Hammam
A hammam (
In Islamic cultures the significance of the hammam was both religious and civic: it provided for the needs of
In a modern hammam visitors undress themselves, while retaining some sort of modesty garment or loincloth, and proceed into progressively hotter rooms, inducing perspiration. They are then usually washed by male or female staff (matching the gender of the visitor) with the use of soap and vigorous rubbing, before ending by washing themselves in warm water.[4] 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,[2] though immersion in a pool used to be customary in the hammams of some regions such as Iran.[5] While hammams everywhere generally operate in fairly similar ways, there are some regional differences both in usage and architecture.[4]
Etymology
The word "hammam" (حَمَّام) is a noun meaning "bath", "bathroom", "bathhouse", "swimming pool", etc. derived from the Arabic triconsonantal root H-M-M (ح م م) which yields meanings related to heat or heating.[6][7][8] This is also the root of the word al-ḥamma (الحَمَّة) meaning hot spring, origin of the name of the Alfama neighborhood in Lisbon.[9] From Arabic حمّام, it passed on to Persian (حمام) and Turkish (hamam).[1][10] The first recorded use of the term 'Turkish bath' in English was in 1644.[11]
History
Origins and early development
Public bathhouses were a prominent civic and urban institution in Roman and Hellenistic culture and were found throughout the Mediterranean world. They remained important in the cities of the early Byzantine Empire up to around the mid-6th century, after which the construction of new bathhouses declined and existing ones were gradually abandoned.[12][13][14]
Following the
The earliest known Islamic hammams were built in
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 from cold room to hot 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 classical gymnasiums.[17][1] Likewise, Muslim bathers usually washed themselves in running water rather than immersing themselves in standing water.[2] 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.[1] 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.[15][19] 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 by waqf agreements, and hammams often acted as a source of revenue for the upkeep of other institutions such as mosques.[4][20]
Later Islamic baths
In the 11th century the Seljuk Empire conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine 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 and Turkic
Later the Ottomans 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 as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, and Hungary.[21][22][23] Many early Ottoman hammams survive in Bursa and Edirne, as well as in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, but hammams became even more numerous and architecturally ambitious in Constantinople (Istanbul), thanks to its royal patronage, its large population and its access to plentiful water.[24] The city's Greek inhabitants had retained a strong Eastern Roman bath culture, with the Baths of Zeuxippus constituting one early example.[25] Ottoman architects expanded on the experience of Byzantine 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.[4] Some of the city's oldest monumental hammams are the Tahtakale Hamam (probably built right after 1454), the Mahmut Pasha Hamam (built in 1466), and the Bayezid II Hamam (built some time between 1500 and 1507).[21] The monumental hammams designed by the 16th-century Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1489–1588), such as the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, the Süleymaniye Hamam (in the complex of the Süleymaniye Mosque), and the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam, are major examples of hammams that were built later in the era of classical Ottoman architecture.[21] When Sultan Mustafa 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 the Bosphorus suburbs where they built luxurious summer homes.[24]
In Iran, many examples of hammams survive from the Safavid period (16th–18th centuries) onward, with the historic city of Isfahan in particular containing many examples.[20] The spread of Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also introduced hammams to this region, with many examples surviving in Mughal architecture (16th–19th centuries).[26]
Contemporary era
Hammams continued to be a vital part of urban life in the Muslim world until the early 20th century when the spread of
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 the Kılıç Ali Pasa Hamamı and the Hürrem Sultan Hamamı being renovated and returned to their original function, while others were abandoned or repurposed.[28][29][27] In Morocco, many hammams continue to serve locals in historic cities such as Fes and Marrakesh, where they are especially useful to the urban poor residing in the old cities (medinas).[17][2][30] 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 and teahouses.[20] In Damascus, Syria, only thirteen hammams were still operating in 2004, mostly in the old city; many others had been either demolished or repurposed.[2] Cairo in Egypt 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.[31] In the former European territories of the Ottoman Empire such as Greece and the Balkans, many hammams became defunct or were neglected in modern times, although some have now been restored and turned into historic monuments or cultural centres.[23][32]
Public bathing in the Islamic context
