Al-Khansa

Tumāḍir bint ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith ibn al-Sharīd al-Sulamīyah (Arabic: تماضر بنت عمرو بن الحارث بن الشريد السُلمية‎), usually simply referred to as al-Khansāʾ (Arabic: الخنساء‎, meaning either "gazelle" or "snub-nosed") was a 7th-century Arabic poet, said to have died in 646 CE. She is the best known female poet in Arabic literature.In her time, the role of a female poet was to write elegies for the dead and perform them for the tribe in public oral competitions. Al-Khansāʾ won respect and fame in these competitions with her elegies for her brothers, Ṣakhr and Muʿāwiyah, who had died in battle.