Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad By Ibn al-Sāʿī, edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa, translated by the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature; introduced by Julia Bray, foreword by Marina Warner

Abstract

This is a meticulously edited translation of a thirteenth-century work by Ibn al-Sāʿī, librarian and chronicler of ʿAbbasid society. It is a collaborative effort, involving many layers of consultation, following the principles outlined by Shawkat M. Toorawa in his preface and in his ‘Note on the Translation’. It is an excellent example of what can be achieved by collaboration rather than by one individual scholar working on his or her own. The book contains an Arabic text with the English translation on the facing page. With this layout non-Arabic speakers can enjoy the stories, while Arabic speakers can easily judge the translation. Each entry consists of an anecdote about or a description of a woman who was important at the court in Baghdad, from the golden age of Hārūn al-Rashīd to Ibn al-Sāʿī’s own time and the rule of the last ʿAbbasid Caliph, al-Mustaʿṣim. Women of the earlier period are usually cultured and refined poets, who are also slaves, and the anecdotes often relate how the women bested various male poets in capping lines of poetry, thereby winning favour. The later women are more often praised for their pious deeds, for building bridges and libraries, and for their charitable gifts. Dipping into these disconnected, short anecdotes—some are just a brief paragraph, others last several pages and contain many examples of poetry—the reader is immersed in an unfamiliar world in which beautiful, witty and talented slaves are bought and sold and yet are highly esteemed, often with slaves and a retinue of their own.