Muhja bint al-Tayyani
Muhja bint al-Tayyani was an eleventh-century Andalusian poet.
Hardly any information is available about her life. She was the daughter of a merchant who was engaged in the sale of figs. She met Princess Wallada, who took her to her house and educated her. She became a poet, a profession that had a great recognition in Andalusian society.
Poems
Muhja dedicated ferocious satires to her teacher:| Original | Transliteration | Literal translation |
| وَلّادة مَرْيَم | Wallādah qad ṣirti wallādah min ghayri baʿalin faḍaḥa al-kātimu ḥakat lanā Maryam lākinnah nakhlat hādhī dhakaru qāʾimu. | Wallada has become fecund by another man; the secret-keeper revealed it. To us, she resembled Mary, but this palm-tree is an erect penis. |
This poem puns on Wallada's name, which literally means 'fecund'. It compares Wallada, ostensibly pregnant out of wedlock, to the Virgin Mary. The poem shifts from a literary register in the first half to a colloquial one in the second. The second half alludes specifically to the Islamic account of the virgin birth, in which Mariam received a divine instruction to shake the trunk of a date palm while giving birth to Jesus, so that its fruits fall down to her. In Muhya's account, Wallada has grasped a penis to similar effect.
Another example is this verse: