Abu’l-Muhannāʾ Mukhāriq ibn Yaḥyā ibn Nāwūs () (), was one of the most distinguished singers of the Abbasid period, and a protege of the Barmakids and the caliphs from Harun al-Rashid to al-Wathiq.
Abu’l-Muhannāʾ Mukhāriq ibn Yaḥyā ibn Nāwūs () (), was one of the most distinguished singers of the Abbasid period, and a protege of the Barmakids and the caliphs from Harun al-Rashid to al-Wathiq.
==Life== He was born in Madma (although some sources claim Kufa), and was the son of a butcher. He was a slave of the famous singer Atika bint Shuhda, who at an early age first noticed his talent and trained him. She then sold him to the great court musician Ibrahim al-Mawsili, who appreciated his talent, completed Mukhariq's education and considered him as his successor. Mukhariq entered the court circles after Ibrahim sent him to entertain the powerful Barmakids with some of Ibrahim's newest compositions. The Barmakids were so enthusiastic about his performance, that Ibrahim made a gift of him to al-Fadl ibn Yahya al-Barmaki, who then gifted him to the Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809). The Caliph was also impressed by Mukhariq, granting him his freedom and showing him his favour by gifts and tokens of esteem, such as allowing him to sit on the same seat as he, or disposing of the curtain that usually separated the court musicians from the caliphal presence. Mukhariq continued to enjoy caliphal favour by Harun's heirs until his death in 844/5. Following the death of his erstwhile master Ibrahim al-Mawsili, and Ibn Jami, by the time of al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) Mukhariq was easily the most pre-eminent singer of his day, rivalling as a musician the Abbasid prince Ibrahim ibn al-Mahdi, Ishaq al-Mawsili (son of Ibrahim), and Alluya.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).