Shariya

Shariya, in the entry of Kahhala in A'lam al-Nisa' drawn from al-Aghani and al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, was a singer born among the slave-born women of Basra and one of the finest singers of her time. ^{1 2}

A Hashimite woman of Basra, descended from Ja'far ibn Sulayman, bought her, educated her and taught her singing; she then passed to Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi and learned all or most of his repertoire from him, which is why some ranked her above Arib. ¹ It is related that her mistress first offered her to Ishaq al-Mawsili, who bid three hundred dinars; Ibrahim bought her and had his singing girls train her for a year, and when Ishaq heard her afterwards he said she would be cheap at three thousand dinars — and was astonished to learn she was the same girl. ¹ In Ibn al-Mu'tazz's version Ibrahim lacked the price and borrowed it from Ali ibn Hisham; he kept her seven years, raised her like a daughter, would make her repeat one passage of a melody more than a thousand times until she had it, and called her "my daughter". ^{3 4}

Al-Mu'tasim bought her for 5,500 dinars and she remained his until his death; Sahl al-Ahwal relates that he was offered seventy thousand dinars for her and refused to sell. ^{4 2} After al-Mu'tasim's death she led the singers until late in the caliphate of al-Wathiq, who called her "my lady"; it is said she took up the lute only under al-Mutawakkil, when hostility between her and Arib had set in. ²