Zabiba

Zabība, the Ethiopian (Abyssinian) bondwoman of the Banū ʿAbs, mother of the pre-Islamic poet-warrior ʿAntara by her master Shaddād ibn Muʿāwiya. Because the child of a slave-mother inherited her status, ʿAntara was born a slave and dark-skinned, the twin facts on which the whole ʿAntara romance turns. She is the maternal node of ʿAntara, previously carried in the corpus only within his prose.

Children

• 'Antara ibn Shaddad

Domains

• bondage and maternity

Powers

• Bore the slave-born hero ʿAntara to the noble Shaddād

Relations

• mother of: 'Antara ibn Shaddad
• lover: Shaddad ibn Mu'awiya

Sources

• Sīrat ʿAntara ibn Shaddād (medieval Arabic biographical-romance)
• Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī, Kitāb al-Aghānī (10th c.), on ʿAntara's parentage