Qasmuna


Qasmūna bint Ismāʿil is the only female Arabic-language Jewish poet attested from medieval Andalusia. Moreover, she is one of only two or three known medieval female Jewish poets, the others being the anonymous wife of Dunash ben Labrat and possibly the sixth-century Sarah of Yemen.

Biography

Little is known about Qasmūna's life. Both surviving sources say that her father was Jewish and that he taught her the art of verse. Whereas al-Maqqari simply calls him Ismāʿil al-Yahudi, however, al-Suyuti calls him Ismāʿil ibn Bagdāla al-Yahudi, and says Qasmūna lived in the twelfth century CE. It has been speculated that Qasmūna's father was Samuel ibn Naghrillah, or that Samuel was otherwise an ancestor, which would make Qasmuna an eleventh-century rather than a twelfth-century poet, but the foundations for these claims are shaky.

Works

Three poems by Qasmūna are known.

1

One is part of a verse-capping challenge set by Qasmūna's father. As edited and translated by Nichols, he begins:
To which Qasmūna replies:
The missing word in this verse is assumed to be a word denoting a woman of some kind.

2

The most famous of Qasmūna's poems, widely anthologised, is introduced by the comment that she looked in the mirror one day and saw that she was beautiful and had reached the time of marriage. She then utters this verse:

3

The last of Qasmūna's known poems runs: