WARRIOR WOMEN IN ARABIC POPULAR ROMANCE:

QANNÂSA BINT MUZÂHIM AND OTHER VALIANT LADIES

PART ONE

One of the misconceptions about medieval Arabic popular fiction one

occasionally comes across is that the role of women in popular Arabic

storytelling is almost exclusively confined to either that of the coquettish, sensuous, often wily and amoral young beauty, or that of the vile old hag bent on destruction. Although scholarly research has long since amended this picture we still find such views lingering on. For many people Arabic popular fiction still means the Arabian Nights; but even these bear ample testimony to the contrary, as for instance Walther (1982) has pointed out.

Among the various types of female protagonists of a different character that may be encountered in Arabic popular fiction there is one in par- ticular that deserves attention, especially since, on closer inspection, she turns out to be one of the stock characters of Arabic popular literature. This is the gallant female warrior, who turns up in a number of different forms. My aim here is to see how this widespread theme of folklore the world over is dealt with in traditional Arabic storytelling, in order to find out exactly in what form it appealed to an Arab audience. How did the storyteller have to present this theme in order to be sure of getting good ratings? For as to this, the practical outlook of professional storytellers will not have differed much from that of the makers of modern television programmes, and elements which did not appeal to the taste of the public are not likely to have survived for long.

To this end, I have browsed through the Arabian Nights as well as

through Arabic popular romance, the sira literature, without any inten- tion of compiling a complete inventory of the stories in which such war- .

rior women occur: Heath's (1984) rough estimate of the number of pages involved in such an operation comes to thirty thousand for sira literature alone, and a survey of this material is as yet beyond me. We are still eagerly waiting for somebody to chart out this material by providing us with surveys of the contents of the romances and related literature,' as well as presenting us with with indices of themes and motifs, as Elisseeff

1 Vol. VIII of Ahlwardt's Verzeichniss der arabischen Handschriften offers valuable material in this respect; Paret has excerpted Sayf ibn Dhî Yazan (1924), the maghâzî literature (1930), and �Umar an-Nu�mân (1927) and surveys of Dhât al-Himma are given by Nabila Ibrâhîm (n.d., pp. 34-57) and Canard (EI, s.v. Dhû ¸1-Himma).

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(1949) has done for the Arabian Nights, and, on a minor scale, Oliverius

(1971) for Zir Salim. In this article I will make a first attempt at a typology of the "warrior

woman" in Arabic (and related) literature, as well as of the themes and motifs connected with her. I define as "warrior women" such women as are trained in the chivalrous arts of fighting and combat. Thus a cir- cumstantial handling of weapons, or even the unpremeditated fierceness and fighting abilities of Maryam the Girdle-maker (Littmann V: 624 ff.) do not suffice to make a woman qualify as a "warrior woman", however destructive her actions against her enemies may be. I have avoided the word "Amazon" because it is encumbered by a vast amount of connota- tions so far removed from the stories here discussed (see Blok 1991) that it becomes virtually useless for the present purpose, and a more neutral term is to be preferred.

First, the Arabian Nights. Female protagonists of the type mentioned above do figure in several of its stories. Most prominent among them are Abeiza and Shawahi in the romance of King ?Umar an-Nu'mAn (Litt- mann 1: 550- II: 224), a piece of sira (or geste) literature incorporated in the Arabian Nights); the theme further comes up in two of the stories belonging to the cycle of the Seven Vizirs, namely "The man who never laughed again in his life" (Littmann IV, 303-312); in "Prince Bahram and Princess ad-Datma" (Littmann IV, 334-40); and in the story of Hasan of Basra (Littmann V, 315-503).

The story of 'Umar an-Nu'min, a geste-type of story that has much in common with the vast Sirat al-amira Dhat al-Himma to be discussed below (see Canard 1937), offers us the charming figure of Princess Abriza.2 2

One night when Prince SharkAn, one of the leading heroes of the story, rides out alone in the moonlight, he unexpectedly comes upon an enchanting scene (I: 510). Near the walls of a Christian monastery a group of beautiful young girls are sporting in the meadow. Their leader subsequently challenges them all to wrestle with her and defeats every one of them. Then a jealous old woman (depicted in a very crude way) challenges the girl and also demands to fight her; the girl does so with reluctance, defeating the old woman (called Dhat ad-Dawahi, Calamity Jane) without much effort. Prince SharkAn, enthralled by the spectacle, comes into the open and is also invited to fight the girl in unarmed com- bat. Although he equals her in adroitness and is superior in strength, he loses, confused as he is by the touch of her body. When she allows him a second chance the same thing happens, and the third time it is a sudden

2 On Abrîza's literary affiliations with the Persian Sâmnâme see H. Wangelin, Baybars (B.O.S. 17) p. 205 note 109, referring to ZDMG 3, 1894, 254 ff.

