A nasib (elegy) written by the Egyptian father Abu Hayyan (born 1256) for his daughter Nudar (born 1301) praises the talent and knowledge of his scholar-poet daughter and is one example of how literature provides evidence that women of the elite classes were educated:

My soul turned
away from this world
after Nudar settled
in the moist earth,

So my ear is deaf
when someone speaks;
my eye stares
far away.

How can I mind
whom I'm with
when I can't see
Nudar's shining face?

No. And I can't hear
her voice
whose finest words
were pearls.

If strung in verse
they'd be the blazing stars;
if scattered in prose,
they'd be the brightest blossoms

Though she may be veiled
from my eye,
still her figure
is etched in my heart;

I've stayed by the grave
where she settled,
where...