Qutayla ukht al-Nadr ( ar, قُتيلة أخت النضر, or Qutayla bint al-Nadr) was a seventh-century CE Arab woman of the Quraysh tribe, noted as one of the earliest attested Arabic-language poets on account of her famous elegy for

Nadr ibn al-Harith Al-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith ibn ʿAlqama ibn Kalada ibn ʿAbd Manāf ibn Abd al-Dār ibn Quṣayy () (d. 624 CE) was an Arab pagan physician who lived in the same time and region as the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He was captured after the Battle ...

Life

Qutayla appears in the historical record in connection with her relative

, an Arab Pagan doctor from Taif, who used to tell stories of

Rustam use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = Kabulistan , death_cause = With the conspiracy of his half-brother Shaghad, he fell into a wel ...

and

Esfandiyār Esfandiyār or Espandiyār ( ae, Spəntōδāta-; pal, Spandadāt; ) is a legendary Iranian hero and one of the characters of Ferdowsi's ''Shahnameh''. He was the son and the crown prince of the Kayanian King Goshtasp and Queen Katāyoun. He ...

to the Arabs and scoffed the Islamic prophet

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

. After the battle of Badr in 624 CE, al-Harith was captured and, in retaliation, Muhammad ordered his execution in hands of

Ali ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib ( ar, عَلِيّ بْن أَبِي طَالِب; 600 – 661 CE) was the last of four Rightly Guided Caliphs to rule Islam (r. 656 – 661) immediately after the death of Muhammad, and he was the first Shia Imam ...

. Some sources characterise Qutayla as Nadr's sister (''ukht''), others as his daughter (''bint''), though the most popular claim seems to be that she was his sister (hence the title of this article). Her full name appears in some sources, for example, as Qutayla ukht al-Nuḍar b. al-Ḥarīth b. ‘Alqama b. Kalda b. ‘Abd Manāf b. ‘Abd al-Dār b. QuṠayy al-Qurashiyya al-‘Abdariyya. There was also a tradition, attested in one medieval source,

al-Jāḥiẓ Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī ( ar, أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري), commonly known as al-Jāḥiẓ ( ar, links=no, الجاحظ, ''The Bug Eyed'', born 776 – died December 868/Jan ...

in his ''Kitāb al-Bayān wa ’l-tabyīn'', that she was actually called Laylā.

Work

To Qutayla is attributed the following elegy for Nadr, in which she upbraids Muhammad for the execution. According to some commentaries, Muhammad's response to this was 'Had I heard her verses before I put him to death, I should not have done so'.

: On the fifth night's morning, stranger, with luck : a tamarisk tree should appear by the way: : Leave word that travellers never cease : as they pass to wave a salute from the road; : that you saw me standing, the tears on my face; : on other tears, unseen, I choke. : Will my brother hear my voice when I call? : If the dead can hear they never speak. : Weary and worn he was led to his doom, : a captive dragging his feet in chains, : torn by the swords of his cousins and kin: : To God I mourn the divided house. : Muḥammad, of noble woman born, : son of equally noble sire! : It would not have harmed to be generous then; : a man, incensed, may still forgive. : Had you taken ransom -- Nothing too much, : too grand, but we'd gladly have given it up. : My brother was nearest of those you took, : the first to be spared -- had you pardoned his youth.

'Although doubt has been expressed regarding their authenticity ... these verses, frequently cited and highly appreciated, have perpetuated alNadr's memory'. Whatever its origin, the poem attributed to Qutayla is among the poems most frequently cited in the medieval Arabic anthologies known as ''ḥamāsāt'', being noted for their moving quality. In the assessment of Nadia Maria El Cheikh, 'Qutayla's poem reflects the new Islamic ethos conveying the dramatic tension of a particular moment in Islamic religious history. She does not call for vengeance but for a modification of behavior, a kind retroactive display of restraint and forbearance'.Nadia Maria El Cheikh, 'The Gendering of "Death" in Kitāb al-‘Iqd al-Farīd', ''Al-Qantara'', 31 (July–December 2010), 411-36 (p. 427), http://al-qantara.revistas.csic.es/index.php/al-qantara/article/viewFile/237/230, citing M. L. Hammond, ''The Poetics of S/Exclusion: Women, Gender and the Classical Arabic Canon'' (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University, 2003), pp. 185-86.

References

{{authority control Converts to Islam Arab women 7th-century Arabs Medieval women poets Poets of the early Islamic period Arabic-language women poets Arabic-language poets 7th-century women writers 7th-century Arabic poets 7th-century deaths Women companions of the Prophet