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exchange of smiles that enables her to catch him unawares and throw him to the ground. In a chivalrous gesture the Christian princess, whose name is Abriza, then offers the stranger hospitality. During one of the

ensuing nightly sessions when amusement is offered to the guest she

manages to defeat him a fourth time, this time in a chess game-again because a look at her beautiful face causes him to make a wrong move. The same thing happens in every one of the four games that she offers him in return. Here the story touches upon a variation of the girl-defeats- man theme not involving physical violence, a variation that also crops up in other stories, most prominently in the story of Tawaddud, where the male/female contest theme is joined to the "learned woman" motif.3 3

The sudden arrival of Abriza's co-religionists causes the breakup of the

party and SharkAn has to flee, after having gained Abriza's promise to leave the Christian camp and to come to him after having obtained for him certain valuable jewels which his father covets. In the sequence of the story Prince SharkAn at a certain moment has to face an army of Christian warriors who manage to capture his companions; he himself is

engaged in combat by their leader. The fight goes on for days, while he is unable to defeat his opponent, until this one finally throws himself upon SharkAn's mercy on purpose: and behold, it is again Abeiza, who was bent on proving to him her superiority in battle before joining him. She has managed to bring him the promised jewels, and happily joined in their mutual love (which remains chaste) they depart for the court of SharkAn's father, King ?Umar, where Abeiza is received with due honour. She is converted to Islam (explicitly stated later in the story, Littmann II: 200). Strangely, there can no talk of marriage between SharkAn and Abriza, even though he confesses to her that his father's obvious attraction to her worries him. She promises to kill herself, if the

king should take her by force. Sharkan's anxiety turns out to be well- founded : the king's passion for his beautiful guest (who refuses his offer of marriage) leads him to drug her with banj in order to fulfil his desire. When Abriza comes to, she finds herself violated, bleeding, and, as it turns out, pregnant. With her maidenhood she also appears to have lost her gallant courage. When her pregnancy can no longer be concealed she furtively leaves the palace, accompanied by a female attendant and a black slave whom she mistakenly trusts. The slave turns out to be lecherous to the extent that he makes amorous advances to her at the moment of parturition. When she indignantly refuses he kills her in

3 For examples of the latter, see Elisséeff, Thèmes et motifs, under "Femmes savantes"; among them is the episode of Princess Nuzhat az-Zamân's examination included in the story of 'Umar an Nu�mAn (Littmann I: 599 ff.).

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anger, and it is from the princess' dead body that the female attendant has to draw forth her baby son. This latter motif is also encountered else- where : in the Sirat Dhat al-Himma the birth of the hero al-Junduba, the great-grandfather of DhAt al-Himma, takes place under similar cir- cumstances.

So much for Abeiza; but the old woman, Shawahi Dhat ad-Dawahi, is not so easily defeated. This indomitable lady, who is the mother of the Christian king Hardub, Abriza's father, goes on counseling her son, and when he is killed by the Muslims she stops short of nothing to avenge his death. She climbs walls, commands kings and armies, disguises herself as a hermit in order to trap the enemy-she is the real power behind the throne of the Christian kings. Belonging to the camp of the "baddies" in the story, she is adorned with a wealth of disgusting characteristics.

Only by a despicable ruse do her enemies succeed in defeating her, and at the end of the story she is cruelly put to death. Although she occa- sionally brandishes the sword to chop off a head, she does not regularly engage in armed combat herself, and thus cannot be classified as a "war- rior women" within the definition given above.

There is another short reference to a "warrior woman" in the story of 'Umar an-NucmAn, namely in the episode (Littmann II, 180 ff.) where Prince Kin-mA-kAn is taken by his opponent for his beloved Khatun, who has vowed that she will marry no-one but the man who defeats her in combat (this episode has an almost exact counterpart in the one mentioned below from the Sirat Dh4t al-Himma).

In "The man who never laughed again" a young man opens a forbid- den door and miraculously arrives on an island where he is met by a large army of women, headed by a queen. As it turns out, this is an island where the normal order of society is reversed: all the handiwork is done by men, whereas the soldiers and the government officials are all women. The virgin queen asks for the young man's hand, and they are married by a female q4di, with female witnesses. Their happy life comes to an end when the young man opens, again, a forbidden door.

In "Prince Bahram" the prince endeavours to win the hand of a princess who will only consent to marry a man who defeats her in com- bat. She is a skilled warrior, but of course the prince accepts the challenge. When he starts to gain the upper hand she manages to confuse him by opening her visor: dazzled by her beauty, he forgets to concen- trate and is quickly thrown out of the saddle. He is robbed of his mount and armour, and she further humiliates him by branding his brow with the words: "This is ad-Datma's client". His ardour, however, is unabated, and finally he manages, in disguise, to trap her into marriage by making use of her interest in jewels and fine clothes. He takes her

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virginity by force, thus breaking her resistance against marriage; and she concludes that she has no choice but to leave her country and follow her husband.

Hasan of Basra, in the story of that name, has to recover his wife and children from the islands of Waq, where her father is king. The army on these islands consists of twenty-five thousand women, and the eldest sister of Hasan's wife, who is appointed governor by her father, com- mands them. Hasan throws himself upon the mercy of one of the women soldiers and begs for protection. The woman in question turns out to be an old lady, named Shawahi or Dhat (sometimes Umm) ad-Dawahi (cf. the story of cumar Her physical appearance is, just as in the story of cumar an-NucmAn, described in an extremely crude and

disgusting manner, but unlike the other Shawahi she becomes one of the

"goodies" of the story: she is helpful to the point of self-sacrifice, and if it had not been for her, Hasan and his family would never have escaped. In this story, few details about the women soldiers are given: we are told that they can fight with sword and lance, and that when they mount their horses in full armour, each of them equals a thousand knights (p. 347). Their commander, the princess, upon hearing of her sister's marriage, deals with her in a very fierce and cruel way, but shows tenderness towards her two small nephews.

