Dananir al Barmakiyya

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Dananir al Barmakiyya
دنانير البرمكية‎
Diedc. 810s
Baghdad
Resting placeBaghdad
OccupationArabic Poet and Singer
LanguageArabic
NationalityCaliphate
PeriodIslamic Golden Age
(Abbasid era)

Dananir al Barmakiyya (Arabic: دنانير البرمكية) (late 8th-century - early 9th-century) was an Arabian Qiyan musician, singer and poet. She is also known as the author of the famous Book of Songs.[1]

She was from Medina. She was sold to Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki.[2]

As a slave, she was trained to become a qiyan. She was a student of the qiyan-musician Badhl, who was known for the number of songs she retained in her memory.[3] Among her instructors were Ishaf al-Mausuli, Ibn Jami and Fulaih.

Dananir is noted as one of the most famous quian-musicians. She is described as an accomplished poet, musician and singer. As a singer, she was popular with the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), who visited his minister's house in Baghdad to hear her perform, and gave her extravagant gifts, including a necklace worth 30,000 gold coins.

She is most known as the author of the famous Book of Songs.

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