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Medieval Arabic Female Poets
In the surviving historical record, medieval Arabic female poets are few compared with the number of known male Arabic-language poets: there has been 'an almost total eclipse of women's poetic expression in the literary record as maintained in Arabic culture from the pre-Islamic era through the nineteenth century'. However, there is evidence that, compared with medieval Europe, women's poetry in the medieval Islamic world was 'unparalleled' in 'visibility and impact'. Accordingly, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholars have emphasised that women's contribution to Arabic literature requires greater scholarly attention. Attestation The work of medieval Arabic-language women poets has not been preserved as extensively as that of men, but a substantial corpus nonetheless survives; the earliest extensive anthology is the late ninth-century CE '' Balāghāt al-nisāʾ'' by Ibn Abī Ṭāhir Ṭayfūr (d. 280/893). Abd al-Amīr Muhannā named over four hundred female po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tahera Qutbuddin
Tahera Qutbuddin (born 1964, Bombay) is a professor of Arabic literature at the University of Chicago. A Guggenheim Fellow (2020) and a winner of the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2021, she is best known for her works on Arabic oratory and the usage of Arabic in India, especially in the Dawoodi Bohra tradition. Life Tahera Qutbuddin was born in Bombay in 1964 in a Dawoodi Bohra family. Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin, a leader of the Bohra community, was a relative. She attended Villa Theresa High School and Sophia College for Women, where she completed her secondary education in 1984. Qutbuddin learned Arabic from her father Khuzaima Qutbuddin. She received a bachelor's degree (1988) and a ''tamhidi magister'' (1990) from the Ain Shams University, Cairo, followed by master's (1994) and doctoral degrees from Harvard University (1999), where her advisor was Wolfhart Heinrichs. Career In 2002, Qutbuddin joined the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ta’if
Taif ( ar, , translit=aṭ-Ṭāʾif, lit=The circulated or encircled, ) is a city and governorate in the Makkan Region of Saudi Arabia. Located at an elevation of in the slopes of the Hijaz Mountains, which themselves are part of the Sarat Mountains, the city has a 2020 estimated population of 688,693 people, making it the 6th most populous city in the kingdom. There is a belief that Taif is indirectly referred to in Quran 43:31. The city was visited by the Islamic prophet Muhammad, sometime in the early 7th century, and was inhabited by the tribe of Banu Thaqif. It is still inhabited to this day by their descendants. As a part of the Hejaz, the city has seen many transfers-of-power throughout its history, with the last being during the Saudi conquest of Hejaz in 1925. The city has been called the unofficial summer capital of Saudi Arabia and has also been called the best summer destination in Saudi Arabia as it enjoys a moderate weather during summer, unlike most of the Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabia Basri
Rābiʿa al-ʿAdawiyya al-Qaysiyya ( ar, رابعة العدوية القيسية) (714/717/718 — 801 CE) was an Arab Muslim saint and Sufi mystic and carried her life out as an influential religious figure. She is known in some parts of the world as Hazrat Rabia Basri, Rabia Al Basri or simply Rabia Basri. She set an example respected by Muslims throughout history and is a small piece in the complicated founding of Islam. Biography Rābiʻa is said to have been born between 714 and 718 CE (95 and 98 Hijri) in Basra, Iraq, of the Qays tribe. Farid ud-Din Attar, a later Sufi saint and poet, recounted much of her early life. She was the fourth daughter of her family and so named Rābiʻa, meaning "fourth". According to Fariduddin Attar, whose account is more myth than a narrative of a historical Rābiʿa: when Rābiʻa was born, her parents were so poor that there was no oil in the house to light a lamp, nor even a cloth to wrap her with. Her mother asked her husband t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shāriyah
