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In the year
711, the history of Cordoba, Spain, was about to witness
a dramatic change. The Muslims who were conquering
Spain, were about to receive the most precious of the
Iberian Jewels, Cordoba. However, surrender of the city
was based on an agreement, which allowed Jews,
Christians, and Muslims to live peacefully.
The Great Mosque,
the oldest building still in use (now as a Cathedral)
has an interesting history that illustrates some
toleration. It was built on land that had been part of
a monastery. The Muslims paid for the land. The Mosque
was built in the 8th c., and Cordoba remained Muslim
until Christians from the north took over in 1236. The
Christians built a cathedral inside the mosque.
Interestingly, the Mosque was not destroyed except for
those portions of the interior where the altar, choir
and other parts of the Cathedral were placed. There
are no walls to the Cathedral. It simply was placed
inside the much larger mosque.
Over the
centuries, families paid for small chapels, which line
one wall of the former Mosque. A Christian bell tower
was also added. The Mosque/Cathedral is in the heart of
the historic district surrounded by narrow streets of
the former Jewish Quarter. Today the former Mosque
functions only as a Cathedral. A nearby Jewish
synagogue has been preserved for its historic value, but
is not used.
That tolerant
city under the Muslims was the birthplace of a very
liberal poetess, Wallada Bint Al Mustakfi. There is no
question that Wallada and many other Poets and artists
would not have been able to write or create what they
have done in any other place. Until this day the city
has several monuments and statues dedicated to “los
enamorados”, the lovers, of whom Wallada gained a very
wide-spread fame.0
The love story of
the poet Ibn Zaydun and his beautiful, courageous
Princess is still alive in the hearts of the people of
Cordoba, the capital of Arab Spain and of the Umayyad
Caliphs.
Who really was
the passionate and daring Umayyad princess?
When Cordoba was
the greatest and most sophisticated city, not only of
the Moorish civilization but also the entire known
world, the Princess Wallada (born in 1011 and died in
1091) achieved fame for her court of learning, many
centuries before France's legendary Madame de
Rambouillet held sway over her literary salon. Wallada
gathered around her the finest poets and musicians of
al-Andalus, who would sit around her on cushions and
rugs, improvising ballads and epic sagas to the sound of
the lute and zither.
Wallada, was the
daughter of the Caliph al-Mustakfi Billah, Mohammed the
Third, who reigned for only two years, 1923-1025. She
was greatly admired for her fair skin and blue eyes,
which gave her a very special, exotic appeal for the
Aristocats of Cordoba. She had a unique reputation for
wit, eloquence and intelligence. Famed for beauty as
well as independence, Walladah inspired verses from
other poets and wrote her own, becoming poet and author
as well as singer. Her poetry was noted for its
boldness. In fact, she was so proud of her beauty that
she refused to wear the veil when she went out in the
streets of the city, thus enraging the local religious
people. It was the time of the great fitna, (rebellion)
when the Berbers were rising up against the Umayyad
Caliphate, and religious tension was high.
But Cordoba was
in many ways very liberal indeed. This was because the
Andalucian society of the time was a multi-cultural one,
a mixture of the Islamic, Christian and Jewish cultures,
which made up medieval Spain.
Wallada not only
refused to cover her face, she also was very outspoken
and free in her personal behaviour, thus becoming a
symbol of liberation for the women of her time. She
resisted all efforts to keep her in her traditional
place, and to prevent her from choosing the lovers she
preferred.
When the great
Moorish philosopher and supreme judge of the city, Ibn
Rushd, known to Europeans as Averroes, accused her of
being a harlot, she responded with an act of defiance.
She had one of her own poems embroidered on the gown she
wore in the street, for everyone to read. It said:
On the left side:
I
am fit for high positions by God
And am going my way with pride.
And on the left:
I allow my lover to touch my cheek
And bestow my kiss on him who craves it.
Her most famous
relation, a true and passionate love story, was with Ibn
Zaydun, one of the greatest Arab poets of the time, born
in 1003 and died in 1071.
Although Ibn
Zaydun was a leading figure in the courts of Cordoba and
Seville, he was most famous among the people of his day
because of his scandalous love affair with Princess
Wallada. They did nothing to hide their passion, and at
her literary circle, when the poets began improvising,
as was their custom, they would allude to it quite
openly. On one famous occasion, Wallada uttered this
impromptu verse, as she gazed upon her lover's face:
I fear for
you, my beloved so much, that even my own sight even the
ground you tread even the hours that pass threaten to
snatch you away from me. Even if I were able to conceal
you within the pupils of my eyes and hide you there
until the Day of Judgment my fear would still not be
allayed.
And he, returning
her glance just as ardently, responded:
Your passion
has made me famous among high and low your face devours
my feelings and thoughts. When you are absent, I cannot
be consoled, but when you appear, my all my cares and
troubles fly away. When she offers me jasmine in
the palm of her hand I collect bright stars from the
hand of the moon.
Ibn Zaydun's
prestige, as the leading poet and the lover of the most
beautiful woman of Cordoba, awakened much jealousy among
his rivals, such as Ibn Abdus, the Caliph's Vizir. He
created a venemous intrigue aimed at destroying his
enemy's friendship with the Caliph and also his romance
with Wallada.
At first he
failed, but then succeeded in catching Ibn Zaydun making
love to Wallada's favourite slave, an African girl. The
proud Princess was so hurt that she wrote him a poem of
rebuke:
If you had
been truly sincere in the love, which joined us, you
would not have preferred, to me, one of my own slaves.
In so doing, you scorned the bough, which blossoms with
beauty and chose a branch, which bears only hard and
bitter fruit. You know that I am the clear, shining moon
of the heavens but, to my sorrow, you chose, instead, a
dark and shadowy planet.
Ibn Abdus then
made his rival jealous by letting it be known that
Wallada had taken him as her lover, and by walking
beside her in the streets of Cordoba. The arrow hit its
mark, and the wounded Ibn Zaydun bitterly wrote these
lines to the woman he thought had spurned him:
You were for
me nothing but a sweetmeat that I took a bite of and
then tossed away the crust, leaving it to be gnawed on
by a rat.
Although the
Caliph was fond of Ibn Zaydun, the scandal reached such
proportions that he had him thrown into prison, and
later exiled him to Seville. The hapless poet languished
there, far from the gardens of the great palace, Medina
Zahara, and he passionately missed his beloved Princess.
Fortunately for him, the Caliph died soon afterwards and
Ibn Zaydun was able to return. The lovers forgave one
another and for a while their affair continued, just as
passionate and stormy as before. But Wallada now lived
in the home of powerful Vizir, who gave her protection,
and Ibn Zaydun, disenchanted, eventually decided to
return to Seville, where he spent the rest of his life
as the favourite poet of the Sultan.
Only nine of
Wallada poems have been preserved, of which five are
satirical, daring, risqué and caustic. Some of her most
impressive love lined she wrote to Ibn Zaidun, and some
of her harshest satires were also addressed to him! |
