Learn about Shajarat al-Durr, the Mamluk Sultana
Shajar al-Durr, a woman of Armenian origin, was a slave girl in the court of the Abbasid Caliph al-Mustasim, who presented her as a gift to the Ayyubid Sultan al-Salih Najm al-Din. The Sultan married her and she bore him a son named Khalil, who died in childhood.
She was a strong, intelligent woman. It was able to maintain the strength of the Egyptian army, which was confronting the attack of the Crusader army led by Louis IX, which seized Damietta and headed towards Mansoura. Sultan Al-Salih Najm Al-Din died during the battle, and Shajarat Al-Durr concealed the news of his death, and announced that the Sultan was sick and no one would visit him except his doctors. Shajarat Al-Durr met with the army princes and Mamluk leaders and conveyed to them the Sultan’s desire to pledge allegiance to Turan Shah’s daughter for the rule of the cradle and for him to assume the throne after him, so they swore to that. . After the army's victory in Mansoura on the Cross, the death of the Sultan was announced and Turan Shah assumed the throne of Egypt.
Disagreements arose between Turan Shah and Shajar al-Durr, ending with the killing of Turan Shah at the hands of one of the Mamluk princes!! Shajar al-Durr assumed the throne after the Mamluks pledged allegiance to her. The Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad became angry, and the princes of the Ayyubid dynasty in the Levant became angry when Shajar al-Durr assumed the throne of Egypt. So Shajar al-Durr married Prince Izz al-Din Aybak, the army commander, and abdicated the throne to him after she remained sultan for only three months. .
Aybak became Sultan of Egypt and was the first Sultan of the Bahri Mamluk Sultans in Egypt, and Shajar al-Durr was the real ruler!! .. So the matter ended in a dispute and estrangement with her husband, Sultan Izz al-Din Aybak, so she planned to kill him, and one of her men actually killed him in his bathroom in the castle.
As soon as the news of the assassination of Sultan Izz al-Din Aybak spread, rumors circulated and suspicions abounded, so the Mamluks rode to the citadel, besieged it, and arrested the servants and the harem. The Mu’ziyya princes called for the appointment of Al-Mansur Ali, the son of Sultan Aybak.
The sultanate was assumed by his son, Al-Mansur Ali, who was a boy. He avenged the killing of his father after killing him only three days, so he ordered the arrest of Shajar Al-Durr and handed her over to his mother, “Umm Ali,” the wife of Izz Al-Din Aybak. Her maids killed her by beating them with clogs and threw her from the top of the castle, where she remained like that for three days. For several days, she was carried in a basket and buried near the scene of Mrs. Nafisa.
Thus, Shajar al-Durr died, after having been the adornment of the country and the influential woman in Egypt for many years, and who was distinguished by talents that are rarely found in a woman!!
Source: websites