Hammam

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A hammam or hammam ( Arabic حَمَّام hammām , DMG ḥammām  'bath, bathroom, bath house, swimming pool, bathing resort', plural hammāmāt , from Arabic hamma ' to heat'; Turkish hamam , Ottoman حمام) is a public bathing establishment ( bathhouse or steam bath ), which is found mainly in the Arab world , in the Iranian cultural area , in Turkey and in the former areas of the Ottoman Empire and which is an important part of the oriental bathing and physical culture. The hammam is also known as the Turkish bath or the oriental bath . Archaeological finds indicate the existence of such baths in the Umayyad period (7th / 8th centuries), as well as mentions in historical texts, where the construction of such buildings was written in several conquered cities, including Basra . The main purpose of the hammam is to do the entire washing of ghusl .

construction

Marble basin with gilded fittings in the Sultan's hammam, Topkapı Palace

Drawings and depictions of hammams can be found not only in the records of Western travelers like Jean Chardin and others, but also in Persian and Turkish miniatures . In most cases, no windows or ventilation openings were installed, but if they were they were often provided with adjustable ventilation flaps. In order to ensure that the heat inside the building is retained, these (or the heated central areas) are usually built with thick walls. Light only penetrates into the interior through thick window glasses, which are often artfully decorated. In the hammams, only the changing rooms are furnished, mostly with wooden benches with cushions on them and which are mostly arranged around a fountain.

The rooms that house the oven for heating the hammam ( chizāna ) have no direct connection to the main area where the guests are, but have a door on the street side to accept deliveries of fuel ; only openings for the pipes have been created. It is heated by the circulation of hot water generated in the boiler , inlet and outlet pipes are laid in the walls and in the floor. Fresh water is either supplied by the city's water supply system or it was pumped upwards (previously with the help of animals). To date, there have hardly been any satisfactory studies of how the architecture of hammams has developed from its beginnings, although the buildings that still exist today provide sufficient starting points for this. The choice of location seems to have been of particular importance in the construction of Islamic baths (especially the availability of water in abundance), but also the solution to practical problems with the construction.

Bathing operation

Two functionaries were particularly important in the hammam: on the one hand the wakkad , the stoker, on the other hand the sabbal , who was responsible for the supply of fuel from dung. These terms are still in use in Syria, while other names are used in North Africa. A term that is no longer used today was sahib al-sunduq for the overseer who kept the changing rooms tidy . There was also the mukayyis or kayyas, who worked as a masseur in the bathrooms.

The procedures for visiting the hammam have hardly changed since the beginning. First the visitor takes off his clothing and wraps a towel around his body or puts on light swimwear. From there he goes to the least heated area of ​​the hammam in order to gradually get used to the heat, which, like the humidity, increases the further you go to the center of the building - to be met by the staff (women by female, men by male staff) to be lathered, rubbed, massaged and depilated. This is followed by washing off with hot water, followed by an appropriate rest period to recover.

Men could shave and have their hair cut in the hammam. In some bathhouses, especially in the larger baths, there was a muzayyin ( Arabic مُزَيِّن ' Barber ') busy. Otherwise, bath workers or other employees took on the duties of a barber.

meaning

Due to the importance of the overall washing in Islam, hammams were mostly attached to mosques as outbuildings, and entire city quarters were formed around them. The number of hammams in major Muslim cities in the Middle Ages is well documented in older sources and occasionally formed the basis for modern estimates of the population of these cities during this period. Detailed studies of how many of these baths are still in operation in the various cities today are still pending. Due to the popularity of hammams, private baths were later built in palaces or large private houses.

Myths, legends and fairy tales still revolve around hammams, telling of the visitation of these places by jinns ; they were also reflected in the extensive literature on this subject and show the regional variety of terms used in the nomenclature in connection with the hammams.

