Epilogue

KHAYZURAN’S MANIPULATION of three generations of Abbasid caliphs and courtiers make her probably the best known concubine of the Abbasid court, a place and time still famous as the backdrop for the stories of The Arabian Nights. As the mother of al-Hadi (r. 785–786) and Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), she provides us an early example of the social mobility and wealth that an enslaved woman could attain in Islamic society. Nabia Abbott, a pioneer scholar in English on early Muslim women, wrote a biography of Khayzuran. According to her work in the Arabic sources, slavers in Yemen kidnapped this lithe girl, named her Khayzuran (“Slender Reed”), and put her through musical training in Mecca to increase her value before selling her to the caliph on the Hajj. After Khayzuran secured power in the palace, she sent royal envoys to Yemen to search for her family. They found her father to be no more than a roughly dressed freedman working in the fields. This slave concubine who became queen mother influenced royal appointments and dominated the courtiers, her spouse, and her sons, enabling her to funnel incredible wealth to her own treasury. At the time of her death, it was recorded that her yearly income consumed half the land taxes of the empire. Her estate included a huge palace with over 1,000 slaves to serve her, gold, jewels, and 18,000 silk brocade dresses. Not bad for a skinny farm kid from Yemen....