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Muhja bint al-Tayyani facts for kids

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Muhja bint al-Tayyani (Arabic: مهجة بنت التياني القرطبية, born in Córdoba, died in Córdoba 1097 CE) was an eleventh-century Andalusian poet.

Hardly any information is available about her life. She was the daughter of a Cordoban merchant who was engaged in the sale of figs. She met Princess Wallada, who took her to her house and educated her. She became a poet, a profession that had a great recognition in Andalusian society.

Poems

Maryam
Sixteenth-century CE Turkish picture of Mary shaking the palm tree for dates.

Muhja dedicated ferocious satires to her teacher:

Original Transliteration (ALA-LC) Literal translation
وَلّادة قَدْ صِرْتِ وَلّادة

مِن غَيْرِ بَعَلٍ فَضَحَ الكاتِمُ

حَكَت لَنا مَرْيَم لَكِنّه

نَخْلة هَذي ذَكَرٌ قائِمُ

Wallādah qad ṣirti wallādah

min ghayri baʿalin faḍaḥa al-kātimu

ḥakat lanā Maryam lākinnah

nakhlat hādhī dhakaru qāʾimu.

Wallada has become fecund

by another man; the secret-keeper revealed it.

To us, she resembled Mary, but

.....

This poem puns on Wallada's name, which literally means 'fecund'. It compares Wallada, ostensibly pregnant out of wedlock, to the Virgin Mary. The poem shifts from a literary register in the first half to a colloquial one in the second (characterised by the colloquial form hāḏī in place of classical hāḏihi). The second half alludes specifically to the Islamic account of the virgin birth, in which Mariam received a divine instruction to shake the trunk of a date palm while giving birth to Jesus, so that its fruits fall down to her. .....

Another example is this verse:

يا متحفا بالخوخ أحبابه
أهلا به من مثلج للصدور
حكى ثدي الغيد تفليكه
لكنه أخزى رؤوس الأيور

Away from the gouache of his lips
to those who want it,
just as the border defends itself from those who besiege it,
one is defended by sabers and spears,
and those who are protected by the magic of her eyes.

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Muhya bint al-Tayyani para niños

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