User:Switchercat/Sandbox/Wallada

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Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (born in Cordova in 994, died in 1091), was an Arab-Spanish poet.

Daughter of Muhammad III al-Mustakfí, who was of Umayyad blood and one of the last Cordovan caliphs, que llegó al poder el January 11, 1024 assassinating the previous caliph Abderraman V, y fue a su vez asesinado a los dos años en Uclés. Her childhood coincided with the splendor of the political career of Almanzor. Her adolescence passed during the civil wars that mark the caliphate of Cordova, in the middle of all sorts of palace intrigues spurred by the death of the son of Almanzor, al-Muzzaar.

As the caliph had no male heir, Wallada inherited the properties of her father, and she opened a palace dedicated to educating young noblewomen; poets and intellectuals of that time also came there. She was unusual in looks for a Cordovan of the time: blond, clear-skinned and blue-eyed, in addition to being intelligent, cultured and proud. She embroidered her verses in her clothing and participated in the "masculine" competitions of completing unfinished poems, freely showing her face, conducta que la hizo ser llamada "perversa" y ser criticada very harshly por los integristas, aunque también tuvo numerosos defensores de su honestidad, como the writer Ibn Hazm, author of El collar de la paloma, and the vizier Ibn Abdus, su eterno enamorado que, al parecer, permaneció a su lado y la protegió hasta su muerte, cuando ya era octogenaria.

The great passion of her life was the poet Ibn Zaydun, with whom she maintained a secret relationship, given the ties of that poet with the Banu Yahwar, a rival lineage to the Umayyds y que le hacía andarse con cuidado por Córdoba. They turned (giran) eight of the nine poems about this relationship que de ella se conservan. La relación se rompió por la relación de Ibn Zaydún con una esclava negra de Wallada, lo que puede ser cierto, pero también responde a un tópico de la poesía de la época.

Amongst these poems, which were written for the purpose of being letters between the lovers, two express jealousy, nostalgia and the desires of the pair to join; another expresses deception, sorrow and reproach; five are sharp satires against su lover, al que reprocha entre otras cosas tener amantes masculinos, y el último alude a su liberty and independence.

Among her most outstanding students was Muhya, a young woman of very humble condition (daughter of a salesman of figs), whom Wallada welcomed into her house. Muhya later wrote a number of cruel satires about Wallada.

Wallada died on March 26, 1091, the same day that the Almoravids entered Cordova.

[edit] Sources

  • Dozy, R. P. Historia de los musulmanes en España . Madrid, Turner, 1988.
  • Garulo, T. Diwan de las poetisas andaluzas de Al-Andalus. Madrid, Ediciones Hiperión, 1985.
  • López de la Plaza, G. Al-Andalus: Mujeres, sociedad y religió. Málaga, Universidad de Málaga, 1992.
  • Sobh, M. Poetisas arábigo-andaluzas. Granada, Diputación Provincial, 1994.

[edit] External links