How a concubine became the ruler of Egypt Abdallah Ewis
The year is 1249 CE.
The French King Louis IX
is sailing the Nile,
threatening to overthrow the Egyptian
sultan and capture Egypt.
Egypt’s army commanders ask
the sultan’s wife, Shajar Al-Durr,
to report this news to the sultan,
who has been injured in battle.
But they don’t know the truth:
the sultan is already dead,
and Shajar Al-Durr is secretly
ruling in his stead.
Born around 1220 CE, Shajar Al-Durr,
whose name means “tree of pearls,”
was sold into slavery.
This was a common fate for Christian
children from Turkic countries like her.
Enslaved boys, or mamaleek, were trained
to be elite military personnel
serving the Egyptian Sultanate,
while enslaved girls were forced
to become concubines.
As a teenager, Shajar Al-Durr
became a concubine
to the son of the Egyptian sultan,
As-Salih Ayyub.
They had a son named Khalil
who died in infancy,
and As-Salih freed her
so he could court her formally.
As-Salih became sultan,
and he and Shajar Al-Durr married.
When As-Salih died in the middle
of the conflict with the crusaders,
Shajar Al-Durr knew King Louis IX
had already succeeded
in conquering important
Egyptian port cities.
Fearing that her husband’s death would
threaten the army’s morale,
she decided to keep it a secret.
To conceal his death,
she had food brought to his tent,
and forged his signature on decrees
to govern the sultanate
and advise military commanders.
When the crusaders attacked
the Egyptian city of Al-Mansurah,
Egyptian soldiers ambushed the crusaders
and took the French king hostage.
Meanwhile, the truth about
the sultan’s death began to leak.
Shajar Al-Durr invited her late husband’s
son with another woman
to claim the title of sultan.
At first, both she and her mamaleek
advisers supported
her stepson’s claim to the throne.
But then he began threatening
to exile her and kill the mamaleek,
making wild accusations
about them.
The mamaleek had served Shajar Al-Durr’s
husband before her,
and seen her capable rule so far.
They thought she would make a better
ruler than the unpredictable prince,
and conspired with her to assassinate him.
In May of 1250, with the support
of the mamaleek military,
Shajar Al-Durr was inaugurated
as Sultana of Egypt.
Days later, she negotiated the ransom
of the French king and his army
in exchange for an enormous sum of money
and the surrender
of the occupied port city.
In spite of her success leading Egypt
through this military crisis,
she had to work to cement her credibility
in the eyes of the public.
As a formerly enslaved person,
her rise to power wasn’t linked
to royal ancestry,
while as a woman,
societal restrictions prevented her
from participating in many of the events
a sultan would typically attend.
To increase her visibility and solidify
her claim to the throne,
she constructed a public mausoleum
for her husband,
issued the currency under her name,
and signed decrees as Walidat Khalil,
the mother of Khalil.
Unfortunately, the sultanate’s
premier religious authority,
the caliph of Baghdad,
still objected to having a woman rule.
Under threat of revolt,
Shajar Al-Durr married on the condition
that her new husband must
divorce his first wife.
Shajar Al-Durr intended to maintain
her status as supreme ruler.
Her new husband threatened to undermine
her rule
by arranging a political marriage between
himself and a princess from Mosul.
So Shajar Al-Durr ordered
his assassination.
The news reached his first wife,
who successfully plotted
to murder the Sultana.
Shajar Al-Durr’s killers threw her body
from the Cairo citadel.
Shajar Al-Durr left no personal writings,
but her legacy was lasting.
Before her death,
she built her own mausoleum
with a madrasa, garden,
public shower, and palace,
decorated with her signature
tree of pearls
to remind Egyptians who made it.