Many accomplished poets and musicians of her time admired Sallāma al-Qass ‘the pious
’, one of the most famous slave singing-girls of the early Umayyad era (figure 1). Of mixed blood, she was born in Medina and grew up there. She studied with a number of famous teachers, including Ma‘bad (d. 743), Ibn ‘Ā’isha (d. c. 743),
Jamīla
(d. c. 720), and Mālik ibn Abī al-Samḥ (d. 757), and she became highly skilled not only in the vocal arts...