Prayer is one of the Five Pillars of Islam and it is customary to perform ablutions before praying. The two Islamic forms of ablution are ghusl, a full-body cleansing, and wudu, a cleansing of the face, hands, and feet.[33] In the absence of water, cleansing with pure soil or sand is also permissible.[34] Mosques always provide a place to wash, but hammams are often located nearby for deeper cleansing.[2] 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.[2]
Al-Ghazali, a prominent Muslim theologian of the 11th century, wrote Revival 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, entitled The 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 the University of Ottawa, argues that the image of a hyper-sexualised woman leaving the hammam is an Orientalist way of looking at things that sees leaving or attending the hammam as an indicator of sexual behaviour.[31][39]
Bathing practices and services
Most hammams expect their clients to undress down to a modesty garment or loincloth, 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.[4] 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 the
Traditionally, the bathhouse masseurs (Turkish: tellak) were young men who soaped and scrubbed their clients. However, the tellaks were replaced by adult attendants during the 20th century.[40]
Massage
A massage in a hammam is likely to involve not just vigorous muscle kneading, but also
Social function: gendered social space
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 work Sexuality 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]
Architecture
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General design
The hammam combines the functionality and structural elements of the
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 Roman apodyterium), the cold room (like the Roman frigidarium), the warm room (like the tepidarium), and the hot room (like the caldarium). The nomenclature for these different rooms varied from region to region. The changing room was known generally as al-mashlaḥ or al-maslakh in Arabic, or by local vernacular terms like goulsa in Fez (Morocco) and maḥras in Tunisia, whereas it was known as the camekân in Turkish and the sarbineh in Persian. The cold room was known as the bayt al-barid in al-Andalus, el-barrani in Fez, bayt awwal in Cairo, and soğukluk in Turkish. The warm room or intermediate room was known as bayt al-wastani in al-Andalus and many other regions, as el-wasti in Fez, as bīt əs-skhūn in Tunis, and as ılıklık in Turkish. The hot room was called the bayt al-sakhun in al-Andalus, ad-dakhli in Fez, harara in Cairo, garmkhaneh in Persian, and hararet or sıcaklık in Turkish.[4][1][51][2][17][28]
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 or skylights which provided natural light during the day while allowing excess steam to escape.[1][4] The ceiling and walls were clad with steam-proof materials such as varnished plaster or (for the lower walls and floors) marble.[4] The vestibule, or changing room, was often one of the most highly decorated chambers, featuring a central fountain surrounded by benches.[18][4] In Ottoman baths, the main changing room often offered multi-level wooden galleries giving access to smaller changing rooms.[21]: 160 Toilets or latrines were often included in the complex.[2][18]
Most historic hammams made use of some version or derivation of the Roman hypocaust underfloor system for heating.[1][2] 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 large cauldron 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 and Damascus, also made use of recycled organic materials from other industries such as wood shavings from carpenters' workshops and olive pits from the olive presses.[2]
Some hammams were "double" hammams, having separate facilities for women and men.
Variations
Maghreb and al-Andalus
Regional variations in hammam architecture usually relate to the relative proportions of each room or the absence of one type of room. In the Maghreb, and especially in al-Andalus, the largest and most important steam room was typically the warm room (al-wastani). The Arab 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 for body massages and other services.[16] The changing room was also fairly large and was typically the only space to feature any significant architectural decoration.[3]
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Reconstructed interior of the Caliphal Baths in Cordoba, Spain (10th century)
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Vaulted ceiling of warm room in the hammam of the Almohad-era Alcázar of Jerez de la Frontera in Spain (12th century)
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Room at the Baños del Almirante, a historic Andalusi bathhouse in Valencia, Spain (c. 1320)[citation needed]
Ottoman baths
In Ottoman baths the cold room is often either omitted completely or combined with the changing room (known as the camekân or soyunmalık).[21]: 160 [52][28] This room is often the largest domed chamber in the complex, with the dome supported on squinches, "Turkish triangles", or decorative muqarnas. It usually features a central fountain (şadırvan) and is ringed with wooden galleries and is used as a place to relax, drink tea, coffee, or sherbet, and socialise before and after bathing.[21]: 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.[28]: 27
The hot room (hararet or sıcaklık) was usually the focus of the richest architectural embellishments.
