Inan bint Abdallah عنان بنت عبد الله | |
|---|---|
| Died | c. 810 or 841 Iraq |
| Resting place | Iraq |
| Pen name | Inan |
| Occupation | Arabic Poet |
| Language | Arabic |
| Nationality | Abbasid Caliphate |
| Period | Islamic Golden Age (Abbasid era) |
ʽInān bint ʽAbdallāh (Arabic:عنان بنت عبد الله, died 841)[1] was a prominent poet andqiyan of theAbbasid period, even characterised by the tenth-century historianAbū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahāni as theslave-woman poet of foremost significance in theArabic tradition.[2] She was later the concubine ofHarun al-Rashid.[3]
ʽInān was born amuwallada (daughter of an Arab father and slave mother) to ʽAbd-Allāh.[4] To her appearance, she was described as a Blonde.[5] She was trained inYamamah. She was sold to Abū Khālid al-Nāṭifī, who brought her toBaghdad.[6]
In the assessment of Fuad Matthew Caswell,
Her salon at the house of al-Nāṭifī was frequented by the celebrated poets and men of letters of the time, includingAbū Nuwās,Diʽbil al-Khuzāʽī,Marwān b. Abī Ḥafṣa,al-ʽAbbās b. al-Aḥnaf andal-Ma’mūn's tutoral-Yazīdī al-Ḥimyarī, among a host of others, one of the attractions being that her master was devoid of jealously and tolerated the ease with which she bestowed her favours.
ʽInān's fame led CaliphHārūn al-Rashīd to seek to buy her to include her in theAbbasid harem, but he refused al-Nāṭifī's asking price of 100,000dīnārs. However, on al-Nāṭifī's death, al-Rashīd had ʽInān put up for auction, ostensibly to help clear al-Nāṭifī's debts. Via an agent, al-Rashīd then acquired her for 225,000 dirhams (in that time 1 dinar was equal to 7 dirhams). As al-Rashīd's concubine, ʽInān bore him two sons, both of whom died young. She accompanied him to Khurāsān where he, and, soon after, she died.[3]
ʽInān was noted for her rapier-like repartee, which was often sexual or even vulgar in tone, and this will have been an important aspect of her fame/infamy.[7] A large part of her surviving corpus comprises her responses to male poets' challenges inverse-capping contests. A significant proportion of her surviving verse is dialogue with the famed poet Abū Nuwās.[8]
As rendered by Eric Ormsby, one of the virtuosic yet obscene exchanges between ʽInān and Abū Nuwās runs thus:[9]
One day she asked him whether he was any good at scansion; when Abu Nuwas replied boastfully that he was superb at it, she said, "Try scanning this verse:
- I ate Syrian mustard on a baker's platter...
- (akaltu ʽl-khardalah sh-shā’mi fī ṣafḥati khabbāzī...)
Abu Nuwas broke the line into metrical feet and responded:
- Akaltu ʽl-khar...ti-tum ti-tum
which means:
- I ate some shit ti-tum ti-tum...
The assembled courtiers broke into loud laughter at the poet's expense. Not to be outdone, he asked ʽInān whether she could scan the following (rather nonsensical) verse:
- Keep your church far from us, O sons of the wood-carrier...!
- (ḥawwilū ʽannā kanīsatakum yā banī ḥammālati l-ḥaṭabi...)
She too had to break up the metrical feet to produce:
- ḥawwilū ʽan tum-ti tum-tinākanī....
which comes out as
- Keep away tum-ti-tum-ti he has fucked me...
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