Hind bint al-Nu'man ( ar, هند بنت النعمان, Hind bint al-Nuʿmān), also known as al-Ḥurqah, was a pre-Islamic Arab 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. An example of a poet-princess, she has been read as a key figure in pre-Islamic poetry.

Biography

Hind was the daughter of al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir, the last Lakhmid king of

al-Hirah Al-Hirah ( ar, الحيرة, translit=al-Ḥīra Middle Persian: ''Hērt'' ) was an ancient city in Mesopotamia located south of what is now Kufa in south-central Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of I ...

() and a

Nestorian Christian Nestorianism is a term used in Christian theology and Church history to refer to several mutually related but doctrinarily distinct sets of teachings. The first meaning of the term is related to the original teachings of Christian theologian N ...

Arab mother. According to the ''Ḥarb Banī Shaybān maʻa Kisrá Ānūshirwān'' (whose historical reliability is questionable),

Khosrow II Khosrow II (spelled Chosroes II in classical sources; pal, 𐭧𐭥𐭮𐭫𐭥𐭣𐭩, Husrō), also known as Khosrow Parviz (New Persian: , "Khosrow the Victorious"), is considered to be the last great Sasanian king (shah) of Iran, ruling fr ...

, king of the

Sasanian Empire The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th cen ...

() and her father's overlord, demanded Hind in marriage. Thinking better of the arrangement, al-Nu'man sent Hind to seek refuge among the Arabs, and was subsequently attacked and imprisoned by Khosrow. After failing to find sanctuary with the

Ghassanids The Ghassanids ( ar, الغساسنة, translit=al-Ġasāsina, also Banu Ghassān (, romanized as: ), also called the Jafnids, were an Arab tribe which founded a kingdom. They emigrated from southern Arabia in the early 3rd century to the Levan ...

and other Arab tribes, Hind was granted sanctuary among the Banu Shayban through the intercession of their princess

al-Ḥujayjah Al-Ḥujayjah (), also known as Safīyah bint Thaʻlabah al-Shaybānīyah () was a pre-Islamic poet of the Banū Shaybān tribe, noted for her work in the genre of taḥrīḍ (incitement to vengeance). Her dates of birth and death are unknown, and ...

. It was supposedly for this reason that the Banu Shayban had to fight the Battle of Dhi Qar in . She was then sent to marry

al-Nu'man ibn al-Rayyan Nu'man ( ar, نعمان ) or Nu'maan is an Arabic given name dating to pre-Islamic times, meaning ''blood'' or ''red''. Prevailingly, the Islamic given name is most commonly associated to the Arabic word meaning ''bliss''. It is also used with th ...

, 'her only cousin to survive the Persian attack on the Kingdom of al-Ḥirah', after which Khosrow granted him the throne of al-Hirah. Another source of dubious reliability, Ali ibn Nasr al-Katib's '' Encyclopedia of Pleasure'', tells that Hind loved another woman, the legendary al-Zarqāʾ. When Hind Bint al-Khuss died, her faithful lover "cropped her hair, wore black clothes, rejected worldly pleasures, vowed to God that she would lead an ascetic life until she passed away". Hind bint al-Nu'man even builds a monastery to commemorate her love for al-Zarqāʾ. This source figures the two characters as the first lesbians in Arab culture..

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.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.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurqah 6th-century Arabs 7th-century Arabs 6th-century Christians 7th-century Christian nuns 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 6th-century women writers 6th-century Arabic poets Arab Christians in Mesopotamia Christian poets Church of the East writers Lakhmids Arab princesses Arabs from the Sasanian Empire One Thousand and One Nights characters