'A'isha al-Ba'uniyya

ʿĀ’ishah bint Yūsuf al-Bāʿūniyyah (died the sixteenth day of Dhū al-Qa‘dah 922/December 1517) was a Sufi master and poet. She is almost the only medieval female Islamic mystic to have recorded her own views in writing, and she "probably composed more works in Arabic than any other woman prior to the twentieth century". 'In her the literary talents and Ṣūfi tendencies of her family reached full fruition'. She was born and died in Damascus.

Her father Yūsuf (born Jerusalem, 805/1402 – died Damascus, 880/1475) was a qadi in Safed, Tripoli, Aleppo, and Damascus, and a member of the prominent Ba'uni family, noted through the fifteenth century for its scholars, poets and jurists. Like her brothers ‘Ā’ishah was taught primarily by her father, along with other family members, studying the Quran, Hadith, jurisprudence, and poetry, and by her own claim, by the age of eight, ‘Ā’ishah had already learned the Quran by heart.

Meanwhile, her principal Sufi masters were Jamāl al-Dīn Ismā‘īl al-Ḥawwārī (fl. late ninth/fifteenth century) and his Muḥyī al-Dīn Yaḥyá al-Urmawī (fl. ninth-tenth/fifteenth-sixteenth centuries), whom she held in high regard. Probably in 1475, ‘Ā’ishah undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca. She was married to Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn Naqīb al-Ashrāf (d. 909/1503), from the prominent ‘Alid family of Damascus, also noted for their scholarship; by ‘Ā’ishah's reckoning, Aḥmad was descended from Muḥammad's daughter Faṭimah and her husband ‘Alī, via their son al-Ḥusayn. ‘Ā’ishah and Aḥmad had two known children, a son, ‘Abd al-Wahhāb (b. 897/1489), and a daughter, Barakah (b. 899/1491).

In 919/1513, ‘Ā’ishah and her son moved from Damascus to Cairo, returning to Damascus in 923/1517. ‘Ā’ishah's goal may have been to secure the career of her son. On the way, their caravan was raided by bandits near Bilbeis, who stole their possessions, including ‘Ā’ishah's writings. It appears that in Cairo the mother and son were hosted by Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad Ibn Ajā (b. 854/1450, d. 925/1519), who was personal secretary and foreign minister to the Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri (d. 922/1516). Ibn Ajā helped ‘Abd al-Wahhāb find work in the chancery and helped ‘Ā’ishah enter into Cairo's intellectual circles; ‘Ā’ishah went on to write him 'several glowing panegyrics'. In Cairo, ‘Ā’ishah studied law and was granted license to lecture in law and to issue legal opinions (fatwas); 'she gained wide recognition as a jurist'.

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Wikipedia