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The Arabic Verses of Qasmūna Bint Ismā'il Ibn Bagdālah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

James Mansfield Nichols
James Mansfield Nichols
Affiliation:
University of Michigan-Dearborn Dearborn, Michigan
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Extract

Little is known about the twelfth-century poet called Qasmūna the Jewess. She was one of a constellation of Arabic-writing women poets of medieval Spain, and is the sole representative of her faith from whom we have surviving verses. These are collected in the fifteenth-century anthology of women's verse compiled by as-Suyūtu, who drew upon the Nafh at-tub of al-Maqqaru. The sketchy biographical data that as-Suyūtu records show Qasmūna as a witty and intelligent young woman who received an excellent education from a doting father named Ismā'il ibn Ba@dālah. Indeed, the first of the three poetic texts we have from her is the product of a collaboration between Qasmūna and her father. In addition, she was endowed with great physical beauty, as becomes apparent in her poetry.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , May 1981 , pp. 155 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

1 Jalāl, ad-Dun as-Suyūtu, Nuzhat al-julasā' fi ash‘ār an-nisā’, ed. Salāh, ad-Dun al-Munjid (Beirut, 1958), pp. 86–87;Google Scholaral-Maqqaru, , Analectes sur l'histoire er la littérature des arabes d'Espagne, ed. Dozy, R. et al., (rpt. Amsterdam, 1967), II, 356.Google Scholar

2 I amend the published text, which prints in, a particle which does not lend itself to a satisfactory reading here.

3 In classical Arabic the term zaby, fem. zabya, denoted the gazelle (Gazella dorcas). Since all species of gazelle are confined to Africa and parts of Asia, the term probably came to designate in Spain an animal such as the European roe deer (Capreolus capreolus). Of course, “gazelle” from earliest times could mean “young woman,” and is so used, for example, by Hamda bint Ziyād in Spain; see as-Suyūtu, p. 49.