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Interior of the Mahmut Pasha Hamam (now used for shops) in Istanbul, Turkey (1476)
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Küçük Mustafa Paşa Hamam in Istanbul (c. 1477)[53]
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Davud Pasha Hamam in Skopje, North Macedonia(late 15th century)
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Renovated interior of the Haseki Hurrem Sultan Bathhouse in Istanbul (16th century)
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Baths of the Sultan and the Queen Mother at the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul (late 16th century)
Iran
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).[18][5][1] 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.[20]
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Rooftop view of the domes of the Sultan Amir Ahmed Hamam in Kashan, Iran (16th century)
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Frescoed/painted decoration in a hammam from the reign of Shah Abbas I in Mashhad, Iran (16th or 17th century)
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Hammam of the Ganjali Khan Complex in Kerman, Iran (late 16th to early 17th century)
Regional examples of hammams
Jordan
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 "
Morocco
The ruins of the oldest known Islamic hammam in Morocco, dating back to the late 8th century, can be found in Volubilis.[17] Many historic hammams have been preserved in cities such as Marrakesh[30] and especially Fes, partly because they continue to be used by locals.[2][17] Among the best known examples is the 14th-century Saffarin Hammam in Fes, which has been restored and rehabilitated.[2][55][56][17] 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's sometimes difficult to identify hammams from the outside but the roof has a series of characteristic domes that indicate the different chambers.
Al-Andalus (Spain and Portugal)
Although the traditions of the hammams eventually disappeared in the centuries after the end of Muslim rule on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, many historic hammam structures have nonetheless been preserved to varying degrees across many cities, especially in Spain. 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.[16][58]
An early example (partially destroyed now) were the 10th-century Caliphal Baths which were attached to the Umayyad royal palace of Cordoba (later turned into the Christian Alcazar) and later expanded by the Almohads (12th to early 13th centuries).[59] Other notable examples of preserved Andalusian baths include the Bañuelo of Granada, the Arab Baths of Ronda, the Arab Baths of Jaén, and the baths in the Alcazar of Jerez de la Frontera. The Alhambra of Granada also contains two preserved bathhouses: a small one near its main mosque, and a much more lavish one attached to the Comares Palace.[60][58][16] In 2020 a well-preserved 12th-century Almohad-period bathhouse, complete with painted geometric decoration, was discovered during renovations of a local tapas bar in Seville, near the Giralda tower.[61]
Syria
A legend claims that Damascus 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.[62]
According to many historians,
- Hammam al-Sultan, built in 1211 by Az-Zahir Ghazi
- Hammam al-Nahhasin, built during the 12th century near Khan al-Nahhaseen
- Hammam al-Bayadah, built in 1450 during the Mamluk era
- Emir of Aleppo Saif ad-Din Yalbugha al-Naseri[64]
- Hammam al-Jawhary, Gammam Azdemir, Hammam Bahram Pasha, Hammam Bab al-Ahmar and others
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Hammam Yalbugha in Aleppo, Syria (1491)
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Hammam al-Nahhasin in Aleppo, Syria, originally built in the 12th century
Azerbaijan
Hammams have traditionally been important in the lives of Azerbaijanis, and more than seven have been named in Azerbaijan's List 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.[65] 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 within Icherisheher, the Old City of Baku, historical core of the capital, and a UNESCO World Heritage Centre.[66]
Within the Old City, the building of baths continued over the years. The Yeraltı 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 century Agha 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.[67] 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.[67]
After the
Several major hammams in the city were designed by the famous Ottoman architect
Turkey also has a number of hot springs which have been developed as public baths for centuries. The Eski Kaplıca ("Old Thermal Baths") of Bursa, built by Sultan Murad I (ruled 1360–1389),[86] and the nearby Yeni ("New") Kaplıca built by Rüstem Pasha in 1552,[84] are two of the most notable examples and are still used today. Several older hot-spring baths were also built by the Seljuks in the 13th century and the Akkoyunlu in the late 14th century, some of which are still operating today.[86]
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.[28][29][27] Other hammam buildings have ceased functioning as public baths but have been repurposed as markets or cultural venues, as for example the Tahtakale 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.[27][28][87] 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.[27]
Greece
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 in Giannitsa, dating from 1392, and the Oruç Pasha Hammam in Didymoteicho, dating from 1398.[23] 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.[23]
In Thessaloniki, formerly a major Ottoman city, the Bey Hamam was built in 1444 by Sultan Murad 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 the Greek Archaeological Service and are now used as a cultural venue.[88][23][89][90] The late 16th-century Yeni Hamam has also been partially restored and now serves as a music venue.[23][91][89] The Pasha Hamam, also known as the Phoenix Baths, was built circa 1520 or 1529 during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent and operated until 1981.[23][92][93] 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 in Athens, restored in the 1990s and converted to the Center of Documentation in Body Embellishment.[23] In Rhodes, 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.[23]
Cyprus
On the Turkish side of the Cypriot border in
North Macedonia
Some significant historic Ottoman hammams have also been preserved in
Bulgaria
The city of
Hungary
India and Pakistan
Public baths have ancient precedents in
In Pakistan, Shahi Hammam or the Royal Bathhouse of Lahore, located in the historic Walled 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 Emperor Shah Jahan.[113][114]
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The hammam of the Shahi Qila Palace in Burhanpur, India (17th century)
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The 17th-century Shahi Hammam in Lahore, Pakistan, is elaborately decorated with Mughal-era frescoes.