Shāriyah ( ar, شارِية, born c. 815 in al-Basra; died c. 870 C.E.) was an ‘Abbasid ''qayna'' (enslaved singing-girl), who enjoyed a prominent place in the court of Al-Wathiq (r. 842–847). Biography The main source for Shāriyah's life is the tenth-century ''Kitāb al-Aghānī'' of Abū ’l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī. Shāriya seems to have been an illegitimate daughter of a Qurashī and was sold into slavery by a woman claiming to be her mother to the ‘Abbasid prince Ibrahīm ibn al-Mahdī, son of third Abbasid caliph, al-Mahdi (r. 775–785), and half-brother of the fifth caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) and the poet and princess ‘Ulayya bint al-Mahdī. There was later some dispute about the sale, as Shāriyah's alleged mother tried to claim that she was freeborn, in an effort to cash in on her daughter's success; but Ibrahīm retained ownership of Shāriya until she was manumitted during the reign either of al-Muʿtaṣim (r. 833–842) or al-Wathiq. Her gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arib Al-Ma'muniyya
ʿArīb al-Ma’mūnīya ( ar, عريب المأمونية, b. 181/797–98, d. 277/890–91) was a ''qayna'' (slave trained in the arts of entertainment) of the early Abbasid period, who has been characterised as 'the most famous slave singer to have ever resided at the Baghdad court'. She lived to 96, and her career spanned the courts of five caliphs. Life and works The main source for ‘Arīb's life is the tenth-century ''Kitāb al-Aghānī'' of Abū ’l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī: Like her peers, he tells us, ‘Arīb was versed in poetry, composition and music performance, along with sundry other skills, backgammon, chess and calligraphy among them. Her chosen instrument was the oud, a preference she would pass on to her students, but, above all, it was her singing and composition that stood out. Citing one of his key sources, Ibn al-Mu‘tazz, Abū ’l-Faraj refers to a collection of notebooks (''dafātir'') and loose sheets (''ṣuḥuf'') containing her songs. These are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qiyan
''Qiyān'' ( ar, قِيان, ; singular ''qayna'', ar, قَينة, ) were a social class of women, trained as entertainers, which existed in the pre-modern Islamic world. The term has been used for both non-free women and free, including some of which came from the nobility. It has been suggested that "the ''geisha'' of Japan are perhaps the most comparable form of socially institutionalized female companionship and entertainment for male patrons, although, of course, the differences are also myriad". Historically, the ''qiyān'' flourished under the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, and in Al-Andalus. Terminology ''Qiyān'' is often rendered in English as 'singing girls' or 'singing slave girls', but these translations do not reflect the fact that ''qiyān'' might be of any age, and were skilled entertainers whose training extended well beyond singing, including for example dancing, composing music and verse, reciting historical or literary anecdotes (''akhbar''), cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallada Bint Al-Mustakfi
Wallada bint al-Mustakfi ( ar, ولادة بنت المستكفي) (born in Córdoba in 994 or 1010 – died March 26, 1091) was an Andalusian poet. Early life Wallada was the daughter of Muhammad III of Córdoba, one of the last Umayyad Cordoban rulers, who came to power in 1024 after assassinating the previous caliph Abderraman V, and who himself was assassinated two years later in Uclés. Her early childhood was during the high period of the Caliphate of Córdoba, under the rule of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir. Her adolescent years came during the tumultuous period following the eventual succession of Aamir's son, Sanchuelo, who in his attempts to seize power from Hisham II brought the caliphate into civil war. As Muhammad III had no male heir, Wallada inherited his properties, and used them to open a palace and literary hall in Córdoba. There she offered instruction in poetry and the arts of love to women of all classes, from those of noble birth to slaves purchased by Wall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ʿUlayyah Bint Al-Mahdī
Ulayya bint al-Mahdi ( ar, عُلَيّة بنت المهدي, ʿUlayya bint al-Mahdī, 777–825) was an Abbasid princess, noted for her legacy as a poet and musician. Biography ‘Ulayya was one of the daughters of the third Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi ( r. 775–85), who reigned from 775 to his death in 785, and was noted for promoting poetry and music in his realm. Her mother was a singer and concubine called Maknūna (herself the ''jāriya'' of one al-Marwānīya). Maknunah was a songstress. She was owned by Al-Marwaniyyah. Al-Mahdi, while yet a prince, bought her for 100,000 silver dirhams. She found such favor with the prince that Al-Khayzuran (Al-Mahdi's wife) used to say, "No other woman of his made my position so difficult." She gave birth to Al-Mahdi's daughter Ulayya. It appears that, with her father dying early in her life, ‘Ulayya was brought up by her half-brother Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809). ‘Ulayya was a princess, and, like her half-brother Ibrahim ibn al-Mah ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Ḥurqah
