Prostitution was prevalent in the Ottoman Empire , with both men and women, as well as Christians , Jews , and Muslims engaging in the practice.
Clients met prostitutes in a variety of locations, including coffeehouses, inns for bachelors "bachelor rooms" , laundries, restaurants, barbershops, and candy stores. Prostitutes often served sailors and military members, particularly in their lodgings; additionally, prostitutes served clients in private homes, abandoned buildings, and taverns. Legally, the Ottoman Empire had a complicated relationship with prostitution. While Islamic law prescribes harsh punishments for crimes of illicit sex, most prostitutes did not face capital punishment.
Instead, prostitutes were typically banished from their neighborhood or city or forced to pay a fine. In regard to slaves, however, their owners were allowed by Islamic law to exploit them sexually without this being defined as zina. Consequently, a pimp selling his slave to a new owner for sexual use, and then having the ownership of her returned to him after intercourse, was not defined as prostitution.
As a result, it was "almost impossible to attain" evidence of illicit sex in most circumstances. In fact, prostitution was explicitly excluded by 16th to 18th century Ottoman jurists from the hudud penalties, although the act was not deemed legal.
While the theoretical law called for severe corporal punishment and even death for offenders of sexual law, there is only one known case of stoning in the Ottoman Empire. In legal records from Ottoman Aleppo , no prostitutes suffered physical punishments, only facing "banishment from the quarter", after which they could move to another quarter and continue to engage in prostitution. There were certain instances in which legal consequences for prostitution were more severe than banishment, however.
