Al-Hujayjah

Al-Ḥujayjah (), also known as Safīyah bint Thaʻlabah al-Shaybānīyah () was a pre-Islamic poet of the Banū Shaybān tribe, noted for her work in the genre of taḥrīḍ (incitement to vengeance). Her dates of birth and death are unknown, and even her historicity is open to question. But she seems to have granted protection to al-Ḥurqah bint al-Nuʻmān when Khosrow II (r. 590-628) demanded her in marriage from her father al-Nu'man III ibn al-Mundhir around the beginning of the seventh century, and her surviving corpus relates to the Battle of Dhū-Qār in c. 609. Characterised as a 'warrior diplomat', she has been read as a key figure in pre-Islamic poetry.

As with other supposedly pre-Islamic poetry, there has been scholarly debate over whether Al-Ḥujayjah's work might actually have been fabricated later in the medieval period (even if she herself was real). It survives only in Bishr ibn Marwān al-Asadī's collection Ḥarb Banī Shaybān maʻa Kisrá Ānūshirwān (), which identifies Al-Ḥujayjah's father as Thaʻlabah al-Shaybānī. It is plausible that the poetry was composed in the Abbasid period to encourage ethnic Arabs to resist the claims for parity of status within the Caliphate by Persian members, known as the Shu'ubiyya movement.