Ulayya bint al-Mahdi

Ulayya, daughter of the caliph al-Mahdi, was born in 160 AH and was, as Kahhala describes her, among the most beautiful, refined and intelligent of women, chaste and highly cultivated, a fine poet who composed good melodies for her verse. ¹

Her forehead was unusually broad, so she wore bands crowned with jewels to cover it, and thereby created a fashion than which nothing finer was ever devised by women. ^{1 2}

Kahhala quotes Ibrahim ibn Isma'il the secretary that she was sound in religion, and sang or drank nabidh only when she was excused from prayer; once purified she turned to prayer, the Qur'an and reading books, unless the caliph summoned her to something she could not refuse. ² Al-Husri says she equalled many distinguished men in intelligence and speech. She used to say that God forbade nothing without providing a lawful substitute for it, so what excuse has the one who disobeys him? And: "May God not forgive me any indecency I ever committed — and I say nothing idle in my verse." ²

Her brother Harun al-Rashid honoured her greatly and took her on his journeys; once in Khurasan she longed for Baghdad and wrote on his tent two lines about an exile weeping with longing who seeks healing from the scent of riders from his homeland, and he said, "Ulayya yearns for home," and had her sent back to Baghdad. ² She grieved deeply at al-Rashid's death and gave up singing and nabidh, until al-Amin pressed her and she returned to them unwillingly. ³ Abu Ahmad ibn al-Rashid relates that in al-Ma'mun's assembly he heard a voice that unsettled him, and al-Ma'mun told him: that is your aunt Ulayya rehearsing with your uncle Ibrahim. ³

She left a diwan well known among men of letters, and died in 210 AH; al-Ma'mun led the prayer over her. It is reported that al-Ma'mun embraced her and kissed her head while her face was covered, that she choked and coughed, fell into a fever a few days later and died. ⁴

• Kahhala's reports come mostly from al-Aghani, Nuzhat al-Julasa' and Zahr al-Adab; some verses in the entry are attributed by others to Abu al-Atahiya, while Ibn al-Mu'tazz says they are Ulayya's (note on p. 344).