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  • 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 meanstree 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.

The year is 1249 CE.

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