Fatima.Mernessi_The-Forgotten-Queens-of-Islam-EN

Fifteen Queens 97
hers. The army (an-nas) agreed to depose her and have her marry.' 27
Despite Islam the India of the caste system won out. The religious
authorities and the princes leagued against her, and an army was
raised with the governor, Ikhtiyar al-Din Altuniyya, at its head.
Radiyya, fearing a siege, left Delhi with her army to engage in
battle against Altuniyya. But she lost the battle and became his
prisoner. And then came the unexpected turn of events: Altuniyya
fell in love with his prisoner. He freed her, married her, and
departed with her and a great army to reconquer Delhi and retake
the throne of his beloved. 28 But Radiyya was already marked out
as fortune's victim. She and her husband lost the battle, their army
was routed, and Radiyya fled. Ibn Battuta describes Radiyya's end,
an end that reads like something out of the Arabian Nights:
Raziya's troops suffered a defeat and she fled. Overpowered by
hunger and strained by fatigue she repaired to a peasant whom she
found tilling the soil. She asked him for something to eat. He gave
her a piece of bread which she ate and fell asleep; and she was
dressed like a man. But, while she was asleep, the peasant's eyes fell
upon a gown (gabd) studded with jewels which she was wearing under
her clothes. He realized that she was a woman. So he killed her,
plundered her and drove away her horse, and then buried her in his
field. Then he went to the market to dispose of one of her garments.
But the people of the market became suspicious of him and took
him to the shihna (police magistrate) .... There he was beaten into
confessing his murder and pointed out where he had buried her. Her
body was then disinterred, washed, shrouded, and buried there. 29
Ibn Battuta concludes by saying that, at the time of his travels in
the fourteenth century, the people had made her a saint: 'A dome
was built over her grave which is now visited, and people obtain
blessings from it. It lies on the bank of the great river Jun [Jumna]
at a distance of one parasang . . . from the city.' 30 Radiyya's tragic
end prefigures that of the Mamluk queen who followed in her steps
a decade later.
Shajarat al-Durr also came to a tragic end, but a much less innocent
one. Amorous passion turned her into a jealous murderess. For
her, love and monogamy went hand in hand, but this was not true
of her second husband, 'Izz al-Din Aybak, a military strong man.
By marrying him she gave him a kingdom. 'Izz al-Din divorced his
former wife, Umm 'Ali. 31 His marriage with Shajarat al-Durr was