“If You Lack Men”: Shajar al-Durr’s Abdication and Tomb

Because the censure of other rulers once again made Egypt vulnerable to an external attack, Shajar al-Durr was forced to abdicate the throne after less than three months and to marry a high-ranking military leader, Aybak, who replaced her on the throne. When Aybak began courting a second wife seven years later, Shajar al-Durr had him killed, whereupon she was herself murdered a few days later. She was the first sultan in Cairo to have built her own tomb, perhaps because there were no surviving children to build one for her. The tomb is architecturally significant for its golden mosaics and extensive program of wall paintings, the recent cleaning of which have made them visible again.

The Streets of Cairo and the Salihiyya Madrasa

Sultan Salih’s major architectural work was the Madrasa Salihiyya, supported by a perpetual endowment, in the center of the walled city of Cairo. The second institution in the Islamic world to include the four major branches of Islamic law within one building, and the first in Egypt, it was the first to organize the educational program in four iwans (large open-sided halls), a typology that soon became ubiquitous. The solemn yet extensive ornament on its long facade, dedicatory inscriptions, large projecting entrance block, and tall ornamented minaret reveal the attention paid to urban space in that period in Cairo, especially the public space of the street.

Matronage

Shajar al-Durr’s life is reflected in her architecture, coinage, and accounts of her deeds. Seen through the comparative methodological lenses of the historian and the art historian, the two modes of documentation tell different stories about power and gender. Written accounts dismiss her as a political anomaly whose autonomous rule was brief, whereas the material record indicates that she continued to play a role in politics even after her abdication. Her architectural patronage shows her to have been an innovator who changed the communicative potential of Islamic architecture to express the identity of the patron.

Crisis in Cairo: From Sultan to Sultan-Queen

When Sultan Salih died while overseeing the battle against the Franks of the Seventh Crusade, Egypt suddenly became vulnerable to attack by the Franks and the Ayyubid princes ruling neighboring territories. Hence, his death became a secret guarded closely by his most trusted advisors and Shajar al-Durr until his sole surviving son could be brought to Cairo. When that heir proved a failure and was assassinated, Shajar al-Durr became sultan in a highly unusual move that surprised even the commenters of the period. She minted coins with her titles, and the weekly sermon in the mosques was recited in her name as Egypt’s sultan.

Commemorative Architecture and Salih’s “Blessed Mausoleum”

As the widow of the Ayyubid sultan, Shajar al-Durr represented a vital link to that dynasty. But as the newly appointed sultan and a former slave, she was historically important as the first Mamluk ruler of Egypt. She built a domed tomb for her husband, adding it to his madrasa and thus endowing that educational institution with a new commemorative function. With the unification of the tomb and madrasa, a powerful new ensemble was created in which both functions were enhanced: the tomb absorbing the charitable purpose of the adjacent madrasa, and the madrasa gaining new political purpose as an embodied site of memory. In Cairo thereafter, a mausoleum’s large dome became a semiotic sign for the individual interred beneath it so that architecture gained “identity.”

Sultans and Slaves: Salih’s Rise to Power

Like all Ayyubid princes, Sultan Salih rose to power by fighting his family members, aided by his large army of Turkic slaves, called mamluks. After a period of captivity in which his Turkic concubine Shajar al-Durr bore him a son, he gained freedom and became sultan of Egypt. Just as large numbers of male slaves were imported into Egypt to serve as soldiers and servants, female slaves were acquired from the same areas, possibly in even greater numbers. These served as servants and concubines. Some, such as Shajar al-Durr, became mothers of their master’s sons and thus gained more security and social importance.

Who Was “Tree of Pearls”?

Shajar a-Durr was a rare individual who rose from slavery to become sultan of Egypt. Her achievements stand at the interconnection of politics, slavery, gender, and architecture. Contemporary observers portray her as a perceptive, strategic, and forceful decision maker. Moreover, her works of architecture testify to her values and ambitions as a patron. In their unusual urban location, relationship to the street and to the buildings around them, structure and unusual dome profiles, and inventive ornament and inscriptions, her buildings reveal a great deal about the person and the transitional age in which she lived. She was an unusual personage who did not conform to ordinary standards, and her architecture was similarly extraordinary.