Did the owner of the harem sleep with all of the women equally or did he have a favourite? Were most of the women really beautiful or just average? Could the women go whereever they wanted to or were they stuck in the harem? Please tell everything you know about this subject. Thanks in advance your answer is greatly appreciated!
The word harem (Arabic: ḥaram) literally means a sacred or protected place. The word referred to the section of a family's house which belonged to the women of the family. When people in English use the word, they're typically talking about a collection of concubines owned by a single man, which is not the normal use of the word in the Muslim world, but one can see why it got that meaning - the Ottoman imperial harem (harem-i hümâyûn) referred to the section of the imperial palace within which the women of the imperial family resided, as well as their female household slaves, some of whom would have been concubines.
The Ottoman imperial harem's primary purpose was to serve the needs of the women of the imperial family - the sultan's mother (Vâlide Sultân), his sisters, daughters, and so on. Just as the sultan ruled over a household of male slaves, so too did the female members of the imperial family rule over a household of female slaves. Life in the harem was highly regimented, with a strict hierarchy over which the Vâlide presided as the matriarch of the dynasty. The power dynamics of the harem were dependent upon each individual's closeness to the Vâlide, and higher ranking women received ever larger pensions. The women would spend their days being educated in the palace school, studying literacy, religion, and practical skills like embroidery, singing, etc. Some of them would be chosen to sleep with the sultan, particularly if they were approved of by the Vâlide, but most of the women in the harem would not be chosen, and would eventually graduate from their education to be married off to the male members of the sultan's household. Because their activities were heavily regulated they couldn't wander around freely and certainly couldn't leave the harem, that is until they were matched with a husband and would then leave to go live in his household.
The following are the two most essential books on this topic:
Peirce, Leslie (1993). The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Necipoğlu, Gülru (1991). "The Third Court: The Imperial Harem". Architecture, Ceremonial, and Power: The Topkapı Palace in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge: MIT Press. pp. 159–183.
I am definitely not discouraging new answers coming in, but I bet you'd like the recent discussion on the topic, where /u/yodatsracist and others talk about the records we have.
Please tell everything you know about this subject
In addition to the answer by /u/yodatsracist linked earlier by /u/LukeInTheSkyWith , here are a few more previous posts you may find interesting
a couple of responses from /u/Chamboz - Have there been female rulers with harems? and How where harems organized ? Was there a "bottom girl" to keep the others in line? How would a poorer man go about these things ?
from /u/Imperial_Affectation - Questions about the Ottoman Harem 1400-1800
from /u/Snigaroo - Were harems common among Islamic states, or unique to the Ottomans? What did other Muslim rulers think of the Ottoman harem?
A couple of notable examples:
/u/thecaramel on Wu Zetian - When a new king acceded to the throne, did he keep the previous king's harem for his ...use, or did he get rid of them and gather a new one?
/u/mikedash on Roxelana - Where did Ruxelana (aka Hurrem Sultan) come from?
A couple of these posts are still open, so if you have follow-up questions, you can just tack them on there. Otherwise, just ask questions here and tag the relevant username to notify the user.