Consorts of the Caliphs. Ibn al-Sa'i

50 §13.1, §13.7. 51 §3.1: ʿInān; §6.5: ʿArīb; §6.7: an anonymous slave; §7.3: Bidʿah; §13.3; §13.5; §13.6; §13.9; §14.2: Faḍl; §15.3; §15.4; §15.5; §15.6: Maḥbūbah; §19.2; §19.3: Nabt. 52 §3.5; §3.7. 53 §6.5. 54 Ibn al-Sāʿī cites Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī as the author of the Book of Songs, but Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī also wrote a book devoted to women slave poets, al-Imāʾ al-shawāʿir, extant and available in two editions, both from 1983, one edited by al-Qaysī and al-Sāmarrāʾī (paginated), the other edited by al-ʿAṭiyyah (numbered). The texts of the two editions are not identical, but of our “consorts,” both have: ʿInān (pages 23–44/number 1); Faḍl (49–71/no. 3); Haylānah (95–96/no. 14); ʿArīb (99–112/no. 16); Maḥbūbah (117–20/no. 20); Banān (121–22/no. 21); Nabt (129–31/no. 25); Bidʿah (139–141/no. 29). These references are given here because al-Imāʾ al-shawāʿir is not among the otherwise comprehensive list of sources cited in Jawād’s footnotes to Jihāt al-aʾimmah. (For a more recent edition of al-Iṣfahānī’s book, titled Riyy al-ẓamā fī-man qāla al-shiʿr fī l-imā, see Primary Sources in the bibliography.) 55 §13.4; §7.3; §7.4. 56 According to Ibn al-Sāʿī, Hārūn al-Rashīd married Ghādir (§2.1); we find the identical story in Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Muntaẓam, 8: 349, but al-Ṭabarī does not list her among Hārūn’s wives (The ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in Equilibrium, 326–27). Farīdah the Younger is said to have married al-Mutawakkil (§18.3); in the Book of Songs, in the joint entry on Farīdah the Elder and Farīdah the Younger, Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī (Kitāb al-Aghānī, 3:183), cites al-Ṣūlī as the authority for this; again, the “marriage” is not mentioned elsewhere. There is a question mark over these stories: the jurists would certainly have disapproved of a free man marrying a slave without first freeing her, but perhaps manumission is implied by the very word “marriage.” Two other such women are said to have married free men: Farīdah the Elder marries twice, again with no mention of manumission (§11.1); and Sarīrah—who had borne her owner a child and thereby gained her freedom when he was killed—marries a Hamdanid prince (§36.1). 57 In addition to Jawād’s footnotes to Nisāʾ al-khulafāʾ, see Stigelbauer, Die Sängerinnen am Abbasidenhof um die Zeit des Kalifen al-Mutawakkil; and Al-Heitty, The Role of the Poetess at the Abbāsid Court (132–247 A.H./750–861 A.D.). 58 Kilpatrick, Making the Great Book of Songs. 59 Imhof, “Traditio vel Aemulatio? The Singing Contest of Sāmarrā.” 60 Al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868), Risālat al-Qiyān/The Epistle on Singing-Girls; al-Washshāʾ (d. 325/936), Kitāb al-Muwashshā, also known as al-Ẓarf wa-l-ẓurafāʾ, chapter 20. German and Spanish translations, as well as a partial French one, exist of Kitāb al-Muwashshā: Das Buch des buntbestickten Kleids, ed. Bellmann; El libro del brocado, ed. Garulo; Le livre de brocart, ed. Bouhlal. 61 Ali, Marriage and Slavery in Early Islam, is an important departure.

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