Other Arabic folktales as well as sira literature, still to a large extent

unexplored, form a rich source of stories of this type. Sabine Schwab

(1965: 52-55) has summed up a number of instances in this kind of literature as well as in shorter Bedouin tales, all of them examples of what she terms the "Brunhilde-motif", i.e. the woman who consents to marry only the man who defeats her in combat.4 4

4 The cases which she points out are: Miqdâd and Mayyâsa (one of the three stories dealt with in her dissertation; here, too, emphasis on the conquering effect of the heroine's beauty); the maghâzî story of the raid against Zibriqân b. Badr (Paret 1930: 144); Sayf and Shâma from the Sirat Dhî Yazan, discussed in the article, and in addition to that the story of Dhât al-Wishâhayn that is related to this Sîra (Ahlwardt Verzeichniss Ar.Hss. Vol. VIII, no. 9221); from the Sirat �Antar: Hind, who fights Qays ibn Mas�ûd, and is herself defeated by Rabî�a b. Muqaddam (Sirat �Antara, ed. Cairo 1366, 8 vols., VI: 62 ff.); Queen Tala�a, who after three-days' combat is defeated by the Indian King (VI, no page ref.); Ghamra and Hayfâ¸, who both fight and marry 'Antar (VIII: 273 ff.); from the Sirat Banî Hilâl: Su�âd, the sister of the Tubbâ� (Ahlwardt op. cit. VIII, 155 ff.; to this ref. add Oliverius 1971: 141); in Turkish literature: ref. to H. Ethé, Die Fahrten des Sayyid Battâl II: 78, also the " Brunhilde motif", and finally a Persian epic with a female main hero, the Gushasp-nâme, discussed Heller 1931: 80. To these ref. can be added those of Paret; (1930: 136, Ghamra's with Talha, and 144, Thurayyâ, who kills three hundred suitors. For the occurrence of the male-female contest motif in folk literature in general see Thompson 1932-6 under: T58- Wooing the strong and beautiful bride; H 345- Suitor test: overcoming princes in strength; H 332.1 -Suitor in contest with bride. From the Ayyâm al-�Arab literature Lichtenstädter (1935: 79) gives only one instance of a woman talking up arms to participate in fighting; killing off the wounded enemies was a task more commonly left to women (id. 42).

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One of the three stories which form the subject of her book (KhansZ> and Sakhr) presents a type of "warrior woman" occasionally met with in Arabic literature, namely the woman who has not had a professional training in the art of warfare but who is driven to it by her urge to avenge the death of a beloved person. Such is the case with KhansA' in the story of that name. Schwab (18-20) points out a few similar instances, especially in the Sirat Bani Hilal.

I will mention a few more examples from Sira literature. In the Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan (for a survey of its contents, see Paret 1924), the role of women as active protagonists in the story is quite prominent. Time and again, the hero is saved by women from the dangers that he has brought upon himself; active in this respect are especially his fiancee, Shama, and his jinn foster-sister 'Aqisa. A warrior woman with distinctly negative characteristics in this story is the hero's mother, Qumriya. She puts her baby son out into the desert (I, 24) because she dislikes the idea of having to retreat from power once he is grown up. When, later on, they are on opposite sides in a war without realizing their relationship, Qumriya attempts to avoid battle by coming to his tent at night and sug- gesting to decide the matter by joint combat (II, 49-50; Pa. 12). When he agrees, she suggests to him that they both strip before battle, con- vinced that her naked body will confuse him to the extent of ensuring her an easy victory. When he undresses, however, she recognizes around his neck the necklace that she put there when he was a child. She discloses their relationship, but immediately devizes a plot to kill him; when she finds out that this has failed, she continues her attempts, while again and again her son lets himself be persuaded that she has repented, until she is finally killed by Tamma, one of Sayf's prospective brides. His fiancee ShAma is a gallant warrior, who tests his valour by luring him into com- bat disguised as a male warrior (I: 43-44). Only with the utmost difficulty does he succeed in defeating her. She repeatedly comes to his assistance in hazardous situations, and joins him in battle (I: 49). She marries him, but her mother-in-law Qumriya has her carried off by sorcery during her wedding (I: 32); not, however, before Sayf has made her pregnant. She bears him a son (III: 40), and is rescued in due course.

Sayf meets a veritable Amazon queen during an episode which is prac- tically identical to that described above in the story of Hasan of Basra in the Arabian Nights (V: 60 ff. ). He, too, has to recover his wife, Munyat an-Nufus, from the isles of (here) Waq al-WAq, where he cuts a poor figure when, disguised as a woman, he visits the women's island (there is another island inhabited exclusively by men) and joins the girls in their ball and combat games. The helpful role is here played by the old vizir MarjAna, and by Kawkab, the girl who acts as prison warden. Kawkab

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takes pity on Munyat an-Nufus, who is badly beaten by her sister Queen Nur al-Huda, and unbinds her fetters so that she can nurse her baby son who is with her in prison (V: 61). Sayf comes to the rescue and defeats an army of girls (VI: 6) and a discussion takes place about the best way to remedy the unnatural situation of segregation of the sexes; this is

finally brought about by sorcery (VI: 8-9). Queen Nur al-HudA is given in marriage to one of Sayf's companions.

