Fadl al-Sha'irah
Fadl al-Qaysi or Faḍl al-Shāʻirah 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. She was a concubine of caliph Al-Mutawakkil.
Life
Born in al-Yamama, Fadl was brought up in Abbasid Basra. She was a muwallada raised among the Abd al-Qays tribe. Although she was legally a slave, she claimed to be a freeborn daughter of the tribe and that her brothers had sold her into slavery unjustly; however, she was sold to Muhammad ibn al-Faraj al-Rukhkhaji, a leading officer of the Caliphate, who later gave her to Caliph al-Mutawakkil.Fadl became a prominent figure in the court. According to Ibn Annadim, a bibliographer, Fadl's diwan extended to twenty pages. Her pupils included the singer Faridah.
When Fadl was brought to before al-Mutawakkil the very day she had been given to him, al-Mutawakkil asked her, "Are you really a poet"?
She replied: Those who buy and sell me all say so.
He laughed and said "Recite some of your poetry to us" and she recited following verses:
A Caliphate entrusted to al-Mutawakkil, when he was seven and twenty
Let's us hope, Rightly guided Ruler that your rule goes on for eighty.
God bless you! On all who do not say Amen" — The curse of Almighty
Abu al-Ayna said that the Caliph liked the poem and gave her fifty thousand dirhams.
She died in 870/71.
Poetry
An example of Fadl's work, in the translation of Abdullah al-Udhari, is:So pearls are useless unless they're pierced and threaded.