القيان والجواري المغنيات

القيان والجواري المغنيات

The qiyan institution of the first Abbasid age: slave-girls schooled in airs and modes by their masters — Ibrahim al-Mawsili teaching his own, Abdallah ibn Tahir composing for his — divided between the private singers of caliphs and grandees, gifted round out of fashion for novelty, and the public qiyan a slave-dealer housed in 'houses of the established singers' (buyut al-muqayyin) like Ibn Ramin's at Kufa and his girl Sallama al-Zarqa, whose salon Ruh ibn Hatim al-Muhallabi, Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath, Ma'n ibn Za'ida and Ibn al-Muqaffa' frequented. The Aghani is full of their tarajim — Arib, Mutayyam, Badhl, Dhat al-Khal, Farida — some poets and litterateurs fetching two or three thousand dinars.