Hafsa bint al-Hajj al-Rukuniyya
Ḥafṣa bint al-Ḥājj ar-Rakūniyya was an aristocrat and poet of 12th century Granada, recognized as the last major female poet from al-Andalus and one of the most celebrated female poets of Andalusi literature. She is also remembered as a teacher in the Almohad court; Ibn al-Khatib later described her as ustādhat waqtihā.
Biography
Sources do not tell us when she was born, but her birth must have been in or after AH 530/1135. She was the daughter of a Berber man, al-Hajj ar-Rukuni, a Granadan, who does not seem to have left traces among biographers. This family was noble and rich. We can therefore consider the father of Hafsa a notable figure in the city. Around the time that the Almohads came to power in 1154, Ḥafṣa seems to have begun a relationship with the poet Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik Ibn Saʿīd; to judge from the surviving poetry, Ḥafṣa initiated the affair. With this, Ḥafṣa enters the historical record more clearly; the relationship seems to have continued until Abū Jaʿfar's execution in 1163 by Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān, son of Abd al-Mu'min and governor of Granada: Abū Jaʿfar had sided with his extended family, the Banu Saʿid, against Adb al-Muʿmin.Ḥafṣa later became known as a teacher, working for Caliph Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur to educate his daughters in Marrakesh. She died there in 1190 or 1191. She is perhaps one of the most celebrated Andalusian female poets of medieval Arabic literature.