Hind bint al-Nu'man ( ar, هند بنت النعمان, Hind bint al-Nuʿmān), also known as al-Ḥurqah, was a pre-Islamic Arab poet. There is some historiographical debate, going back to the Middle Ages, over precisely what her names were, with corresponding debates over whether some of the bearers of these names were different people or not. An example of a poet-princess, she has been read as a key figure in pre-Islamic poetry. Biography Hind was the daughter of al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir, the last Lakhmid king of al-Hirah () and a Nestorian Christian Arab mother. According to the ''Ḥarb Banī Shaybān maʻa Kisrá Ānūshirwān'' (whose historical reliability is questionable), Khosrow II, king of the Sasanian Empire () and her father's overlord, demanded Hind in marriage. Thinking better of the arrangement, al-Nu'man sent Hind to seek refuge among the Arabs, and was subsequently attacked and imprisoned by Khosrow. After failing to find sanctuary with the Ghassanids ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Hujayjah
Al-Ḥujayjah (), also known as Safīyah bint Thaʻlabah al-Shaybānīyah () was a pre-Islamic poet of the Banū Shaybān tribe, noted for her work in the genre of taḥrīḍ (incitement to vengeance). Her dates of birth and death are unknown, and even her historicity is open to question. But she seems to have granted protection to al-Ḥurqah bint al-Nuʻmān when Khosrow II (r. 590-628) demanded her in marriage from her father al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir around the beginning of the seventh century, and her surviving corpus relates to the Battle of Dhū-Qār in c. 609. Characterised as a 'warrior diplomat', she has been read as a key figure in pre-Islamic poetry. As with other supposedly pre-Islamic poetry, there has been scholarly debate over whether Al-Ḥujayjah's work might actually have been fabricated later in the medieval period (even if she herself was real). It survives only in Bishr ibn Marwān al-Asadī's collection ''Ḥarb Banī Shaybān maʻa Kisrá Ānūshirw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Fāriʿah Bint Shaddād
Al-Fāriʿah bint Shaddād al-Murriyah ( ar, الفارعة بنت شداد) was a pre-Islamic Arabic poet, noteworthy both for being one of a relatively small number of known Medieval Arabic female poets In the surviving historical record, medieval Arabic female poets are few compared with the number of known male Arabic-language poets: there has been 'an almost total eclipse of women's poetic expression in the literary record as maintained in Arab ..., and for the famous short marthiyah she composed for her brother Mas‘ūd ibn Shaddād. Works Al-Murriyah's ''marthiyah'' runs as follows: :O my eye, be generous to Masʿūd son of Shaddād :: with every teary gland ::: whose grief is manifest. :O whoever sees a lightning-flashing cloud :: that I have gazed for through the night ::: pouring profuse rain upon the riverbed‘s ::: black basalt track. :With it would I water the grave of him I intend, :: him whose grave is dear to me ::: though he were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Khirniq Bint Badr
Al-Khirniq bint Badr ibn Hiffān (or Haffān, , d. perhaps c. 600) was an early Arabic elegiac poet. She was half-sister or aunt to the poet Tarafa ibn al'Abd.G. J. H. Van Gelder, 'al-Khirniq (d. perhaps c. 600)', in ''Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature'', ed. by Julie Scott Meisami and Paul Starkey, 2 vols (New York: Routledge, 1998), II 442. Al-Khirniq's surviving '' diwan'' extends to somewhat under sixty lines, mostly preserved in the work of Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala' Abu ʻAmr ibn al-ʻAlāʼ al-Basri ( ar, أبو عمرو بن العلاء; died 770 CE/154 AH) was the Qur'an reciter of Basra, Iraq and an Arab linguist. He was born in Mecca in . Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, translated by William .... Her known elegies are addressed to relatives, including her brother and her husband Bishr ibn 'Amr, who was slain by neighboring tribe on Mount Qudab. References Medieval women poets Arabic-language women poets 6th-century Arabic poets 6th-century women write ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
