The book contains the lives of very few women; but one of the privileged
of her sex is Buran, who died in 884. She became the wife of the khalif
Al-Mamun, who, says Ibn Khallikan rather ungallantly, was "induced to
marry her by the high esteem he bore her father." That her father, the
vizier, saw no slight in this, but was not unwilling that his daughter
should pass under the roof of another, we may perhaps gather from the
lavishness of the wedding, which was celebrated at Fam As-Silh, with
festivities and rejoicings, the like of which were never witnessed for
ages before. The vizier's liberality went so far that he showered balls
of musk upon the Hashimites, the commanders of the troops, the katibs,
and the persons who held an eminent rank at court. Musk is an expensive
thing in itself, but each of these balls contained a ticket, and the
person into whose hands it fell, having opened it and read its contents,
proceeded to an agent specially appointed for the purpose, from whom he
received the object inscribed on the ticket, whether it was a farm or
other property, a horse, a slave-girl, or a mameluk. The vizier then
scattered gold and silver coins and eggs of amber among the rest of the
people.
Capricious generosity marked many of these rulers. Thus it is told of
Ibn Bakiya, the vizier, that in the space of twenty days he distributed
twenty thousand robes of honour. "I saw him one night at a drinking
party," says Abu Ishak As-Sabi, "and, during the festivity, he changed
frequently his outer dress according to custom: every time he put on a
new pelisse, he bestowed it on one or other of the persons present; so
that he gave away, in that sitting, upwards of two hundred pelisses.
"A female musician then said to him: 'Lord of viziers! there must be
wasps in these robes to prevent you from keeping them on your body!'
"He laughed at this conceit, and ordered her a present of a casket of
jewels."
Another of the ladies whom Ibn Khallikan so seldom leaves his high road
to notice is As-Saiyida Sukaina, who, however, could not well be
excluded, since she was "the first among the women of her time [she died
A.D. 735] by birth, beauty, wit, and virtue." Part of her fame rests
upon her repartees to poets: a most desirable form of activity. Thus,
Orwa had a brother called Abu Bakr, whose death he lamented in some
extravagant verses of which these are the concluding lines: _My sorrow
is for Bakr, my brother! Bakr has departed from me! What life can now be
pleasing after the loss of Bakr?_
When Sukaina heard these verses, she asked who was Bakr? And on being
informed, she exclaimed: "What! that little blackamoor who used to run
past us? Why, everything is pleasing after the loss of Bakr, even the
common necessaries of life--bread and oil!"
Another female intruder. It is told of Ibn As-Sammak, a pious sage and
"professional relater of anecdotes," that having held a discourse one
day in the hearing of his slave-girl, he asked her what she thought of
it. She replied that it would have been good but for the repetitions.
"But," said he, "I employ repetitions in order to make those understand
who do not."
"Yes," she replied, "and to make those understand who do not, you weary
those who do."
One of the sayings of Ibn As-Sammak was: "Fear God as if you had never
obeyed Him, and hope in Him as if you had never disobeyed Him."