Wallada bint al-Mustakfi

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (Arabic: ولادة بنت المستكفي‎‎) (born in Cordova in 1001 - died March 26, 1091), was an Andalusian poet.

Wallada was the daughter of Muhammad III of Córdoba, one of the last Umayyad Cordoban caliphs, who came to power in 1024 after assassinating the previous caliph Abderraman V, and who was assassinated himself two years later in Uclés. Her early childhood was during the high period of the Caliphate of Córdoba, under the rule of Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir. Her adolescent years came during the tumultuous period following the eventual succession of Aamir's son, Sanchuelo, who in his attempts to seize power from Hisham II, plunged the caliphate into civil war. As Muhammad III had no male heir, Wallada inherited his properties, and used them to open a palace and literary hall in Córdoba. There she offered instruction in poetry and the arts of love to women of all classes, from those of noble birth to slaves purchased by Wallada herself. Some of the great poets and intellectuals of the time also visited.

Wallada was an ideal beauty of the time: blonde, fair-skinned and blue-eyed, in addition to being intelligent, cultured and proud. She also was somewhat controversial, walking out in public without a hijab and in the fashion of the harems of Baghdad, she wore transparent tunics and embroidered her verses on the trim of her clothing. Her behavior was regarded by the local mullahs as perverse and was strongly criticized, but she also had numerous people who defended her honor, like Ibn Hazm, the famous author of The Ring of the Dove. A Cordovan custom of the time was for poets to compete in finishing incomplete poems. Wallada gained recognition for her skill, particularly as a woman in what was almost entirely a male competition.

One example of Wallada's work is her 'Taraqqab idha janna l-zalamu ziyarati' (When night falls, plan to visit me), addressed to Ibn Zaydun. The poem is in the tawil metre (14-syllable hemistichs comprising alternating 3-syllable and 4-syllable feet of a short syllable followed by two or three long ones, rhyming in -ri)

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