Qiyan

Qiyān (Arabic: قِيان‎, IPA /qi'jaːn/; singular qayna, Arabic: قَينة‎, IPA /'qεina/) were a social class of non-free women, trained as entertainers, which existed in the pre-modern Islamicate world. It has been suggested that 'the geisha of Japan are perhaps the most comparable form of socially institutionalized female companionship and entertainment for male patrons, although, of course, the differences are also myriad'.[1][2]

Terminology

Qiyān is often rendered in English as 'singing girls' or 'singing slave girls', but these translations do not reflect the fact that qiyān might be of any age, and were skilled entertainers whose training extended well beyond singing, including for example composing music and verse, reciting historical or literary anecdotes (akhbar), calligraphy, or shadow-puppetry. The translation courtesan is sometimes preferred.[3]

In Classical Arabic terminology, qiyān were a subset of jawāri ('female slaves', Arabic: جَوار‎; s. jāriya, Arabic: جارِية‎), and often more specifically a subset of imā’ ('slave girls', Arabic: اِماء‎; s. ama, Arabic: اَمة‎). Qiyān are thus at times referred to as imā’ shawā‘ir ('slave-girl poets', Arabic: اِماء شَوَيعِر‎) or as mughanniyāt ('songstresses', Arabic: مُغَنِّيات‎; s. mughanniya, Arabic: مُغَنِّية‎).[4]

The term originates as a feminine form of pre-Islamic qayn (Arabic: قَين‎), whose meaning was 'blacksmith, craftsman'. The meaning of qayn extended to include manual labourers generally, and then focused more specifically on people paid for their work, and then more specifically again 'to anyone engaged in an artistic performance for reward'. From here, its feminine form came to have the sense discussed in this article.[5]

Characteristics and history

Like other slaves in the Islamicate world, qiyān were legally sexually available to their owners, were often associated in literature with licentiousness, and sexuality was an important part of their appeal; but they seem not generally to have worked in similar roles to concubines or prostitutes.[6]

It is not clear how early the institution of the qiyān emerged, but qiyān certainly flourished especially during the ‘Abbasid period;[7][8] according to Matthew S. Gordon, 'it is not yet clear to what extent courtesans graced regional courts and elite households at other points of Islamic history'.[9] Ibrahim al-Mawsili (742-804 CE) is reported to have claimed that his father was the first to train light-skinned, beautiful girls as qiyān, raising their price, whereas previously qiyān had been drawn from among girls viewed as less beautiful, and with darker skin, though it is not certain that these claims were accurate.[10] One social phenomenon that can be seen as a successor to the qiyan is the Egyptian Almeh, courtesans or female entertainers in Arab Egypt, educated to sing and recite classical poetry and to discourse wittily.[11]

Because of their social prominence, qiyān comprise one of the most richly recorded sections of pre-modern Islamicate female society, particularly female slaves, making them important to the history of slavery in the Muslim world. Moreover, a significant proportion of medieval Arabic female poets whose work survives today were qiyān. For a few qiyān, it is possible to give quite a full biography.[12] Important medieval sources of qiyān include a treatise by al-Jahiz (776–868/869 CE), al-Washsha's Kitab al-Muwashsha (The Brocaded Book), and anecdotes included in sources such as the Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) and al-Ima al-shawa‘ir (The Slave Poetesses) by al-Isbahani (897–967 CE), Nisa al-khulafa (The Consorts of the Caliphs) by Ibn al-Sa‘i, and al-Mustazraf min akhbar al-jawari (Choice Anecdotes from the Accounts of Concubines) by al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505 CE).[13] Many of these sources focus on recounting the witty repartie of prominent qiyān, though there are hints that qiyān in less wealthy households were used by their owners to attract gifts.[14] In the ‘Abbasid period, qiyān were often educated in the cities of Basra, Ta’if, and Medina.[15]

Al-Andalus

It seems that for the first century or so of Arab culture in Al-Andalus, qiyān were brought west after being trained in Medina or Baghdad, or were trained by artists from the east. It seems that by the eleventh century, with the collapse of the Umayyad Caliphate, qiyān tended to be trained in Cordoba rather than imported after training. It seems that while female singers still existed, enslaved ones were no longer found in Al-Andalus in the fourteenth century CE.[16]

Famous qiyān

References

  1. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21 (p. 100); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
  2. ↑ Fuad Matthew Caswell, The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The 'Qiyān' in the Early Abbasid Era (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), p. 1.
  3. ↑ Matthew S. Gordon, 'Introduction: Producing Songs and Sons', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 1-8 (pp. 5-6); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0001.
  4. ↑ Fuad Matthew Caswell, The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The 'Qiyān' in the Early Abbasid Era (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), pp. ix-x, 1-2.
  5. ↑ Fuad Matthew Caswell, The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The 'Qiyān' in the Early Abbasid Era (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), p. 2.
  6. ↑ Matthew S. Gordon, 'Introduction: Producing Songs and Sons', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 1-8 (pp. 5-6); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0001.
  7. ↑ Kristina Richardson, 'Singing Slave Girls (qiyan) of the ‘Abbasid Court in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries', in Children in Slavery Through the Ages, ed. by Gwyn Campbell, Suzanne Miers, and Joseph C. Miller (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009), 105-18.
  8. ↑ Fuad Matthew Caswell, The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The 'Qiyān' in the Early Abbasid Era (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011).
  9. ↑ Matthew S. Gordon, 'Introduction: Producing Songs and Sons', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 1-8 (p. 5); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0001.
  10. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21 (pp. 102-3); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
  11. ↑ Stavros Stavrou Karayanni (2004). Dancing Fear and Desire: Race, Sexuality, and Imperial Politics in Middle Eastern Dance. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-0-88920-926-8.
  12. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21 (pp. 100-101); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
  13. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21 (p. 101); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
  14. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21 (pp. 103-4); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
  15. ↑ Gordon, Matthew S., 'Introduction: Producing Songs and Sons', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 1-8 (pp. 5-6); doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0001.
  16. ↑ Dwight F. Reynolds, 'The Qiyan of al-Andalus', in Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History, ed. by Matthew S. Gordon and Kathryn A. Hain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 100-21; doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.
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