Nazhun al-Garnatiya bint al-Qulai’iya (eleventh-century) was a Granadan courtesan and poet, noted for her outrageous verse, her learning, and her low-status origins (possibly as a slave). Although little of her work survives, she is, among medieval Andalusian women poets, second only to her contemporary Hafsa Bint al-Hajj al-Rukuniyya in the quantity of her work preserved; she usually appears getting the better of male poets and aristocrats around her with her witty invective. In Marla Segol's words, "as a rule, Nazhun represents her body in ways that disrupt conventional strategies for control of women’s speech and sexuality, and protests the merchandising of women’s bodies."
In the translation of A. J. Arberry, one of her various ripostes runs:
The poet al-Kutandi challenged the blind al-Makhzumi to complete the following verses:
If you had eyes to view The man who speaks with you—The blind man failed to discover a suitable continuation, but Nazhun, who happened to be present, improvized after this fashion:
However many there may be All dumbly you’d behold His anklets’ shining gold. The rising moon, it seems, In his bright buttons gleams, And in his gown, I trow, There sways a slender bough.