Nazhun al-Garnatiya bint al-Qulaiʽiya

Nazhūn bint al-Qulāʽiya al-Gharnātiya (

Arabic: نزهون بنت القلاعي الغرناطية, 12th-century) was a Granadan courtesan and poet

Life

Little is known about Nazhun's life. Medieval Arabic biographical dictionaries and accounts of her poetry are the main sources.

Ḥamda bint Ziyād al-Muaddib.^[1] Anecdotes about Nazhun also feature Abu Bakr al-Amā al-Makhzumi as Nazhun's teacher of the arts of satire; he seems to have been alive in the twelfth century, at some point after 1145;^[2] indeed, Nazhun 'figures so prominently' in biographical entries about al-Makhzumi that 'his fame seems to be completely intertwined with hers'. She was supposedly the daughter of a qadi (judge).^[3]

^{: 4, 13 fnn 5, 8, 10}

Work

Although little of her work survives, Nazhun is, among medieval

Hafsa Bint al-Hajj al-Rukuniyya in the quantity of her work preserved: classical sources attribute to her twenty-one lines of verse from seven poems. In addition, the later Ùddat al-jalīs by Àlī ibn Bishrī attributes to her a muwashshaḥa of twenty-five lines,^[3]^{: 13 fn 7} giving her the distinction of being the only female poet in the collection.^[4] She usually appears getting the better of male poets and aristocrats around her with her witty invective. In Marla Segol's words, "as a rule, Nazhun represents her body in ways that disrupt conventional strategies for control of women’s speech and sexuality, and protests the merchandising of women’s bodies."^[5] The study of her work has been hampered by scholars either not comprehending, or choosing not to expound on, its obscenity and double entendres.^[3]

^: 6

In the translation of A. J. Arberry, one of her various ripostes runs:[6]

The poet al-Kutandi challenged the blind al-Makhzumi to complete the following verses:

If you had eyes to view

The man who speaks with you—

The blind man failed to discover a suitable continuation, but Nazhun, who happened to be present, improvized after this fashion:

However many there may be

All dumbly you’d behold

His anklets’ shining gold.

The rising moon, it seems,

In his bright buttons gleams,

And in his gown, I trow,

There sways a slender bough.

Editions

Modern collections of significant bodies of Nazhun's work include:

Dīwān de Las Poetisas de Al-Andalus, ed. by Teresa Garulo (Ediciones Hiperión, 1986), pp. 110 ff.
Nisāʾ min al-Andalus, ed. by Aḥmad Khalīl Jumʻah (Damascus: al-Yamāmah lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʻ, 2001), pp. 371–402 [نسـاء من الأندلس, أحمد خليل جمعة].

The following table charts the main early sources on Nazhun and her poetry:


Text type	Editor	Title	Edition/translation
muwashshaḥa anthology	Alī Ibn Bishrī	Uddat al-jalīs	S. M. Stern, 'Muwashshaha li-sh-shd'ira l-Andalusiyya Nazhun' [A muwashshah by the Andalusian poet Nazhun], Majalle-ye 'Ulum-i Isldmiyya [Aligarh] (June 1960), pp. 1–8
			Dı̄wān al-Muwashshaḥāt al-Andalusiyya, ed. by S. Ghāzī (Alexandria: Munsha’at al-Ma‘ārif, 1979), pp. 551–52.
			Alī Ibn Bishrī, The Ùddat al-jalīs of Àlī ibn Bishrī: An Anthology of Andalusian Arabic Muwashshaḥāt, trans. by Alan Jones (Cambridge: E. J. W. Gibb Memorial, 1992), 360–61.
poetry anthology	Ibn Saʻīd al-Andalūsī (1213–86)	Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyizīn	El libro de las banderas de los campeones, de Ibn Saʿid al-Magribī, ed. by Emilio García Gómez (Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, 1942), p. 60 (chapter 82).
		Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyizīn	ʻAlī ibn Mūsá Ibn Saʻīd al-Andalūsī Abū al-Hasan (1987). Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyizīn. Tlasdar. pp. 159–61. [علي بن موسى بن سعيد الأندلسي أبو الحسن (1987). محمد رضوان الداية (ed.). رايات المبرزين وغايات المميزين. طلاس للدراسات والترجمة والنشر. pp. 159–61.]
		Al-Mughrib fī ḥulā l-Maghrib	Ibn Saʿı̄d al-Maghribı̄, Al-Mughrib fı̄ Ḥulā al-Maghrib, ed. Sh. Ḍayf, 2 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1953–55), I 223–28, II 121.
biographical dictionary	al-Maqqarı̄ (c. 1578–1632), citing Ibn Sa‘īd's Al-Ṭāli‘ al-Sa‘ı̄d fı̄ Tārı̄kh Banı̄ Sa‘ı̄d	Nafḥ al-Ṭı̄b min Ghuṣn al-Andalus al-Raṭı̄b	al-Maqqarı̄, Nafḥ al-Ṭı̄b min Ghuṣn al-Andalus al-Raṭı̄b, ed. by I. ‘Abbās (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1968), I 139, 190-93, IV 295-98
biographical dictionary	Ibn al-Khaṭı̄b (1313-74), citing Ibn Sa‘īd's Al-Ṭāli‘ al-Sa‘ı̄d fı̄ Tārı̄kh Banı̄ Sa‘ı̄d	Al-Iḥāṭa fı̄ Akhbār Gharnāṭa	Ibn al-Khaṭı̄b, Al-Iḥāṭa fı̄ Akhbār Gharnāṭa, ed. Muh‘Aammad ‘Abd Allah ‘Inān, 4 vols (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1955), I 425-27, 432, II 504-5, III 344-45
biographical dictionary/anthology	Ibn al-Abbar (1199–1260)	Kitāb Tuḥfat al-Qādim	al-Balfı̄qı̄, Al-Muqtaḍab min Kitāb Tuḥfat al-Qādim li Ibn al-Abbār Abı̄ ‘Abdillāh Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Quḍā‘ı̄ al-Andalusı̄, ed. by I. al-Abyārı̄ (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amı̄riyya, 1957), pp. 164-65.

References

^ al-Balfı̄qı̄, Al-Muqtaḍab min Kitāb Tuḥfat al-Qādim li Ibn al-Abbār Abı̄ ‘Abdillāh Muḥammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Quḍā‘ı̄ al-Andalusı̄, ed. by I. al-Abyārı̄ (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amı̄riyya, 1957), p. 164.
^ al-Maqqarı̄, Nafḥ al-Ṭı̄b min Ghuṣn al-Andalus al-Raṭı̄b, ed. by I. ‘Abbās (Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1968), I 139.
^
doi:10.1080/14752620306884
.

^ Otto Zwartjes, 'Thematical Correspondences between the Romance and Hispano-Arabic xarja-s', in Proceedings of the 17th Congress of the UEAI (St Petersburg: Thesa, 1997), pp. 296–315 (p. 299).
^ Marla Segol, 'Representing the Body in Poems by Medieval Muslim Women', Medieval Feminist Forum, 45 (2009), 147-69 (156) https://doi.org/10.17077/1536-8742.1773; cf. Marlé Hammond, 'He said "She said": Narrations of Women's Verse in Classical Arabic Literature. A Case Study: Nazhuūn's Hijaū' of Abuū Bakr al-Makhzuūmī', Middle Eastern Literatures: Incorporating Edebiyat, 6 (2003), 3–18, DOI: 10.1080/14752620306884.
^ Moorish Poetry: A Translation of ’The Pennants’, an Anthology Compiled in 1243 by the Andalusian Ibn Saʿid, trans. by A. J. Arberry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 92; For the Arabic see El libro de las banderas de los campeones, de Ibn Saʿid al-Magribī, ed. by Emilio García Gómez (Madrid: Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, 1942), p. 60.