Shadjar ad-Durr

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Depiction of Sadjar ad-Durr in a sketch (1966)
Dinar coins, Shadjar ad-Durrs

Shajjar ad-Durr ( Arabic شجر الدر, DMG Šaǧar ad-Durr , Egyptian-Arabic Sheger ed Durr ; † April 12 or 2 / 3. May 1257 ) was for a few days in 1250, from 2 May to 31 July, the first and only until today independent ruler of Islamic Egypt .

Life

Schadschar ad-Durr ("pearl tree") was of Turkish , Circassian or Armenian descent and was once given as a harem slave to as-Salih Ayyub , the Ayyubid emir of Hisn Kayfa . Because of her shrewdness and beauty, she soon became his favorite and eventually married as one of two women. She shared the captivity with him in Kerak from 1239 to 1240 and gave birth to their son Chalil, who died as a child. In the summer of 1240 as-Salih Ayyub took power in Egypt.

When in June 1249 the sixth crusade under King Louis IX. (Saint Louis) of France broke into Egypt, Sultan al-Salih Ayyub was seriously ill. After the crusaders had conquered Damiette and advanced to al-Mansura , he died in November 1249. In order to prevent a collapse of the political order in this time of crisis, Shajar al-Durr and the commander of the cavalry Jamal al-Din Muhassan decided to die to keep the Sultan's secret. The reason for his absence from the public was given by his illness, from which he wanted to recover in the rooms of his palace in al-Mansura. They only inaugurated the Emir Fachr ad-Din Yusuf , who had previously fallen out of favor and was reinstated as Commander-in-Chief of the Army ( Atabeg ), thus forming a secret government triumvirate with him. Shortly thereafter, Shajar ad-Durr sent the Emir Faris ad-Din Aktay to Hisn Kayfa, who was to accompany her stepson al-Mu'azzam Turan Shah to Egypt as his father's successor. A conflict threatened to break out within the governing troika over the succession plan , since Fachr ad-Din Yusuf favored Prince al-Mughith Umar as the new sultan. The power struggle did not materialize, however, since the emir fell against the Crusaders in the battle for al-Mansura on February 8, 1250. A few days later, on February 25th, Turan Shah entered al-Mansura, whereupon the death of the old and the enthronement of the new sultan could be officially announced. Shadjar ad-Durr now withdrew to Cairo , while her stepson and the Mamluk Guard continued the fight against the crusaders, which was victoriously ended on April 6 with the capture of the King of France.

Because the victory was mainly made possible by the fighting strength of the Mamluks of the Bahriyya and Jamdariyya regiments, Sultan Turan Shah recognized them as a potential danger to his own power and therefore decided to eliminate their leaders. But they got ahead of him and murdered him on May 2nd, 1250 in Fariskur. In the newly raised question of rulers, the Mamluks agreed to proclaim Shajar ad-Durr as the “mother of King Chalil” ( Umm al-Malik Chalil ) as the new “Sultan”; Mamluk Izz ad-Din Aybak was placed at her side as Atabeg . The independent rule of the former harem slave was manifested by the establishment of her name in the Chutba , the sermon for the traditional Friday prayer in which the ruler's name was always mentioned to the public. According to the historian Ibn Wāsil , this represented a process that was previously unknown in the Islamic world. In the meantime, however, the Ayyubide an-Nasir Yusuf had taken control of Damascus . Several Mamluks had gone over to his side. When there was unrest in Cairo, the Mamluks decided on July 31, 1250 to depose Shajar ad-Durr as ruler and to proclaim Izz ad-Din Aybak as the new sultan. His ruler name al-Mu'izz was inserted into the Chutba and he married Shajar ad-Durr, who thus continued to have great influence at the court of Cairo.

But when Aybak entered into an alliance with the ruler of Mosul in 1257 and wanted to seal this by marrying his daughter, Shajar ad-Durr threatened to lose her influence. She therefore had Aybak murdered, but was arrested by the Mamluks and imprisoned in the “red tower”. After Aybak's young son al-Mansur Ali was named the new sultan, she was murdered and her body was thrown from the tower.

The Mamluk leader Qutuz eliminated al-Mansur Ali a little later and took power himself as the new sultan of Egypt.

Third ruler in Islam

Contrary to the uniqueness of the rule of the shajar ad-Durrs as a woman over an Islamic empire, as announced by Ibn Wāṣil, she was not the first. Between the years 1086 and 1138, the malika Saiyida al-Hurra Arwa from the Sulaihid dynasty ruled Yemen, the first known woman to be an independent ruler in the Islamic world. In 1236, with the support of the slave guard, the princess Radiyya came to the throne as sole ruler in the Sultanate of Delhi , under similar conditions as a little later Shadjar ad-Durr in Egypt.

literature

swell

  • Ibn Wāṣil : Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb
  • Sits Ibn al-Jawzī: Mir'āt al-zamān fī ta'rīkh al-a'yān
  • Abu'l-Fida : Mukhtasar ta'rikh al-bashar. Around 1329.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jörg-Dieter Brandes: The Mameluken. The rise and fall of a slave despotism. Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1996, p. 27
  2. ↑ Steven Runciman: History of the Crusades. CH Beck, Munich 2001, ISBN 3406399606 , p. 1049.
  3. ↑ a b cf. fmg.ac (English)
  4. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 74r-75r
  5. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 75v
  6. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 77v-78r
  7. ↑ Sibt Ibn al-Jawzī: Mir'āt al-zamān fī ta'rīkh al-a'yān , vol. 8/2 (1952), p. 774
  8. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 84v
  9. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 90v – 91r
  10. ↑ Sibt Ibn al-Jawzī: Mir'āt al-zamān fī ta'rīkh al-a'yān , vol. 8/2 (1952), p. 783
  11. ↑ Ibn Wāṣil: Mufarrij al-kurūb fī akhbār banī Ayyūb , Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, ms. arabe 1703, fol. 94r
  12. ↑ According to Ibn al-'Amīd, the wedding took place on July 29, 1250; Kitāb al-majmū 'al-mubārak , ed. by Claude Cahen: La "Chronique des Ayyoubides" d'al-Makin b. al-'Amid , in: Bulletin d'Etudes Orientales de l'Institut Français de Damas 15 (1955–1957), p. 161. And al-Dhahabī dated Aybak's accession to power on July 30, 1250; Ta'rīkh al-Islām , ed. from 'Umar' Abd al-Salām Tadmurī (1998), Vol. 5, p. 58
  13. ↑ Farhad Daftary : Sayyida Hurra: the Isma'īlī Sulayhid Queen of Yemen , in: Gavin RG Hambly: Woman in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, Piety (New York, 1998), pp. 117-130
  14. ↑ Peter Jackson: Sultān Radiyya bint Iltutmish , in: Gavin RG Hambly: Woman in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, Piety (New York, 1998), pp. 181–197
predecessor Office successor
al-Mu'azzam Turan Shah Sultana of Egypt
1250 		al-Mu'izz Aybak
personal data
SURNAME Shadjar ad-Durr
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Sultana in Egypt
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH April 12, 1257 or May 2, 1257 or May 3, 1257