Sayf also meets with two warrior queens, the beautiful and sweet- tempered Red Thurayyi, who is not yet thirty years old, and her cousin the vile and loathsome Blue ThurayyA, who is a hundred and fifty years old (IX: 14 ff.). They both rule over a city and are rivals; both have learnt to practice sorcery and soothsaying. They command armies of men. The Red ThurayyA, who is a Muslim (IX: 15) falls in love with Sayf and invites him to marry her (IX: 17); she concludes from his vague answer that the matter is decided, and that "he would be her husband and under her command" (annahu sara baclaha wa-taht amrihg wa-nahyiha); before a marriage can take place, however, the Blue ThurayyA captures Sayf, and only after a long and complicated war do his companions suc- ceed in rescuing him. The Blue Thurayyi is very difficult to defeat: a

long combat between her and the hakima ?Aqila (the mother of the reckless girl Tamma who also plays a prominent part in the Sira, and marries Sayf) remains undecided (XI: 3 ff.) The story ends with the death of the Blue ThurayyA, who refuses to convert to Islam (XI 15-16), and the marriage of the Red ThurayyA to one of Sayf's s companions (XI: 17).

The Sirat al-amira Dhât al-Himma (some five thousand pages in the Cairo edition of 1909, which consists of seven volumes, and which divides the story into seventy parts; references are to this edition) is of course the example par excellence of an Arabic story featuring a warrior woman, its eponymous hero being a warrior princess. On the different versions of her name-Dhu 1-Himma, Dhat al-Himma, Dalhama-, see Canard's article "Dhu 1-Himma" in the Encyclopaedia of Islam.

Dhat al-Himma, originally called Fitima, is a fearsome warrior, the female descendant of a long line of remarkable Bedouin heroes. Indeed, the fact that she turned out to be a girl was such a disappointment to her father Mazium that he considered killing her, and, when he was held back by his womenfolk from this vile deed, he refused even to look at her: la yashtahi an yargha li-anna l-bint makrûha cind ar-rydl "he did not want to see her because men detest girls" (I, part 6 p. 15). (Later, however, the girl will have a close relationship with her father, 7: 10 f. and 7: 31). As a result of her father's attitude the little FAtima is brought up by a foster mother away from her family. During a raid they are captured by hostile

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Bedouins; but even at the age of five (when she is already so well

developed physically that she looks ten) she is too proud to accept slavery, and threatens to kill herself, thus proving her noble descent. Brought up in the household of the Banu Tayy chief who has captured her, she

develops very early a taste for horse-riding and fighting, going out in the field and practising with lances made of reed-stems. When, out in the field, she is repeatedly accosted by a man who disdains to accept her guardian's offer to take her as his wife, she kills him with his own sword

(6: 20). Thus begins her career as a warrior feared among the tribes. She is averse to marriage, although her cousin al-Harith considers her as his lawful spouse: hiya bint cammî wa-hal4li, "she is the daughter of my father's brother and thus by law permitted to me" (7: 8-9). Frustrated by her refusal to have marital relations with him, al-Harith follows the advice of cuqba, the treacherous qa,di, and, with the help of her foster- brother Marzuq , drugs her with banj in order to be able to fulfil his desire

(7: 10). As a result Fitima becomes pregnant and bears a son, cabd al- WahhAb, who, to everybody's consternation, turns out to be black (7: 11). The im4m jacfar a?-Sâdiq is consulted and explains (7: 39) that this is because he was conceived at a certain time during menstruation, thus casting shame on the father instead of on the mother. cabd al-Wahhlb grows into an valiant warrior, who battles side-by-side with his mother. She, however, keeps the superior role, as is beautifully illustrated in the vivid picture (II, 20: 24) of Dhat al-Himma striding along the ranks curs- ing her son, crying with rage because of his unworthy behaviour towards his friend al-Battal in the case of Princess Nura, with cabd al-Wahhib keeping out of sight, knowing that his mother will very likely kill him should he dare to show his face.

But Dhat al-Himma, redoubtable warrior as well as devoted mother, who is leading character of the story, feared and respected by all, even her enemies, is by no means the only female warrior who figures in the epic. It is, in fact, crowded with stories featuring female heroines, a fact that only adds to the intriguing question of this epic's origin and growth. I will briefly discuss here some of the stories and add a full translation of one of them, the story of the princess Qannasa. It is one of the few stories that are easily translatable in this form, because the course of events is not constantly interspersed with other episodes.

Lane, in the admirable chapters on Popular Romance included in his Manners and Customs, briefly sketches the contents of the adventures of Dhat 1-Himma's great-grandfather al-Junduba with warrior women. One of them involved a fearsome lady called ash-Shamti' ("the Griz- zle", translates Lane), who leads an army of men (I, 1: 14) and manages to capture al Junduba's foster-father and brothers. He manages to defeat

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ash-ShamtA), persuading her followers that it is a shame for them to obey an old woman. Of ash-ShamtA)'s particulars nothing further is told than that she is a fierce and capable fighter with lance and sword, and that she is an old woman (Cajûz).

