Here is an interesting picture of "Retired Imperial Eunuchs Association meeting in Istanbul in the 1930"

There was so many, they could form an association! http://amirshingray.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... unuch.html

The interesting thing if you research this, relevant to the article above about ISIS, is that Muslims are actually prohibited from castrating (although apparently beheading is okay) so the Caliphate style eunuchs were actually made such by non-Muslims which at that time meant Christians. The Coptic Church apparently produce a large portion of the eunuchs for the Ottomans during some period of time... Anyway, unless there is some non-Muslim eunuch trade, it doesn't seem that the ISIS guys will get their harem guards.

I had not seen any reference to the "Retired Imperial Eunuchs Association" before. The owner of the website where it appears seems to be looking into Ottoman eunuchs and has a bit of other information as well. He does, though, perpetuate one of the semi-truths about eunuchs in the Muslim world. Most commentators seem to accept the idea that eunuchs were only castrated OUTSIDE Muslim territory and ONLY by non-Muslims. This is a very convenient belief, but it is not true. It is definitely not true for the Ottomans where we have good records of castrations being performed by the palace physician on slave boys sourced from Europe. The African-sourced eunuchs were probably all imported pre-castrated, though some of the sources I've found are ambiguous as to whether the surgeon was Muslim or other.

Really interesting topic. It reminds me that about a year ago I was browsing in one of the few remaining brick and mortar bookstores around here and came across "A History of the Ottoman Empire" in the bargain bin. It looked like a quality publication with a hard cover at a price too good to pass up. It's been sitting in a bookcase ever since. I don't think it will delve very deeply in to the Eunuch subject matter but the Ottoman Empire is interesting to me because of how long it survived. Maybe it's time to start reading that book.

very Interesting article. Thank you to posting.