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

Fifteen Queens 89
woman, beginning with the Mamluk sultanas, Radiyya and Shajarat
al-Durr.
THE MAMLUK SULTANAS
The similarities in the careers of these two sultanas are strange
indeed. Both of them were Turks, enthusiastically borne to power
by their supporters and stoutly defended by them against their
enemies, and they both ended in the same fashion, abandoned by
their armies, deserted, and finally savagely murdered, partly because
of their tumultuous love life.
Their careers began at almost the same time. Radiyya took power
in Delhi in 634/1236, and Shajarat al-Durr mounted the throne of
Egypt 14 years later in 648/1250. Both of them gained their thrones
thanks to the military power of the Mamluks, those former Turkish
slaves who for centuries served the palaces that had enslaved them,
but eventually succeeded in supplanting their masters. Radiyya took
the throne of her father, Sultan Iltutmish, king of Delhi; and
Shajarat al-Durr took over the throne of her husband, Malik al-
Salih, and last Ayyubid sovereign. The Ayyubid dynasty had been
founded a century earlier by Salah al-Din Ibn Ayyub, the famous
Saladin, hero of the Crusades. Radiyya's first act of sovereignty was
to have coins minted in her name with the following inscription very
much in evidence on thousands of coins:
Pillar of Women
Queen of the Times
Sultana Radiyya Bint Shams al-Din Iltutmish 1
She chose two titles. The first was Radiyya al-dunya wa al-din,
which, through a play on the meaning of the word radiyya (coming
from the root word rada, benediction), can be translated as 'the
blessed of the earthly world and of the faith'. The second was Balqis
jihan, Balqis being the Arabic name of the queen of Sheba, 2 and
jihan being a title of nobility. On one of her coins which has come
down to us she had struck the following inscription, calling attention
to her allegiance to the Abbasid house:
In the Time of Imam al-Mustansir
Commander of the Faithful, Mighty Sultan
Splendour of the World and the Faith