In a later adventure al Junduba engages in a fight with a beautiful lone

young warrior (I, 1: 23; the story was included in Kosegarten 1825: 68-

83), whom he manages to throw to the ground; when at the point of strik-

ing the final blow, he hears a soft female voice beg for mercy. It is the

princess Qattâlat ash-Shuj?an, "Killer of the Valiant". She takes him to her people and receives him with great hospitality. Her men, however, threaten to kill him. She persuades them to wait till morning and during the night flees with al-Junduba, after they have, at her suggestion, con- cluded a marriage with only God as their witness. Innahumd tasdfa4d wa- tanâkabâ, "they shook hands and became man and wife", the story says (1: 27). Al Junduba brings her to his people, in the course of which event she valiantly assists him in battle. She remains his inseparable com-

panion, even on hunting expeditions, until one day HishAm, the son of the caliph ?Abd al-Malik, falls in love with her and does not rest till he has abducted her. AI-Junduba is stricken with grief, but is consoled by a new marriage (1: 40); Qattâlat ash-ShujcAn, on the other hand, con-

sistently refuses to give in to her captor's demands, and as he starts to

worry about the effect which this failure may have on his political prestige, he has her killed and buried in secret (1: 40).

The "warrior woman" theme (in the form of the "Brunhilde motif ') is also briefly brought up in an episode (2: 3) where the companions of al-Ghitrif, the enemy ofal-Junduba's son as-Sahsah, persuade him to go and fight a beautiful female warrior called Zaynab, whose beauty and valour have attracted many suitors and who has promised to marry the man who defeats her in battle. Their argument is that al-Ghiteif is such a paragon of masculine beauty that Zaynab (whose ultimate purpose in life, they say, must needs be to capture a man, as with all women) will

easily let herself be defeated. Al-Ghitrif indeed goes out and meets an unknown warrior whom he supposes to be Zaynab, but who turns out to be as-Sahsah. This episode is very similar to that mentioned above in the story of ?Umar an-Nu?man.

The beginning of the story of Abeiza has parallels in several other stories, among them the story of Aluf in the Sirat Dhat al-Himma (3: 78 ff.). Large parts of the two stories are literally identical, but the way in which the Dhat al-Himma version develops is significantly different. Here it is as-Sahsah who on a moonlit night comes upon a castle (in the other version, it was a monastery) where he witnesses the spectacle of a beautiful young woman, Princess Aluf, wrestling with her companions.

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He, too, is invited to wrestle with her, and loses three times, confused as he is by her beauty and the intimate contact with her body (this latter

aspect is rather enthusiastically elaborated upon in this version). Aluf professes her unwillingness to marry: wa-anâ Id arghabu fi z-zawdj wa-lâ fî r-rijâl bal yamilu qalbi ild rabbât al-b'âl, "I do neither long for marriage nor for men, but my heart has an inclination for the ladies" (4: 6); she is, moreover, too engrossed in reading books and practising the chivalrous arts to bother with marriage. Nevertheless, she is not interested in show- ing off her courage by attacking the vanguard of the Muslims, although she could easily do so. As-Sahsah spends a pleasant (but chaste) time with her, and upon rejoining his fellow Muslims he tells Prince Maslama about the girl (here the parallel with the cumar an-NucmAn version

ends). Upon his description, Maslama falls passionately in love with the girl and makes as-Sahsah guide him to the castle. The story ends with the conversion of all the castle's inhabitants to Islam and the marriage of Aluf and Maslama (4: 37). After her marriage Aluf continues to play an active part: she joins the Muslims in their war against the Christians, which offers her ample opportunity to practice her "God-given" (4: 27) furûsîya, chivalry. She rides out with her husband and his soldiers, some- times leaving them behind in her fighting ardour (for instance 4: 46, 5:

3). She does not hesitate to set the occasional head flying (4: 76-77), and takes part in the discussions that go on among the men (for instance 4: 59, 64. 65). '

Apart from the non-combatant Christian girl TamgLthil who, for reasons of personal safety, travels in male disguise (4: 57, 58), and the

jinniya with whom as-Sahsah becomes involved (5: 57) there is another remarkable lady who crosses the path of the Muslims in the course of their siege of Byzantium. This time it is an extremely unattractive

Georgian queen by the name of Bakhtus (see Canard 1969: 16-19), to whom the Byzantine emperor Lawun appeals for help (5: 8). She is an old and ugly but fearsome lady, reported to be a hundred and sixty-three years old (5: 13). She is endowed with redoubtable fighting abilities as well as with an insatiable sexual voraciousness, and if her luckless male

partner cannot keep up with her she is wont to cut off his head and to crush it under her ampit until the eyes pop out (5: 13). Her sexual

appetite, however, leads to her doom when she devotes her attention to a young Muslim, MidlAj, whom she has caught with his pants down in battle (5: 16), a sight that greatly impresses her. His staying power is such that he succeeds in quenching her desire, and, when, inattentively, she dozes off to sleep he pierces her with his sword (5: 17).

The first part of the story of Abriza also has a parallel in the way in which Princess Nura makes her appearance in the Sira. Nura is the

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daughter of 'Ayn al-Masih, the King of the Blood Castle, one of seven Christian brothers who each govern a castle. Al-Battal discovers Nura in the garden of a convent (13: 47), where she makes merry in the company of three monks and ten female companions. With the latter she has a

wrestling match (this episode is dealt with in a single line; it is obviously a well-known motif). Nura, "who loves women and detests men" (tahwa an-nisâ) wa-tubghidu r-riid discovers al-Banâl behind the gate and invites him in, and subsequently also his companions, to make merry with the

girls. Nura defeats all the men in wrestling; they claim to be defeated by her beauty rather than by her strength. This is the beginning of Nura's s

long involvement with the Muslims, which will lead to many rivalries between the men who fall in love with her. Fighting begins, and Nura takes an active part (13: 78, 79). 'Abd al-Wahhib manages to strike her down with his sword, and she is taken captive. Dhat al-Himma shows

compassion by ordering the men to untie her. When she is brought before 'Abd al-WahhAb and he looks at her, standing there in a purple dress embroidered with pearls (13: 80), he is irretrievably lost. He takes her away to his castle, to the great chagrin of al-Battal, who puts his case before the caliph Harun. The caliph, intrigued, goes to cabd al-Wahhib

(16: 46), and asks him about the arrangements of their life together. "I I live with her like a little bird with a small child" (hukm cayshat al-cuifûr maca j-jfl as-saghir), is the answer of cabd al-Wahhib, for he has not had the heart to force Nura against her will. The caliph demands to see her, and is also greatly taken with her. As Steinbach (1972: 104) remarks, Nura resembles the Greek Helen in the fateful effect that she has on men. She does not, however, play a passive role. She is a redoub- table opponent in war, and is quite prepared to turn the men's weaknesses against them by making use of her physical attraction in com- bat : when the Muslim heroes go out one after the other to battle with a

mysterious knight (II, 20: 17) from the enemy ranks, they are all defeated because as soon as they come within range the knight smiles seductively and pulls open her shirt to display her pomegranate breasts. Her story, which takes up a considerable part of the Sira (almost a whole volume), deserves a more extensive treatment than can be given here. Suffice it to say that finally she marries al-Battal, becomes a Muslim, goes on pilgrimage to Mecca (III, 21 : 6-7) and joins the Muslims in their cam- paigns against the Byzantines and Franks.

Zananir is another Christian princess (malika is the title usually given to these women) who crosses the path of the Muslims. Her story starts shortly after that of Nura has come to a conclusion. Zan3Lnir's father is the Christian king Salbuta. She first makes her appearance in 24: 24, where she is presented as living in a monastery with her sister Salbin and

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her mother. The princess living in a monastery is a common motif: see also, for instance, princess Shamsa (23: 35). Zananir is a very beautiful girl (description 24: 74). Jesus has told her in a dream that she should only marry the man who defeats her in battle. The old king Sha)sha)fina is the first to try. However, he becomes very confused by the contact with her body and Zananir easily defeats him. He tries a second time, but how could ZanAn^ir, who, as the story says (24: 65) does not even feel desire towards young men, be interested in an old man? She shows off her strength by jumping upon the back of her horse without using the stirrup and hurling her lance far away into the field instead of aiming it at Sha)sha)Cin,i's breast. She declines to fight with him, and advises him to go and look for another bride (later on, he will be cured of his love for Zananir and marry her slave girl NahAr, 25: 33-34). Subsequently she defeats all her other suitors. Al-Battal, who with his servant Lullu' and other Muslims is a prisoner in the Christian camp, has been a spectator. He compliments her but considers her inferior to Dhat al-Himma. Zananir confesses her lack of interest in men: she is inclined towards the ladies (rabbât al-hydo (23: 67). She has a favorite slave girl, Nahar, with whom she amuses herself (zvatataladhdhadha, 24: 80) and is depicted as being extremely drunk together with her slave girls (15: 1). Lu'lu) falls desperately in love with her, and is chided for this impertinence by al- Battal, but his master cannot but be moved by the deep sincerity of his feelings. Lu)lu)'s love for Zanânîr is a recurrent theme in the sequel of the story. Zananir's appearance, like that of Nura, has a devastating effect upon the men she meets (even the bad qâçlî ?Uqba falls in love with her, 24: 73). Finally she consents to marry Lu'lu', persuaded by Dhat al-Himma (29: 50). She joins the Muslim band of warriors and continues to play a part in the story. We meet her, for instance, in 36: 23, where she goes out to battle, and in 55: 54ff., where she takes part in a frivolous scene involving ample musical entertainment.

Another Christian princess is Karna (33: 37), who successively defeats a whole army of Muslim knights who have taken up her invitation to meet her in single combat. At last 'Abd al-WahhAb takes his turn. When he is about to gain the upper hand his horse stumbles in a jerboa's hole, and she captures him (33: 41). Finally it is again Dhat al-Himma (in disguise) who defeats and captures her, duly gaining Karna's admira- tion ; Karna is subsequently exchanged for 'Abd al-Wahhib (33: 45). During a later episode she is back among the Muslims (34: 51), and the caliph Ma)mCin as well as the warrior Ab6 1-Hazahiz aspire for her hand. During this episode she gets no opportunity to engage in battle, but is transported in a howdah. She becomes involved in a long and com- plicated intrigue of the qddi 'Uqba, disappears, and is finally discovered

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in Byzantium, together with another Christian princess, Malika (35: 16). Maymana, too, is a gallant Christian princess who finally joins the

Muslim army. She is the daughter of 'Abd al-WahhAb's enemy Dam- daman, and has seven brothers with whom she used to practise the art of combat (IV, 37: 50). When her father captures "Abd al-WahhAb and holds him captive (IV, 36: 39) she is excited by the idea of being so near to the famous hero. She has a flippant conversation with him (36: 51); she boasts of her chivalry, but he does not believe her; she falls in love with him (36: 52) and has a heated conversation with her father about the rightness of her infatuation (36: 55). She tries to come to terms with her changing feeling towards her father by trying to convince cabd al- WahhAb of his chivalrous qualities (36: 56). In the end she kills her father

(37: 9). During a battle cabd al-WahhAb disappears from her castle (37: 8). She is desperate and seeks him among the dead on the battlefield. Finally she meets him in battle (37: 10-11). She wins the combat, but he begs for mercy. She spares his life but is adamant about renewing their former good relations: "Even if I were to throw out my liver piece by piece, if I were to drink passion sip by sip and to cry over you till my tears ran out, there would be no question of renewing my ties with you".

