Consorts Of The Caliphs: Women And The Court Of Baghdad

Consorts of the Caliphs is a seventh/thirteenth-century compilation of anecdotes about thirty-eight women who were, as the title suggests, consorts to those in power, most of them concubines of the early Abbasid caliphs and wives of latter-day caliphs and sultans. This slim but illuminating volume is one of the few surviving texts by Ibn al-Sa'i (d. 674 H/1276 AD). Ibn al-Sa'i was a prolific Baghdadi scholar who chronicled the academic and political elites of his city, and whose career straddled the final years of the Abbasid dynasty and the period following the Mongol invasion of 656 H/1258 AD. The book explores the lives and culture of women in Baghdad’s court, providing biographical sketches, poetry, and social insights without claiming the book is brand new or copying misleading details.