish directorFerzan Özpetek's 1997 filmHamam told the story of a man who inherited a hammam in Istanbul from his aunt, restored it and found a new life for himself in the process.[138]
In Zélie Elkihel's 5 minute animation,Hammam, a French-Moroccan woman shares a memory of her first enlightening visit to a hammam when she was 12.[139]
Visiting a hammam was very much a part of the Western tourist experience from the 18th century onwards and many travellers left accounts of what they had seen in the bathhouses. One such was the British diplomat's wife,Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who visited a hammam inSofia inBulgaria in 1717 and wrote about it in herTurkish Embassy Letters, first published in 1763.[140] In 1836 another British woman, the traveller and novelist,Julia Pardoe, left a description of taking part in the hammam ritual inConstantinople/Istanbul in her bookThe City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of theTurks, published in 1838.[141] In 1814 another wife of a British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire,Henrietta Liston, visited a hammam inBursa and wrote about it in her belatedly published diary.[142] In herRomance of the Bosphorus,Dorina Clifton, a British woman who grew up in Constantinople/Istanbul, left a rare account of a visit to a local hammam inKandilli, one of theBosphorus villages, before the First World War.[143] Several more contemporary accounts of using hammams in Turkey appeared inTales from the Expat Harem, published in 2005.[144]
Hammam yalbougha.
| Styles |
| ||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elements |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Types |
| ||||||||||||||||||
| Resources | |||||||||||||||||||
| Influences | |||||||||||||||||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
| Nakedness and clothing | |
|---|---|
| Nudity and sexuality | |
| Issues in social nudity | |
| Naturism | |
| Nude recreation | |
| By location | |
| Social nudity advocates | |
| Depictions of nudity | |
| See also | |
%2c_Maqamat_al-Harari%2c_1237.jpg)