Europeans in the hammam

A popular hammam in
Urgup, central Anatolia

The Swabian preacher Salomon Schweigger (1551–1622) describes his experiences in an Istanbul hamam in his travel diary from 1608:

“In the middle of the wide bathing room there is a lower stove, a shawl high, made of marble stone, made to sweat, then the heat is greatest there. As soon as one enters, he sits on this stove. Then a bath servant, who knocks him around, jerks his body back and forth as if he wants to straighten his body into one another, at the same time he also stretches his limbs, arms, hands and thighs, as if he wants to wrestle with him. (...) Men have special baths and women have special ones too. They cover themselves in the bath in a decent and respectable manner and not as scoldly as the Germans. (...) But you tie a blue linen cloth around your waist, it goes around twice and takes a bite on the floor; so that in this case we Christians should learn discipline and devotion from these barbarians. "

- Salomon Schweigger
A tellak with stilted sandals to protect against the heat of the floor in the hammam (work by Enderûnlu Fâzıl , 18th century)

Helmuth von Moltke describes his first visit to a hamam very vividly in Under the Crescent :

“They suggested that I go to the hammam or Turkish bath (...) We stepped into a wide, tall building with a fountain splashing in the middle (...) I felt no temptation to put down even the smallest piece of my toilet; Besides, I saw no bathtub at all (...) The bath attendant, who read our questionable expressions, led us into a second vault, which was already quite hot. Here we were indicated by signs that we would like to undress; you wrap a half-silk blue cloth around your hips and get a towel around your head as a turban, which is believed to have been accidentally not shorn. After this cladding, we were pushed into a third vaulted hall, the marble floor of which was so heated that you could only enter it on wooden pantines (galendschi). Under the center of the dome (...) rises a two-foot high plateau richly laid out with marble, jasper, porphyry and agate, on which one can stretch out comfortably.
The telektschi or bath attendant now proceeds to a very peculiar procedure. The whole body is rubbed and all muscles are stretched and pressed. The man kneels on your chest or runs the knuckle of the thumb over the spine; All limbs, fingers and even the neck crack with a slight manipulation. (...) You now go into the small, even more heated cells that surround the great hall. Here, clear water bubbles in marble basins, as you like, from two taps, hot and cold. The patient is now subjected to the same procedure as the Turkish horses when grooming, namely in that the guard pulls a small sack of goat hair over his right hand and runs it over the whole body. This is a thorough clean, however, and one would like to say that one has never been washed before taking a Turkish bath. The Telektschi now appears again with a large bowl of fragrant lather. Using a large tassel made from the fibers of the palm bark, he soaps his man from head to toe, hair, face, everything, and with real pleasure you then pour cold water over your head, chest and body. (...) We stretched out in the entrance hall as comfortably as we saw it from the Turks. "

- Helmut von Moltke : Under the half moon. From the "Letters about conditions and events in Turkey from the years 1835 to 1839" , quoted from Project Gutenberg

Hamams in Western Europe

In the meantime, hammams based on the oriental models have established themselves in Western Europe; they can be found in some larger cities.

Reception in the film

See also

literature

  • Heinz Grotzfeld: The bath in the Arab-Islamic Middle Ages. A study of cultural history. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1970, ISBN 978-3-447-00349-0 .
  • Wolfgang E. Weick, Alfried Wieczorek, Gisela Framke, Petra Hesse-Mohr (eds.): EVET - Yes, I want! Wedding culture and fashion from 1800 to today: a German-Turkish encounter. Exhibition catalog. Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen, Mannheim / Museum for Art and Cultural History, Dortmund 2008, ISBN 978-3-927774-24-7 .

Web links

Commons : Hamam  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Hamam  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Hans Wehr : Arabic dictionary for the written language of the present. 5th edition. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1985, p. 292 ( digitized version )
  2. ^ JW Redhouse: An English and Turkish Dictionary. Bernard Quaritch, London 1856, p. 30.
  3. a b c d Janine Sourdel-Thomine: Ḥammām. In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam. 2nd Edition. Volume 3, Brill, Leiden 1986, pp. 139-144.
  4. Heinz Grotz field: The bathroom in the Arab-Islamic Middle Ages. A study of cultural history. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1970, p. 73 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Salomon Schweigger: A new reissue description from Germany to Constantinople and Jerusalem. Lochner, Nürnberg 1639, pp. 113-115 ( digitized version ).