Jane HATHAWAY Exiled Chief Harem Eunuchs as Proponents of the Hanafi Madhhab in Ottoman Cairo HE cHIEF Eunuch of the harem of the Ottoman imperial palace (aghdt Ddr al-Sa'dda, Turkish Darilssaade Afiasy or Krylar Agast) was by the seventeenth century one of the wealthiest and most powerful figures in the Ottoman Empire. Toward the middle of this century, Chief Harem Eunuchs came to be routinely exiled to Cairo upon their depositions. There, they lived out their lives in relative comfort, receiving what amounted to a pension from the imperial treasury, building mansions, establishing pious foundations (awqdf), and even establishing elite households. I have explored the exiled eunuchs' political and economic impact on Egypt in two articles, published in 1992 and 1994, and in one chapter of my book The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt, published in 1997.t In this essay, however, I shall explore tentatively the possible religious influences of the exiled eunuchs in Cairo. In particular, I will argue that the eunuchs contributed to the prominence of the Hanafi madhhab (legal rite) in Egypt, and that this was part of their overall contribution to the dissemination of Ottoman elite culture in Egypt. Ottoman Hanafism The Hanafi madhhab had evidently been the official legal rite of the Ottoman Empire virtually since the empire's inception.2 The Ottomans are distinct from earlier Turco-Iranian states, notably the Great Selj0ks, Ayy0bids, and Maml0ks, in patronizing a single madhhab Jane Hathaway, Dept. of History, ohio State Llniversity, Columbus, Ohio, USA. r1. Hathaway, 'The Role ol the Kzlar Agasr in lTth-l8th Century Ottoman Egypt", Studlsl 75, 1992, p. I41-158; idem, "The Wealth and lnfluence o{ an Exiled Ottoman Eunuch in Egypt: The Waqf Inventory of 'Abbas Aghi", /ESHO 37/4, t994, p.293-317; idem, The Politics of Households in ottoman EWpt: The Rise of the @udagls, Cambridge, 1997, chapter 8. 2 C. Imber, Ehu's-su'ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition, Stanford, Calif., 1997, p.2s. Annales islamologiques 37 -2003 l9l