Afira bint 'Abbad (Arabic: عَفِيرة بنت عبَّادAshshamus) was an Arab poet from around the 3rd century CE, from what is now Bahrain.[1][2][3]
Her poems viscerally express rage and demand justice and action from men, after she had been raped. According to legend, the perpetrator was the Tasmi king, who, similar the droit du siegneur, sexually assaulted all Jadisi brides.[4] Afira's poems excoriated Jadisi men for permitting this to happen, and her words drove an uprising against the Tasmi king.[2]
Anthologies
Moris Farhi (ed) Classical Poems by Arab Women translated Abdullah al-Udhari, Saqi Books, 1999. ISBN086356-096-2[5]
References
^Classical Poems by Arab Women: A Bilingual Anthology, ed. and trans. by Abdullah al-Udhari (London: Saqi Books, 1999), pp. 26-27.