Azza al-Mayla'

Azza al-Mayla' was a singer of Medina. Kahhala says she was among the earliest women in the Hijaz to sing measured song (al-ghina' al-mawqqa') and among the best lute players, a natural singer whom neither performance, composition nor arrangement defeated. ¹

She sang the old songs of the singing-girls — Sirin, Zarnab, Khawla, al-Rabab and Salma — and her teacher was Ra'iqa; when Nashit and Sa'ib Khathir came to Medina and sang in Persian, she learned melodies from them and composed wonderful tunes on them. ¹ Her nickname is variously explained — by her swaying gait, by her wearing a wrap (mula'a) like men, or by her fondness for drink; Kahhala favours the first. ¹

Ibn Surayj came to Medina as a youth to hear her and learn her singing, and when asked who sang best he would say: the client of the Ansar, preferred above every man and woman who sang; Ibn Muhriz would spend three months in Medina learning lute-playing from her. ^{1 2} Tuways, her neighbour and most frequent visitor, called her the mistress of all women singers, with outstanding beauty, fine character and "an Islam free of blemish", bidding good and forbidding evil; when she held a public session, it was as if birds sat on the heads of her audience. ²

Kahhala relates that Ibn Abi Atiq persuaded Abd Allah ibn Ja'far to visit her with him; they found the governor's messenger at her door ordering her to stop singing because the people of Medina complained of her. Ibn Ja'far told him to have it proclaimed in Medina that any man corrupted or woman seduced on Azza's account should come forward; it was proclaimed, and no one did. ²

• Kahhala gives no date of death in these pages; his reports come mainly from al-Aghani.