Dananir al-Barmakiyya (; late 8th-century – early 9th-century) was an Arabian qiyan musician, singer and poet. She is also known as the composer of the famous Kitab mujarrad al-aghani (Abridged Book of Songs).
She was from Medina. A slave, she was sold to Yahya ibn Khalid al-Barmaki.Hilary Kilpatrick: Making the Great Book of Songs: Compilation and the Author's Craft in Abū L As a young slave, she was trained to become a qiyan. She was a student of the qiyan-musician Badhl, who was known for the number of songs she retained in her memory.Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-cultural Study Among her instructors were Ibrahim and Ishaf al-Mawsili, Ibn Jami, Fulaih, and Badhl.
Dananir is noted as one of the most famous quian-musicians. She is described as an accomplished poet, musician and singer. As a singer, she was popular with the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), who visited his minister's house in Baghdad to hear her perform, and gave her extravagant gifts, including a necklace worth 30,000 gold coins.
References
External links Dananeer, a 1940 Egyptian musical film with the semi-fictionalized Dananir as the title character Dananir (qayna of Ibn Kunnasa), another early-Abbasid-era qayna (less well-known)