InÃÂn bint AbdallÃÂh (, died 841) was a prominent poet and qiyan of the Abbasid period, even characterised by the tenth-century historian Abà « al-Faraj al-Iá¹£fahÃÂni as the slave-woman poet of foremost significance in the Arabic tradition. She was later the concubine of Harun al-Rashid.
InÃÂn was born a muwallada (daughter of an Arab father and slave mother) to Abd-AllÃÂh. To her appearance, she was described as a Blonde. She was trained in Yamamah. She was sold to Abà « KhÃÂlid al-NÃÂá¹Âifë, who brought her to Baghdad.
In the assessment of Fuad Matthew Caswell, <blockquote>Her salon at the house of al-NÃÂá¹Âifë was frequented by the celebrated poets and men of letters of the time, including Abà « NuwÃÂs, Dibil al-KhuzÃÂë, MarwÃÂn b. Abë Ḥafá¹£a, al-ýAbbÃÂs b. al-Aḥnaf and al-MaâÂÂmà «n's tutor al-Yazëdë al-Ḥimyarë, among a host of others, one of the attractions being that her master was devoid of jealously and tolerated the ease with which she bestowed her favours.</blockquote>
InÃÂn's fame led Caliph HÃÂrà «n al-Rashëd to seek to buy her to include her in the Abbasid harem, but he refused al-NÃÂá¹Âifë's asking price of 100,000 dënÃÂrs. However, on al-NÃÂá¹Âifë's death, al-Rashëd had InÃÂn put up for auction, ostensibly to help clear al-NÃÂá¹Âifë's debts. Via an agent, al-Rashëd then acquired her for 225,000 dirhams (in that time 1 dinar was equal to 7 dirhams). As al-Rashëd's concubine, InÃÂn bore him two sons, both of whom died young. She accompanied him to KhurÃÂsÃÂn where he, and, soon after, she died.
InÃÂn was noted for her rapier-like repartee, which was often sexual or even vulgar in tone, and this will have been an important aspect of her fame/infamy. A large part of her surviving corpus comprises her responses to male poets' challenges in verse-capping contests. A significant proportion of her surviving verse is dialogue with the famed poet Abà « NuwÃÂs.
As rendered by Eric Ormsby, one of the virtuosic yet obscene exchanges between InÃÂn and Abà « NuwÃÂs runs thus:
<blockquote>One day she asked him whether he was any good at scansion; when Abu Nuwas replied boastfully that he was superb at it, she said, "Try scanning this verse:
Abu Nuwas broke the line into metrical feet and responded:
which means:
The assembled courtiers broke into loud laughter at the poet's expense. Not to be outdone, he asked InÃÂn whether she could scan the following (rather nonsensical) verse:
She too had to break up the metrical feet to produce:
which comes out as