Al-Ḥurqah

Hind bint al-Nuʻmān (Arabic: هند بنت النعمان), also known as Al-Ḥurqah was a pre-Islamic poet. There is some historiographical debate, going back to the Middle Ages, over precisely what her names were, with corresponding debates over whether some of the bearers of these names were different people or not.[1] An example of a poet-princes, she has been read as a key figure in pre-Islamic poetry.[2]

Biography

Daughter of al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir, the last Lakhmid king of Al-Hirah (r. 582–c. 602 AD) and a Nestorian Christian Arab, she was according to a number of sources demanded in marriage by Khosrow II, king of the Sasanian Empire (r. 590-628) and ally of her father.

According to the Ḥarb Banī Shaybān maʻa Kisrá Ānūshirwān (whose historical reliability is questionable), Khosrow II (r. 590-628) demanded Hind in marriage from her father al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir. Thinking better of the arrangement, al-Nu'mān sent Hind to seek refuge among the Arabs, and was subsequently attacked and imprisoned by Khosrow. After failing to find sanctuary along the Ghassānids and other Arab tribes, Hind was granted sanctuary among the Banū Shaybān through the intercession of their princess al-Ḥujayjah. It was supposedly for this reason that the Banā Shaybān had to fight the Battle of Dhū-Qār in c. 609. She was then sent to marry Nuʻmān ibn al-Rayyān, 'her only cousin to survive the Persian attack on the Kingdom of al-Ḥīrah', after which Khosrow granted him the throne of Al-Hirah.[3]

Works

Some poetry is attributed to Hind, making her (if the attributions are correct) a relatively rare example of a pre-Islamic female poet whose work survives.[4]

References

  1. ↑ The History of al-Ṭabari (Ta’rīkh al-rusul wa’l-mulūk): Volume V, The Sāsānids, the Byzantines, the Lakhmids, and Yemen, trans. by C. E. Bosworth (New York: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 372-73 fn 914.
  2. ↑ Samer M. Ali, 'Medieval Court Poetry', in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women, ed. by Natana J. Delong-Bas, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), I 651-54 (at p. 653). https://www.academia.edu/5023780.
  3. ↑ Hamad Alajmi, 'Pre-Islamic Poetry and Speech Act Theory: Al-A`sha, Bishr ibn Abi Khazim, and al-Ḥujayjah' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Indiana University, 2012), pp. 165-66, 195.
  4. ↑ Hamad Alajmi, 'Pre-Islamic Poetry and Speech Act Theory: Al-A`sha, Bishr ibn Abi Khazim, and al-Ḥujayjah' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Indiana University, 2012), pp. 165-66.
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