Zaynab bint Yusuf ibn al-Hakam al-Thaqafiyya

Zaynab bint Yusuf ibn al-Hakam al-Thaqafiyya was the sister of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf; Kahhala in A'lam al-Nisa' describes her as a woman of intelligence, judgement and resolve. ¹

She was married to al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba, who one morning saw her picking her teeth, mocked her and divorced her; she told him he was a poor husband for a free woman, and that what he had seen was only a splinter of her tooth-stick caught between two of her teeth. ¹

The love poet Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Numayr al-Thaqafi, an Umayyad-era poet born and raised at Ta'if, was enamoured of her and composed a poem picturing her among women on the lesser pilgrimage, passing Nu'man and Fakhkh as they called out the talbiya. ^{1 2} The poem reached Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, who wrote to al-Hajjaj to ignore the man and not mention him: if he drew him near or rebuked him he would encourage him, and if he punished him he would seem to confirm the poem. ² Al-Numayri then fled to Abd al-Malik for protection; the caliph had him recite the poem, laughed at his description of his "caravan", and wrote to al-Hajjaj that he had no claim on him. ^{2 3}

Kahhala relates that al-Hajjaj swore he would hear the poem, and as al-Numayri recited he commented line by line: he called him a liar for saying she wore perfume when she went out, agreed that she was a frequent pilgrim and faster who went out veiled at nightfall — "that is how a free Muslim woman behaves" — and granted him safety. ³ When Zaynab died, al-Numayri mourned her in an elegy. ³