and al-Maʾmun b. al-Rashid bought her (1). Ibn ʿAsakir also relates (2) from Hammad b. Ishaq, who heard it from his father, that he said: “I have never seen a woman more beautiful of face, finer in manners, sweeter in singing, more skillful in instrumental accompaniment, more eloquent in poetry, or more adept at chess and backgammon than she. In short, whatever refined and admirable quality you might hope to find perfected in a woman, you would find it in her.”

She was indeed a polished, fluent, and expressive poet. Al-Maʾmun was passionately enamoured of her, and after him al-Muʿtasim loved her as well. She, however, was smitten with a man called Muhammad b. Hamid (3) and would sometimes smuggle him into the palace of the caliphate—may Allah disgrace her, as Ibn ʿAsakir recounts.

Later she fell in love with Salih al-Mundhiri, married him in secret, and composed poetry in his praise. At times she would sing those verses in the presence of al-Mutawakkil, who had no idea whom they concerned, and his maidservants would laugh at this. She would retort to them, “You sahhaqāt (lesbian degenerates), this is better than what you do (4)!”

Ibn ʿAsakir cites a large selection of her poetry. Among it is what she recited and sang to al-Mutawakkil when she visited him during an illness (5):

They came and said, “The Caliph is ill,”
and the fire of longing blazed within my breast.
Would that the caliph Jaʿfar’s fever were mine instead—
let the fever strike me and let the reward be his.
It is grief enough that he was said to be fevered and yet I did not die of sorrow;
after this, indeed, I shall show steadfast patience.
May I be the ransom for the caliph Jaʿfar—
and that is but a meagre token of my thanks to him.

When he recovered she came in to him and sang the following (6):

Thanks for the favours of Him who cured you of sickness—
may you ever remain sound, free of pain and ailment.
With your light the days have regained their joy,
and the meadows of generosity and nobility have sprung to life.
Since the Chosen One, no king has stood for the faith
more chaste than you or more faithful to covenants.
So may Allah long preserve Jaʿfar among us,
and by the light of his sunnah drive from us the darkness of night.

She also composed, on his recovery, (7):