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Hammam inside Shahi Qila, Jaunpur
Crimea (Ukraine)
In Bakhchisarai, by order of the Crimean Khan Sahib I Geray, the Sarı-Güzel hamam was built in 1532.[115][116][117]
Hammams in Western Europe
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's Covent 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.
The British Isles in the 19th century
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 as Richard 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 typically orientalist in approach. In 1828, an anonymous (and still unknown) author self-published Strictures 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 of The Republican, Richard Carlile, who had realised that in Strictures 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 Roman thermæ, 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.
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 by Dr Richard Barter, an Irish physician and hydropathist. 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 named Richard Barter but unrelated to him,[126][125]: p.36 to Rome to study how the ancient thermae were constructed there. On his return he designed and supervised the building of what has become known as the first Victorian Turkish bath—a hot-air bath using hot dry 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.
France, post World War I
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 a madrasa (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 the Base 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 film La 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]
Europe, post World War II
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 and göbek 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.
Cultural representations of the hammam
Art
Within the Muslim world, hammams appeared in some artistic depictions such as Persian miniatures, including the work of Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (or Bihzad).[4]
-
Bathhouse scene by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād, 1495
-
Women's bath, illustration from Husein Fâzıl-i Enderuni's Zanan-Name, 18th century
In
-
Le Hamam, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1870
-
Baigneuses, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, circa 1889
-
Après le bain, by Jean-Léon Gérôme
-
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres: The Turkish Bath, 1862 (Louvre, Paris)
-
Sylvia Sleigh: The Turkish bath, 1972 (Smart Museum, University of Chicago)
Movies
Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek's 1997 film Hamam 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]
Literature
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 in Sofia in Bulgaria in 1717 and wrote about it in her Turkish 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 in Constantinople/Istanbul in her book The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks, published in 1838.[141] In 1814 another wife of a British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henrietta Liston, visited a hammam in Bursa and wrote about it in her belatedly published diary.[142] In her Romance 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 in Kandilli, one of the Bosphorus villages, before the First World War.[143] Several more contemporary accounts of using hammams in Turkey appeared in Tales from the Expat Harem, published in 2005.[144]
Notes
- ^ In these very brief descriptions of some Azerbaijani hammams, sources have not generally been given as they could not easily be checked; instead, links have been provided to those pages which do include them, and which have here been used.
- ^ 'Spa therapy: navigating Paris' hammam scene' Hip Paris. Retrieved 12 May 2024 is an illustrated account of a visit to the mosque's hammam made by the writer Badaude in 2021.
See also
- Gellért Baths
- Hydrotherapy
- Jjimjilbang, the Korean equivalent
- Moorish Baths, Gibraltar
- Onsen and sentō, the Japanese equivalents
- Steam shower
- Sauna
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Further reading
- Meunier, Pascal; Tyckaert, Maud (2005), Hammams, Paris: Dakota, ISBN 2-84640-148-9
- Peteet, Julie (2024), The hammam through time and space (Gender, culture, and politics in the Middle East), Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, ISBN 978-0-8156-3832-2
- Yılmazkaya, Orhan; Deniz, Ogurlu (2005), A Light onto a Tradition and Culture: Turkish baths: a Guide to the Historic Turkish Baths of Istanbul (2 ed.), Çitlembik, ISBN 978-975-6663-80-6
External links
- Pole to Pole) uploaded by BBC Worldwide to YouTube
- The Turkish Bath Experience
- Victorian Turkish baths: their origin, development, & gradual decline