Arib al-Ma'muniyya

Arib al-Ma'muniyya was a qayna, a slave trained in the arts of entertainment, of the early Abbasid period, characterised as the most famous slave singer ever to reside at the Baghdad court. Born in 797, she claimed to be the daughter of the Barmakid Ja'far ibn Yahya, a parentage modern scholars have questioned; she was bought by al-Amin and then by al-Ma'mun, and was freed by al-Mu'tasim. A poet, singer, composer and oud player, she left songs said to number around 1,000, and the Kitab al-Aghani of Abu'l-Faraj al-Isfahani places her singing without rival among her peers. Her career spanned the courts of five caliphs, and she died at Samarra in 890, aged 96.