“If You Lack Men”: Shajar al-Durr’s Abdication and Tomb

Abstract

Because the censure of other rulers once again made Egypt vulnerable to an external attack, Shajar al-Durr was forced to abdicate the throne after less than three months and to marry a high-ranking military leader, Aybak, who replaced her on the throne. When Aybak began courting a second wife seven years later, Shajar al-Durr had him killed, whereupon she was herself murdered a few days later. She was the first sultan in Cairo to have built her own tomb, perhaps because there were no surviving children to build one for her. The tomb is architecturally significant for its golden mosaics and extensive program of wall paintings, the recent cleaning of which have made them visible again.