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elations with Ibrāhīm al‐Mawṣilī, a man that did not happen to be her master. That attitude of
freedom is reflected in many different stories. Although it seems logical that being a slave in that
context implied complete lack of sexual liberties, the sources surprise us very often with information
that is contrary to that apparently obvious truth. Moreover, it has to be stressed that some of the
qiyān lived part of their life as freedwomen or free concubines maintained by their partners, a fact
that could further strengthen that attitude.
With reference to the freed qiyān, it is interesting to see how they behaved when they found
themselves in the position of masters. A relevant example concerns the freed songstress Duqāq,
renowned for her libertine manners. Duqāq had two mulatto slaves and she once proposed to one of
them to have sexual relations with her. Her slave could not respond physically to her request but she
did not give up. In order to stimulate his sexual appetite, she told him: “Make love to me and I will
free you.” The young man replied: “You make love to me and then sell me to the Arabs.” Finally, the
narrator does not provide us with any more information about the end of this episode. 7 Nevertheless,
the given information is enough to make the reader contemplate the fact that, perhaps, both women
and men are equally prone to the game of sex and power.
Another remarkable case is that of ‘Ubayda al‐Ṭunbūriyya, the famous tambour player and
songstress of the Abbasid era. ‘Ubayda must have been one of the most libertine women of her time.
The story of her life is rather atypical. It seems that she was born free and received her musical
education by a tambour specialist called al‐Zubaydī, a man that used to visit her family when she was
a child. ‘Ubayda turned out to be a gracious and talented young woman, able to attract men’s
attention around her. When her father died, she went to live with ‘Alī b. al‐Faraj al‐Rukhkhajī, a minor
but wealthy courtier with whom she got married and had a daughter. Once she became a mother, her
husband would not permit her to go out and meet people, but her passionate nature never complied
with any prohibition. She kept meeting her lovers outside the house, under the excuse of going to the
ḥammām (bathhouse).
She led that life for a while until her daughter died and her husband repudiated her, and she
found herself wandering around, trying to survive by singing for a couple of dinars. Finally, she ended
up living in different houses with different people, falling in love, flirting and enjoying sex as she
wished. According to the Kitāb al‐Aghānī, her sexual appetite was voracious. She could hardly reject
any sexual proposition, as her taste included almost all men, of all kinds and all ages. Among her
lovers, there was a young man called Abū Karb b. Abī l‐Khaṭṭāb, who had notable physical defects.
When somebody asked her how come she felt attracted to him, she replied that she was able to find
pleasure in all kinds of men except the black ones, as her soul did not like them. Regarding her lover
Abū Karb, she let him understand that she liked him because he was always willing to offer her his
house and satisfy her needs. According to her very own words, he protected her when she needed it
and beat her when she needed it. Apart from him, there was another man in her life that shared that
peculiar sense of familiarity with her. That was a slave of hers, called ‘Alī, who would also satisfy her
lascivious impulses. About that certain young man, she expressed the following rather crude opinion:
“He is like a miller’s mule: he can carry things, he can mill and he can be ridden.” 8
Some qiyān’s freedom of expression about sexual matters was extraordinary, sometimes
reaching the limits of grotesque. In another story about the accomplished songstress Duqāq, it is
related that she was once in the house of Ḥamdūna, Hārūn al‐Rashīd’s daughter, when a cloth trader
with his assistant visited the latter. That day, it was Duqāq that went out to do the bargaining with
them. When she appeared in front of them, she was holding in her hand a fan (mirwaḥa). On the
front side she had written: “A vagina needs two penises more than a penis needs two vaginas.” And,
on the back side, the sentence was completed as following: “… just as a mill needs two mules more