31 Facts About Shajar al-Durr

Shajar al-Durr was the wife of As-Salih Ayyub, and later of Izz al-Din Aybak, the first sultan of the Mamluk Bahri dynasty.

In political affairs, Shajar al-Durr played a crucial role after the death of her first husband during the Seventh Crusade against Egypt.

Several sources assert that Shajar al-Durr took the title of sultana, the feminine form of sultan.

Shajar al-Durr was of Turkic or Armenian origin, and described by historians as a beautiful, pious and intelligent woman.

Shajar al-Durr was purchased as a slave by As-Salih Ayyub in the Levant before he became a Sultan and accompanied him and Mamluk Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Salihi to Al Karak during his detention there in 1239.

Shajar al-Durr informed Emir Fakhr ad-Din ibn as-Shaikh and Tawashi Jamal ad-Din Muhsin of the Sultan's death but as the country was under attack by the crusaders they decided to conceal his death.

Shajar al-Durr continued to have food prepared for the sultan and brought to his tent.

Shajar al-Durr agreed to Baibars's plan to defend Al Mansurah.

Shajar al-Durr then sent a message to Shajar al-Durr while she was in Jerusalem warning her and requesting her to hand over to him the wealth and jewels of his late father.

Shajar al-Durr was informed of this at the Citadel of the Mountain in Cairo and she agreed.

Shajar al-Durr was mentioned in the Friday prayers in mosques with names including "Umm al-Malik Khalil" and "Sahibat al-Malik as-Salih".

The refusal of the Caliph to recognize Shajar al-Durr as the new Sultana was a great setback to the Mamluks in Egypt as the custom during the Ayyubid era was that the Sultan could gain legitimacy only through the recognition of the Abbasid Caliph.

Shajar al-Durr married Shajar al-Durr who abdicated and passed the throne to him after she had ruled Egypt as Sultana for about three months.

Aybak became the sole and absolute ruler of Egypt after the Salihiyya Mamluks who were the supporters of Shajar al-Durr left Egypt and turned against him.

Shajar al-Durr concealed Sultanate affairs from Aybak; she prevented him from seeing his other wife and insisted that he should divorce her.

Badr al-Din Lu'lu' warned Aybak that Shajar al-Durr was in contact with an-Nasir Yusuf in Damascus.

Shajar al-Durr, feeling at risk and betrayed by Aybak, the man whom she had made a Sultan, had him murdered by servants while he was taking a bath.

Shajar al-Durr claimed that Aybak died suddenly during the night but his Mamluks, led by Qutuz, did not believe her and the servants involved confessed under torture.

Shajar al-Durr stayed in the moat for three days, unburied, until one night a mob came and took off the cloth around her waist because it was silk with pearls and had a smell of musk.

Shajar al-Durr was buried in a tomb, not far from the Mosque of Tulun, which is a jewel of Islamic funerary architecture.

Shajar al-Durr was the first Islamic Sultan of Egypt to use this culturally-syncretized architecture.

Shajar al-Durr used her wealth and power to add a tomb to her husband's urban madrasa, the Salihiyya, in 1250, and with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed architectural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that became popular among the Mamluk rulers and remains widespread today.

Shajar al-Durr built a mausoleum for herself, sometime between 1250 and her death in 1257.

Nonetheless, Shajar al-Durr managed to insert a clear reference to herself in the most highly charged place in any building where prayer occurs, the mihrab, where an image of an upright branch with pearlescent fruit recalls her name: shajar and durr.

Aybak and Shajar al-Durr firmly established the Mamluk dynasty that would ultimately repulse the Mongols, expel the European Crusaders from the Holy Land, and remain the most powerful political force in the Middle East until the coming of the Ottomans.

Shajar al-Durr is one of the characters of Sirat al-Zahir Baibars, a folkloric epic of thousands of pages that was composed in Egypt during the early Mamluk era and took its final form in the early Ottoman era.

Fatma Shajarat al-Durr, as the tale names Shajar al-Durr, was the daughter of Caliph al-Muqtadir whose kingdom in Baghdad was attacked by the Mongols.

Shajar al-Durr was called Shajarat al-Durr because her father dressed her in a dress that was made of pearls.

Shajar al-Durr's father granted her Egypt as she wished to be the Queen of Egypt and as-Salih Ayyub married her in order to stay in power as Egypt was hers.

Shajarat al-Durr killed Aybak with a sword but, while fleeing from his son, she fell from the roof of the citadel and died.

Shajar al-Durr was the subject of a 1935 film by Ahmed Galal called Shajarat al-Durr.