Shajar al-Durr

For me personally, the history of ruling women in Muslim history is a history of silence, exclusion, segregation and oblivion. Women strongly participated in Muslim politics and social affairs in the first generations after the Prophet Muhammad’s era. Then, step by step, the androcentric interpretations of Quran and Sunnah put women aside and caused their progressive horizontal segregation by prohibiting them from participation in the social and political life of the Ummah.

For Islamic feminism today, it is of central importance to stress the participation of women in Muslim history, and to show the insurmountable obstacles they had to shoulder to fight for their difficult and proscribed political career in male-dominated societies. To rediscover socio-political female power in Muslim societies today, it is essential to read books like “İslam Devletinde Kadın Hükümdarlar.”

It was written by Dr. Bahriye Üçok, a Turkish historian, Islam expert and feminist in 1965, as PhD thesis at the University of Ankara — where she also taught for years until her untimely in 1990 death by parcel bomb at her house. In order to reaffirm the importance of female political participation in our time, we must rediscover these forgotten books about Muslim rulers in history.

Shajarat ad-Durr, A Tragedy is the adapted and commented English translation of an extraordinary historical drama about the political career, the intrigues and the destiny of “the First Female Ruler in Islam” as the author Mahmud Badawy calls the ruler Shajarat ad-Durr, who marked the end of the Ayyubid and the starting of the Mamluk era in today’s Egypt.

In English translation her name means “Tree of Pearls.” And in fact, Shajarat ad-Durr was at the same time wise and beautiful. For me personally, in spite of her final failure and challenging power struggle, she has to be elevated to a real symbol of Muslim feminism and political engagement of Muslim women within the dialogue between “Realpolitik” and Islamic political utopia. Today’s Muslim women should be aware of the difficulties of fighting for women’s rights and at the same time constructively consider their own achievements, even if they are just the beginning of a long and challenging path made of a continuous struggle between failure and success.

Introduction: A Forgotten Study Of Female Political Power In Muslim History

Tree Of Pearls: The Tragedy Of The First Female Ruler In Islam