While the historical record is rich with mention of women Andalusian musicians of the 9th-13th centuries CE, there is a notable scholarly void documenting the existence and significance of Andalusian women's ensembles during the seven centuries that followed. What became of these female musicians and their traditionsn The classical Andalusian musical repertoire is thought to have descended directly from the courtly music of Islamic Spain (711-1492 AD). It is considered by many scholars to be one of the longest continuous traditions of art music in the world. With few exceptions scholarly literature on Andalusian music focuses exclusively on the male version of the tradition. And yet, women musicians are connected to the very "origins" of Andalusian music, the search for which has been the central concern of much of the scholarship related to Andalusian music. Did they cease to exist Were they collectively forgotten or simply deemed unworthy of remembranceb This presentation explores how both recent and older Iberian memories continue to influence the dynamics of collective assembly; in this case gender-separated women's Andalusian events involving music. It documents the phenomenon of female ensembles and explores factors that have contributed to their persistence over the centuries. Based on historical and ethnographic fieldwork in Morocco that included interviews with dozens of ensemble musicians, I explore the special status that independent women's ensembles hold in Moroccan society, the intersections of gender and music tradition, and what the presence of these ensembles suggests about broader socio-political and religious arrangements in Islamic Morocco. I contend that the existence of women's musical traditions, previously undocumented by Arab and Western scholars, should lead us to reconceptualize intersections of history, memory, music, religion, gender and identity.

In pre-Islamic Arabia and Mesopotamia, women encompassed the majority of the ranks of professional musicians used for court entertainments. Music performance, particularly for entertainment, was closely associated with women and this did not substantially change with the advent of Islam. "Singing girls" (pl. qiyan, sing., qayna), acquired through trade and conquest, formed a special class of slave courtesans trained to perform at court. Though men were not actively prohibited from becoming musicians, it was not socially acceptable for a free man to make a living as a musician. Men who did risked becoming social outcasts. The most visible of these were referred to by the pejorative mukhannathun (effeminates) because they imitated women by adopting feminine dress and mannerisms; with some even performing on "women's" instruments. This type of musical cross-dressing, however, as with use of singing girls, also had ancient roots. During the late 7th century, their dual performance as musicians and "women" made mukhannathun targets for persecution, yet their skill earned them enough patronage that by the 9th century, subsequent generations of men were accepted as professional musicians. Music became central to courtly entertainments during the early Abbasid era (750 - 950CE), and soon such entertainments became lavish affairs; employing large numbers of both male and female musicians in gatherings that could last for days. Some scholars believed that these excesses were stimulated by music, and soon began to question what types of music, if any, were acceptable within Islam. Though the ensuing debates took place in the realm of philosophy and religious law, the rhetoric used was influenced by the continuation of gendered musical performance practices and associations of music performance with sexual identity that had existed on the cultural landscape for millennia. In this paper, I will discuss the links between musical and sexual identity in the early Abbasid court as seen through the different roles and expectations for musical performance for male and female court musicians and the contexts in which these performances took place. Using observations and opinions from select texts, I suggest that the intersection of performance, gender and music were important factors in the development of a musical semiotics used in subsequent debates surrounding the acceptance of music in Islam.

In 1902 Philippe El Khazen published a collection of muwashshah poetry that he titled al-'adhara al-ma'isat fi l-azjal wa-l-muwashshahat [The Swaying Virgins on Zajals and Muwashshahat] (Jounieh: Matba'at al-Arz). The book is mysterious in several ways. First, many of the poems/songs are preceded by musical terms (a common practice in songbooks from the 10th century CE onwards), but the technical musical terminology comes from both the North African and the Levantine traditions, which in pre-modern times possessed completely distinct musical vocabularies, and this is utterly unique. Second, several of the poems are introduced with the context for their composition and when the Sultan of Granada is mentioned, his title is followed by the phrase "May God aid him and grant him victory!" apparently indicating that at least part of this collection was assembled when Muslims still ruled in Granada. Third, the collection includes poems by several of the most famous Andalusian poets which do not appear in their modern published diwans (compiled works). But the most mysterious aspect of this work is its origin. El Khazen wrote that he was in Rome in 1900 browsing through the library of the Monastery of St. Antonius (Anthony) "belonging to the monks of Aleppo" when he stumbled upon a tattered manuscript in maghrebi script which contained remarkable fragments of poetry "whose creators had gone beyond the meters of classical Arabic poetry." He was so taken with them that he copied out many of them and put them into the volume which he later published as "The Swaying Virgins." The great scholar of the Andalusian literature Samuel Miklos Stern twice wrote that he had heard of this manuscript and thought it to be quite ancient. He also wrote that his friend Giorgio Della Vida had located the original manscript in Rome and was sending him a copy. But the manuscript never arrived. It was not found in Stern's personal possessions when he died and did not make its way into the Oxford libraries. It also apparently did not accompany Giorgio Della Vida when he fled the Nazis and emigrated to America. And there is no Monastery of St. Anthony or Antonius in Rome. The manuscript, lost since 1900, has recently been found after a seven-year search. This presentation consists of a description of the manuscript and some preliminary conclusions about its provenance and significance.

In Franz Rosenthal's translation of the last section of Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. Jarir al-Tabari's (d. 923 CE) monumental work of history, Ta'rikh al-rusul wa'l-muluk (History of Prophets and Kings), he includes at its end a notice of the death of Bid'ah, a famous singing-girl in Baghdad. While variations in the manuscript tradition of this work preclude any firm idea of whether al-Tabari intended this to be the last entry, its mere inclusion reveals more than scholars have previously suspected. Rosenthal interprets the report of Bid'ah's death simply as an example of the medieval Muslim scholar's attention to seemingly trivial details. Elsewhere, Rosenthal notes the author's reputation for shunning the company of women and for his relative independence from the goings-on at the troubled 'Abbasid court, focusing instead on his involvement in the religious and scholarly controversies of his day. Since al-Tabari does not discuss his personal life in his works, modern scholars have generally accepted Rosenthal's interpretation of his activities. Thus, al-Tabari is portrayed as someone who never married or fathered children, despite his laqab, and who simply recorded the political events in Baghdad without becoming involved in them. A re-examination of this section of the History reveals, however, that al-Tabari was not as aloof from the caliphal court as was once thought and that his recording of Bid'ah's death was far from trivial. His sources for this period include court poets, military officers, and rebels, and his reports indicate a marked interest in and intimate connection to the lives of the political elite, both men and women. Singing-girls, such as Bid'ah and her mentor 'Arib, were a vital part of 'Abbasid court life, and while they do not appear in al-Tabari's chains of authorities, this does not mean that they and other women had no role in his work. So, rather than being an uninterested observer of events in 'Abbasid Baghdad, al-Tabari was an active member of 'Abbasid elite society and deserves to be studied as such. By examining al-Tabari's role in events in tenth century Baghdad, we gain a better understanding of his role as author of his works and of the overall relationship between religious scholars and courtly circles during the medieval period.