Attempts to conclude peace with Maymana fail; she defeats az-ZAlim, cabd al-WahhAb's son; finally Dhat al-Himma succeeds in gaining vic- tory over her in a combat that takes two days (38: 38). Maymana starts to feel a deep sympathy for Dhat al-Himma, and asks to be married to 'Abd al-Wahhib; but no direct steps are taken. Maymana joins the Muslim army and henceforth fights side by side with Dhat al-Himma and her companions.

Then there is Ghamra, the spirited Bedouin girl whose feelings of love for her cousin ?Amir are grievously hurt by her cousin's reaction to her tentative suggestion of marriage: he does not take an interest in women, since they can only keep him away from his far more important and

interesting chivalrous pastimes (IV, 40: 59). At first she is inconsolable, but then she goes hunting, encouraged by her mother. She tracks her cousin and, disguised as a man, she defeats him in combat. Then she leaves her outfit with her nurse, who later on lends the clothes to camir. He recognizes them as the clothes of the warrior who defeated him, hears the truth, and falls deeply in love with his cousin, who, however, refuses him (V, 41: 16). She takes part in battle, but does not allow anybody to approach her with talk of marriage; hatred for her people, the Banu Kilab, finally drives her away to the south of Arabia, where she becomes a brigand in the region of Hadramawt (V, 41: 43).

For the present, this much may suffice to illustrate the part of women in Arabic popular literature. That the theme of the warrior woman is by

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no means rare in popular literature in general but is exceptionally well- represented in the Sirat Dhât al-Himma is clear; the list of ladies figuring in the book given above is by no means complete. Dhat al-Himma could virtually be termed, among other things, a collection of "warrior woman" stories, embedded in the framework of the story of Dhat al- Himma herself and to a certain extent following the same pattern. Little or no attention seems to have been paid so far to this aspect of the Sira; the existence of such an epic (or epics, for there is at least one other exam- ple in Middle-Eastern literature, the Persian Gushasp-ndme mentioned by Heller (1931: 80)), as well as the fact that this type of story was widely appreciated by Arab audiences from (at the very latest) the eleventh to the twentieth century seems to have been taken for granted. For the dating of the sira, see Canard, EI, Dhfi 'l-Himma.

To conclude, let me sum up some of the more frequent themes and motifs that figure in these stories.

There are traces of the "warrior woman" theme familiar from the classical Amazon myth, in which we are confronted with an inverted order of society implying a change of role between male and female. Such elements can be found in the story of Hasan of Basra and its parallel in Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan: the women's society on the Isles of Wâq (or Wâq al- Waq), where the male element is virtually eliminated. In The man who never laughed again the "inverted world" theme is emphasized by his enter- ing through a forbidden door. Traces of the Amazon theme can also be found in the women's army in the story of Abriza.

The ambivalent attitude towards sexual relations which formed part of the classical Amazon myth can also be pointed out in some of the Arabic stories: the fury of the Waq al-Waq queen towards her married sister; the avowed lack of interest in men, and sometimes proclivity towards women, expressed in many of the stories; Abriza's loss of fighting power after she has been raped. It is interesting to see how the stories of Abriza and Dhat al-Himma seem to present an intermediate form between stories of the type in which the male element is rejected and considered as absolutely destructive for female power, and those in which being a warrior woman is in no way incompatible with being a wife and mother. The impression one gets is that the storytellers' urge to create warrior heroines who fitted in with the popular conception of what a successful woman (i.e., a woman who has respectably become the mother of a son) should be like, first came up with the device of the "unconscious" loss of virginity and resulting pregnancy; in Abriza, this still carried the sanc- tion of loss of power and, eventually, life; the fact that the sexual act had taken place in an unlawful situation made this an almost inevitable out- come. In Dhat al-Himma a lawful solution for the dilemma is found, sanc-

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tions in the form of loss of power or life are removed, and Dhat al-Himma can become a respectable mother while still remaining a redoubtable warrior, without, however, being encumbered by relations with her ephemeral husband (love is something Dhat al-Himma has never experienced). In many of the other stories this "curious concep- tion" element has also disappeared, and we see warrior women who

produce sons in ordinary (or, at least, undisputed) marriages while conti-

nuing their fighting career. This also implies that the "warrior couple" is a regularly occurring

theme: Sayf and ShAma; as-Sahsah and QattAlat ash-Shujcin; Maslama and Aluf.

The stories frequently emphasize the femininity of the warrior woman. Several devices are used to this end: the motif of the woman who is at first taken for a man: this guarantees maximum effect when her femininity is disclosed. The beauty of the woman is frequently emphasized. The woman may also consciously make use of her feminine assets in battle, as Nura does by smiling and displaying her breasts, or

Qumriya by suggesting a nude wrestling match. The confusion of the men upon their intimate contact with the woman's body is frequently elaborated upon with great relish by the storytellers. The men often excuse themselves for their defeat by saying that it is the woman's beauty that has defeated them rather than her strength. The description of motherhood, sometimes including the process of giving birth (Abriza, Dhat al-Himma, Shima) is another way of emphasizing the warrior woman's femininity.

