Following Islamic law, a Muslim could have up to four wives if his economic power allowed it. He could live with more women and own a harem.
The Andalusian harems were full of women and some achieved fame, such as the harem of Medina Azahara, at the time of the Umayyad caliphate that came to have 6,300 women counting the slaves. Another very famous harem was that of the Sevillian king Al-Mutamid of the taifa of Seville, who came to have about eight hundred women.
The prestige of a sovereign in Al Andalus is also mediated by the number of women his harem had. Many times in it were women who had belonged to their predecessor.
Sex in the Andalusian harems was not officially intended, but it is known that there were other alternative practices. We must know, that many women who were in the harem would never have sex with their owner.
These women lived with other women and with eunuchs and it was common for them to have relations with them, not to copulate, because they could not be castrated, but they did oral sex through cunnilinguis.
The upper-class women, called jassa, led a life based on opulence, but they lived locked up in the fortresses and had to comply with the Islamic code of honor. She was required to keep the honorability of the family, being totally removed from the eyes of others. Their relationships took place exclusively in the family environment.
The privacy of these fortresses was sometimes not fulfilled because the women were observed from the minarets, which were high places and in which it was frequent to hold conversations from a distance.