COBHUNI Lecture: Qiyān and jawārī: The surprising life of singing slave-girls and concubines from the dawn of Islam up to the 10th centuryLecture by Dr.Tsampika Paraskeva on Wednesday, June 7 2017 at 10 am, AS Saal, ESA 1

7 June 2017

In the first centuries of the Islamic era, a distinguished class of female slaves was created for the enjoyment of the upper classes of the caliphate. Young girls were bought at an early age and were given a diverse education which included music, poetry, grammar, calligraphy, philosophy, astronomy as well as other arts and sciences. That exquisite education was accompanied by an attractive physical appearance, for which reason they were sold at exorbitant prices to wealthy people whom they served as concubines and artists. Their most outstanding artistic skills were related to music and poetry and were enjoyed in the refined milieus of the epoch among caliphs, courtiers, high-ranking officers, legendary musicians and intellectuals. In this talk, the contrastive and surprising life of those women will be thoroughly commented from many different points of view: socially, artistically, intellectually and emo- tionally.