sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

qiyān’s lives, and that is the reason for which this paper will be concluded with a comical and, at the
same time, eloquent khabar about al‐Rashīd’s late‐night activities and conversations.
One night, he called his singing slave‐girl “Dhāt al‐Khāl” and spent half the night alone with her.
Then he entered again the public hall, where he would spend the rest of the night with his court
musician Isḥāq al‐Mawṣilī. In order to please Isḥāq, al‐Rashīd ordered one of his jawārī to join them.
The girl that appeared was of an extraordinary beauty. The caliph sat her on his lap and asked her to
sing. She sang for a while and both men enjoyed listening to her and drinking. Later, al‐Rashīd gave
his vizier al‐Faḍl b. al‐Rabī’ permission to join them as well. When the latter entered the hall and was
asked about his news, he answered that he was fine although he had had a shocking experience that
he was not able to hide: Three of his ŷawārī –one from Mecca, one from Medina and one from Iraq–
approached him one day, and all of a sudden the Medinan girl took his member in her hand. When a
certain level of excitation was achieved, the Meccan girl tried to move her aside and seize the control
of it, but the Medinan girl protested, telling her: “Didn’t you know that the Prophet said that
whoever gives life to a dead land then has the right to own it?” Her Meccan colleague responded
immediately to that verbal challenge: “And you, didn’t you know that the Prophet said that the prey
belongs to the one that has captured it, not to the one that has provoked it?” Meanwhile, the Iraqi
girl took advantage of that argument and proceeded to occupy that so cherished place by taking a
quick jump and declaring: “This is mine. While you, girls, are fighting, I’ll keep holding it in my hands.”
Al‐Rashīd was enthusiastic with his vizier’s story and ordered those girls to be brought to his palace.
Indeed, they came to meet him and from then on lived with him, enjoying his favor. 17
Concluding, it can be said that qiyān lived in a wider context of eroticism, in which they often
enjoyed their sexuality as they wished. However, it has to be noticed that not all of those women had
the opportunity to exercise that “illicit freedom” for themselves, as sometimes such an attitude could
entail serious consequences for their lives, including severe physical punishment.
The anecdotes mentioned in this paper are significant for the very topic that it examines, but they
should not be considered as the only reliable source of information about qiyān’s love life in general.
Along with this witty and striking information, it is necessary to take into consideration the more
obscure side of the same issue: the absolute lack of freedom that a great part of those women
experienced during their lives. That side of the issue should not be ignored, even if it seems less
eloquent and less attractive. It should never be ignored, as contemporary research should never
ignore its duty to recover the voices of silenced women and the dignity they never enjoyed in their
lifetime.
Keywords: Qiyan, Singing slave girls, Jawari, Kitab al‐Aghani, Arab women in the middle Ages
Mika PARASKEVA
University of Granada
Notes
1
Y. Linant de Bellefons, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2 nd ed., s. v. “Istibrā’”.
2
Abū l‐Faraj ‘Alī b. al‐Ḥusayn al‐Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al‐Aghānī, ed. Iḥsān ‘Abbās, Ibrāhīm al‐Sa‘āfīn, and
Bakr ‘Abbās, vol. VI (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 2002), 21–23.
3
Al‐Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al‐Aghānī, vol. XVI, 10.
4
Al‐Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al‐Aghānī, vol. XXI, 52.
5
Al‐Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al‐Aghānī, vol. XIX, 249–250.
6
Al‐Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al‐Aghānī, vol. XVI, 234.