Faḍl al-Shāʻirah

Fadl al-Qaysi or Faḍl al-Shāʻirah (Arabic: فضل الشاعرة "Faḍl the Poet", d. 871) was one of "three early ʻAbbasid singing girls ... particularly famous for their poetry" and is one of the pre-eminent medieval Arabic female poets whose work survives.^[1]

Life[]

Born in al-Yamama (now in Bahrain), Fadl was brought up in ʻAbbasid Basra, (now in Iraq). Her brothers sold her to a leading officer of the Caliphate, and he gave her to Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–61). Fadl became a prominent figure in the court. According to ibn Annadim, a bibliographer (died 1047), Fadl's diwan extended to twenty pages.^[2]

Fadl was the concubine of Al-Mutawakkil. She was a poetess, born in Al-Yamamah. She was from Abd al-Qays tribe. She was purchased by Muhammad ibn al-Faraj al-Rukhkhaji, who gave her to Al-Mutawakkil.^[3]

She died in 870-71.^[4]

Poetry[]

An example of Fadl's work, in the translation of , is:

The following poem was written in response to the poet Abu Dulaf (d. 840) who hinted in a poem that she was not a virgin and he preferred virgins, whom he compared to unpierced pearls.

Riding beasts are no joy to ride until they're bridled and mounted.

So pearls are useless unless they're pierced and threaded.^[5]

References[]

Sources[]

• Tahera Qutbuddin, 'Women Poets', in Medieval Islamic Civilisation: An Encyclopedia, ed. by Josef W. Meri, 2 vols (New York: Routledge, 2006), II 866, "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-07. Retrieved 2015-03-29.
• Udhari, Abdullah (1999). Classical Poems by Arab Women
• Ibn al-Sāʿī (2017). Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad. Translated by Shawkat M. Toorawa and the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature. Introduction by Julia Bray, Foreword by Marina Warner. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-1-4798-0477-1.

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