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

9
The Lady of Cairo
Sitt al-Mulk, born in a Fatimid palace, did not need to add a title
to her name, which means 'lady of power'. Nor did she have to
struggle to gain first place in the eyes of the caliphs. They were
always pressing around her, fascinated by that mixture, so irresistible
to Arabs, of great beauty allied to great intelligence. But - curse
or destiny - none of the caliphs who adulated her was her husband,
and she remained a hostage of the clan, its powers, and its ambiguous
passions. The caliph al-'Aziz, her father, idolized her, and her
brother al-Hakim tormented her like a lover with his jealousy.
Finally it was in the name of a third caliph, her nephew al-Dhahir,
that she exercised power for four years. 1 She administered the
empire between 411/1020 and 415/1024 in the name of a child on
whom she bestowed the title of al-dhahir, 'the eminently visible',
because her power, as the holy law demanded, was circumscribed
by invisibility. 2 The khutba was never preached in her name. It was
in the name of the child-imam that the faithful chanted the ritual
Friday prayers. And yet it was certainly she who administered the
empire and she who 'showed exceptional ability, especially in legal
matters, and she who made herself loved by the people'. 3 And to
make yourself loved by the Egyptian people has never been an easy
matter. Her father al-'Aziz and her brother al-Hakim regularly
received insulting letters from their subjects, and this despite the
very great difference between the two; the first being a man of
gentleness and tolerance, and the second a man of irrational,
unjustified violence.
Sitt al-Mulk was one of the most beautiful Fatimid princesses.