Nazhūn bint al-Qulāʽiya al-Gharnātiya (Arabic: نزهون بنت القلاعي الغرناطية, 12th-century) was a Granadan courtesan and poet, noted for her outrageous verse.

Little is known about Nazhun's life. Medieval Arabic biographical dictionaries and accounts of her poetry are the main sources. Ibn al-Abbar has her as a (near-)contemporary of the twelfth-century Ḥamda bint Ziyād al-Muaddib.^[1] Anecdotes about Nazhun also feature Abu Bakr al-Amā al-Makhzumi as Nazhun's teacher of the arts of satire; he seems to have been alive in the twelfth century, at some point after 1145;^[2] indeed, Nazhun 'figures so prominently' in biographical entries about al-Makhzumi that 'his fame seems to be completely intertwined with hers'. She was supposedly the daughter of a qadi (judge).^{[3]: 4, 13 fnn 5, 8, 10}

Although little of her work survives, Nazhun is, among medieval Andalusian women poets, probably second only to her contemporary Hafsa Bint al-Hajj al-Rukuniyya in the quantity of her work preserved: classical sources attribute to her twenty-one lines of verse from seven poems. In addition, the later Ùddat al-jalīs by Àlī ibn Bishrī attributes to her a muwashshaḥa of twenty-five lines,^{[3]: 13 fn 7} giving her the distinction of being the only female poet in the collection.^[4] 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."^[5] The study of her work has been hampered by scholars either not comprehending, or choosing not to expound on, its obscenity and double entendres.^[3]: 6

In the translation of A. J. Arberry, one of her various ripostes runs:^[6]

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.

Modern collections of significant bodies of Nazhun's work include:

• Dīwān de Las Poetisas de Al-Andalus, ed. by Teresa Garulo (Ediciones Hiperión, 1986), pp. 110 ff.
• Nisāʾ min al-Andalus, ed. by Aḥmad Khalīl Jumʻah (Damascus: al-Yamāmah lil-Ṭibāʻah wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʻ, 2001), pp. 371–402 [نسـاء من الأندلس, أحمد خليل جمعة].

The following table charts the main early sources on Nazhun and her poetry: