Qiyan - قِيان

Qiyān (Arabic: قِيان, Arabic: [qi'jæːn]; singular qayna, Arabic: قَينة, Arabic: ['qɑjnæh]) were a social class of women, trained as entertainers, which existed in the pre-modern Islamic world. The term has been used for both non-free women and free, including some of which came from the nobility. It has been suggested that "the geisha of Japan are perhaps the most comparable form of socially institutionalized female companionship and entertainment for male patrons, although, of course, the differences are also myriad".

Historically, the qiyan flourished under the Umayyad Caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, and in Al-Andalus.
تاريخياً، ازدهرت القيان في ظل الدولة الأموية، والدولة العباسية، وفي الأندلس.

Qiyān is often rendered in English as 'singing girls' or 'singing slave girls', but these translations do not reflect the fact that qiyān might be of any age, and were skilled entertainers whose training extended well beyond singing, including for example dancing, composing music and verse, reciting historical or literary anecdotes (akhbar), calligraphy, or shadow-puppetry. Other translations include courtesan, "musical concubines", or simply "women musicians".

In some sources, qiyān were a subset of jawāri ('female slaves', جَوار; s. jāriya, جارِية), and often more specifically a subset of imā’ ('slave girls', اِماء; s. ama, اَمة). Qiyān are thus at times referred to as imā’ shawā‘ir ('slave-girl poets', اِماء شَوَاعِر) or as mughanniyāt ('songstresses', مُغَنِّيات; s. mughanniyyah, مغنية). Many qiyan were free women. One of them was even an Abbasid princess.