Qiyan

Qiyān (Arabic: قِيان, Arabic: [qi'jæːn]; singular qayna, Arabic: قَينة, Arabic: ['qɑjnæh]) were a social class of women that existed in the pre-modern Islamic world. The term was used for both slaves and free women who had the role of trained entertainers. Some of those women came from the nobility.^[1] The qiyan flourished under the Umayyad Caliphate and the Abbasid Caliphate and in Al-andalus.^[2]

The word is very often translated as 'singing girls' or 'singing slave girls'. There were also older quiyan. They were skilled entertainers, and their skills included singing, dancing,^[3] composing music and verse, reciting historical or literary anecdotes (akhbar), calligraphy, or shadow puppetry. Other translations include courtesan,^[4] musical concubines,^[1] or simply women musicians.^[1]

Some sources see quiyan as a subset of jawāri: female slaves or even more specifically slave girls. Sometimes, qiyan are called slave-girl poets but many qiyan were free women.^[5] One of them was even the Abbasid princess Ulayya bint al-Mahdi.

The word comes from the female form for qayn, meaning a blacksmith or craftsman. The term was used for manual labourers or anyone paid to do work. Later, it referred to people doing an artistic performance for a reward. Its feminine form evenntually came to have the meaning of a female performer of various arts, in a specific role.^[6]

Like other slaves in the Islamic world, the qiyan were legally sexually available to their owners. They were often associated in literature with uncontrolled sexuality, and sexuality was an important part of their appeal, but they do not seem to have been prostitutes.^[4]

There were also common qiyan, who performed for the public in common qiyan houses, which were in some cases brothels.^[7]

It is not clear how early the institution emerged, but qiyan certainly flourished during the Abbasid period.^[8][7]

Often, slave girls who were not that beautifuil were made qiyan and often also had a darker skin. It is not certain if those claims were accurate.^[9] One social phenomenon that can be seen as a successor to the qiyan is the Egyptian almah, courtesans or female entertainers in Mediaeval Egypt who were educated to sing and recite classical poetry and to discourse wittily.^[10]

There are many stories about qiyan, especially female slaves. For that reason, they are important in the history of slavery in the Islamic world. Many female poets of the Arab world in were qiyan in the Middle Ages. For a few qiyan, it is possible to give quite a full biography.^[11] Important medieval sources of qiyan include a long work by al-Jahiz (776–868/869 CE), Abu Tayyib al-Washsha's Kitāb al-Muwashshà ("The Brocaded Book") and anecdotes included in sources such as the Kitab al-Aghani "Book of Songs") and al-Imāʼ al-Shawāʼir ("The Slave Poetesses") by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (897–967 CE), Nisāʼ al-Khulafā ("The Consorts of the Caliphs") by Ibn al-Sāʿī, and al-Mustazraf min Akhbar al-Jawari ("Choice Anecdotes from the Accounts of Concubines") by al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505 CE).^[12]

Many of these sources recount a list of prominent qiyan, but there are hints that qiyan in less wealthy households were used by their owners to attract gifts.^[13] During the Abbasid period, the qiyan were often educated in the cities of Basra, Ta'if, and Medina.^[4]

It has been suggested that "the geisha of Japan are perhaps the most comparable form of socially institutionalized female companionship and entertainment for [men]." Howeverthere are also many differences.^[14][15]

The institution of qiyān declined with the Abbasid Caliphate.^[16] When it first broke apart, this did not have a direct impact. The qiyan did not take sides in political disputes.^[17] However, political instability led to tax mismanagement.^[18] Also, the new class of Turkish soldiers wanted to be paid more. That meant that less money was in the treasury and so less artistic activity could be funded, which reduced the artists' success.^[19]

Citizens who used services of the qiyan were thought to be rich. Soldiers also asked them for money, which caused showing off to be risky behaviour.^[19]

It seems that for the first century or so in al-Andalus, the qiyab were brought west after they had been trained in Medina or Baghdad. They might also have been trained by artists from the east.

In the 11th century, the Caliphate of Cordoba collapsed. The qiyan then often trained in Cordoba, rather than being imported after their training. It seems that while female singers still existed, enslaved ones were no longer found in al-Andalus in the 14th century CE.^[20]

• Atika bint Shuhda (عاتكة بنت شُهدة)
• 'Inān (عِنان, d. 841)
• Djamila (جميلة‎, d. 720)
• Tawaddud (a fictional but famous character, c. 800)
• Dananir al Barmakiyya (دنانير البرمكية‎, d. 810s)
• Ulayya bint al-Mahdi, daughter of the caliph Al-Mahdi (d. 825)
• Arib al-Ma'muniyya (عَرِيب المأمونية, CE 797–890)
• Shāriyah (شارِية, c. 815–70 CE)
• Farida (born c. 830)
• Faḍl al-Shā'irah (فضل الشاعرة, d. 871 CE)

• Caswell, F. Matthew (2011). The Slave Girls of Baghdad: The Qiyān in the Early Abbasid Era. I.B.Tauris. pp. ix–x, 1–2. ISBN 978-1-84885-577-9.
• Reynolds, Dwight F. (2017). "The Qiyan of al-Andalus'". In Gordon, Matthew S.; Hain, Kathryn A. (eds.). Concubines and Courtesans: Women and Slavery in Islamic History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190622183.003.0006.

• Hekmat Dirbas, "Naming of Slave-girls in Arabic: A Survey of Medieval and Modern Sources", Zeitschrift für Arabische Linguistik, 69 (2019), 26–38, doi:10.13173/zeitarabling.69.0026, JSTOR 10.13173