- Al-Khayzuran
Al-Khayzuran bint Atta ( _ar. الخيزران بنت عطاء) (died 789) was the wife of the
Abbasid Caliph Al-Mahdi and mother of bothCaliph sAl-Hadi andHarun al-Rashid , the most famous of the Abbasids. She was fromJorash ,Yemen .She was kidnapped from her home by a
Bedouin who then sold her in a slave market nearMecca to Al-Mahdi during his pilgrimage. Later the caliph fell in love with her and married her. Al-Khayzuran was a woman of strong personality, and persuaded her husband to appoint her sons as the next caliphs over his sons by his other wives. At the court, she was an ally of theBarmakids . She greatly influenced both her sons and the affairs of the empire to the extent that her son Al-Hadi tried to kill her by poisoning her. She was suspected of involvement in his death.Al-Khayzuran and her strong personality is believed by many literary historians to be a key influence of
Scheherazade Fact|date=August 2007, the main character in "1001 Nights ". Many of the stories were influenced by Harun al-Rashid and his fabulous court.References
*
Ibn Kathir , "Al Bidayah wa al-Nihayah "
* Al-Thahbi, "Sirat Alam al-nubala"
* Al-Zarkali, "Al-Alam"
* Ahmad Khalil Juma, "Nesaa min al-tarikh"
* Zaynab Husayan, "Majaam Alam ak-nesaa"
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