Shajar al-Durr’s Reign in Islamic Political Thought: A Reassessment of Textual and Material Evidence

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 13 February 2025 at 6:00 pm.

Shajar al-Dur was selected by Ayyubid and Mamluk senior officers and administrators as sultan-queen following the death of Egypt’s last effective Ayyubid sultan. Later Mamluk chronicles claimed that she renounced the throne to her new husband Aybak following a letter from the ʿAbbasid caliph.

A new reading of the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk chronicles, material evidence and unexplored Islamic political treatises shows that Shajar al-Durr’s reign was considered legitimate and religiously sanctioned and that her abdication followed a common pattern in early Mamluk history that also applied to her male successors.

About the speaker

Mohamad El-Merheb is Visiting Lecturer and Research Fellow at SOAS University of London. He is the author of Political Thought in the Mamluk Period: The Unnecessary Caliphate (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) and editor of Professional Mobility in Islamic Societies (700-1750): New Concepts and Approaches (Brill, 2021). He was awarded an NWO Veni grant to research ‘Sovereignty, Sanctity, Violence and Conversion in Outremer: Louis IX’s Crusade in Arabic and Islamicate Thought.’

Attention!

The lecture starts at 6 pm. The number of seats is limited and we work on a first-come, first-served basis. We open our doors at 5:30 and close them at 6:15 or earlier in case the lecture room reaches its full capacity. This talk will not be recorded nor livestreamed.