Sometimes it is the woman herself who becomes the victim of a sup- posed feminine weakness: in Prince Bahram, it is by making use of her love of jewels that the prince, who has not been able to defeat Princess Datma, finally gets the better of her. Moral badness in warrior women is, according to a familiar pattern not restricted to this group, demon- strated by describing them as old, ugly and of insatiable sexual voracity (Bakhtus, Qannasa)

The male-female contest motif has already been discussed. It occurs very frequently, and may take either the form of an intellectual contest, of a suitor's contest, or of the woman who wants to prove her superiority to a man by defeating him in combat (Shama, Abriza, Ghamra).

Another popular motif is the single combat between two women, sometimes an old and a young one, which also symbolizes a bad-versus- good fight (Abriza and Shawahi). Frequent occurrences can be pointed out in Dh6t al-Himma. In many of these cases Dhat al-Himma fights (and defeats) a future daughter-in-law, thus laying down the pattern of their relations in future.

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The monastery (sometimes a castle) in which a group of women is found to live together is a standard setting for the beginning of these stories. It is usually in the context of this predominantly female setting that a stock remark is made about the heroine's general lack of interest in men, a circumstance obviously meant to emphasize the success of the

. hero who succeeds in overcoming her aversion. As will have become clear from the above, Steinbach's observation

(1972: 103) that after her marriage the warrior woman tends to fade from

public life, with the exception of Dhat al-Himma herself, is clearly inac- curate. Nor is it true that with her virginity the woman loses her fighting power (id. 103 note 5), at least not in the Dhat al-Himma stories. The mar- ried warrior woman continues to take part in fighting, and in addition to that it can be observed that war in this epic is very much a family affair. We call to mind the daughters of Hayyaj, mentioned above: they were seven sisters, and together with their father, their mother Ghayda) (her name is mentioned II, 11: 29, 30) and their cousin they took part in battle: "Those ten knights were HayyAj al-Kurdi, his wife, daughters and nephew" (I, 10: 37). 'Abd al-Wahhib's own wife, 'UlwA, goes to war in the company of their son Ibrahim (II, 15: 3), his wife Qannasa with their son ZAlim (see Part 2), al-Battal's wife Nura continues to par- ticipate in the campaigns (V 41: 21), and al-Battal also begets a valiant

daughter (mentioned for instance VII, 69: 102). It is no different on the

enemy side: the wife of the bad monk Shumadris, Shuma, and their son Dahrshum also take part in battle proceedings (for instance II, 20: 19).

As an illustration, there will follow in Part 2 ( JAL XXV Part 1) a translation of the story of Qannasa, one of the "warrior woman" stories from the Sirat Dhat al-Himma (vol. II, part 11: 12) in which many of the elements listed above appear. For those interested in the sequel of the story: Qannâ:;;a's career as a warrior woman does not end with marriage. When the story continues and ?Abd al-Wahhib, after a stay of ten days, sets out again from Qannasa's castle to pursue his gallant exploits (11: 39) he invites her to join him; but she declines, because she is averse to leaving her country. She tenderly kisses him farewell and returns to her castle. This, however, does not mean that she fades from the scene for good. During a later campaign cabd al-WahhAb, having been wounded, is brought to a castle that he recognizes as Qannasa's (II, 20: 77-80). He

supposes that she must be long dead and that the situation in the castle will have changed completely. But Qannasa is still there. Her once so radiant beauty has vanished, but her strength, the fatness of her body (shahm badaniha) and her eloquence of speech (fasahat lis6nih6) are still the same; and one glance at cabd al-Wahhab brings back all her love for him. It also turns out that she has born him a son, Zalim. (This is not

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the only time that cabd al-WahhAb is unexpectedly confronted with the results of a former love affair by meeting a conveniently grown-up son whom he then takes along on his expedition: his meeting with Sayf an- Nasraniyin, the fruit of a love affair with a Christian princess, is another such case (II, 11:80)). Hitherto ZAlim has been ignorant of his descent, and is called ZAlim ibn al-Gharib. There is a happy reunion; Dhat al- Himma also turns up, mistakenly fights her grandson, and rejoices in his discovery. After they have spent some time together, 'Abd al-Wahhab wants to continue on his way, taking his son with him. Qannasa agrees, but ZAlim is reluctant (III, 21: 2 ff.), because of a love affair. The problem is soon solved and ZIlim is married. ZAlim as well as QannAsa join the army, and Qannasa does indeed play a prominent role in their next adventure (21: 10 ff.). She is also regularly mentioned during later episodes, for instance IV, 36: 23, where many warriors answer Dhat al- Himma's call to battle, among them Qannasa, Nura the wife of al-Battal, 'UlwA, Zanânîr and the daughters of HayyAj al-Kurdi (also mentioned, for instance, V, 43: 19), and Qannasa does play a prominent part by sneaking into enemy territory with Dhat al-Himma (IV, 36: 37), leaving Nura and Zananir to worry about her; and V, 41: 21, where the Muslim army swarms out in full battle order, including the ladies Qannasa, Ghamra, Maymuna, 'UlwA and Nura.

Leiden University REMKE KRUK

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