Queens
of
Islam

You know,

as Islam spread around the world,

there have been a considerable number of occasions when women have held the reins of power

over countries, from one end of the muslim world to the other,

and from the earliest times up to the present

For instance

in 411AH there was a queen in the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt called Sitt al-Mulk

who took power after organising the disappearance of her brother, Hakim,

who happened to be the sixth Fatimid caliph.

And in Yemen there were several arab queens,

Malika Asma bint Shihab al-Sulayhiyya,

and some twenty years after her,

Malika 'Arwa bint Ahmad al-Sulayhiyya,

who ruled in San'a for almost half a century,

and directed all the affairs of state

as well as planning all war strategies

until her death in 484AH.

Then there were berber queens

like Zainab al-Nafzawiyya

who shared power with her husband Yusuf Ibn Tashfin,

the ruler of a huge empire across North Africa and into Spain from 453AH to 500AH.

Historians called her

"the one in charge of her husband's kingdom"

and everyone accepted that

although her husband was nominally in charge,

she was the one actually running things.

One of the most famous queens was Sultana Radiyya,

who took power in Delhi in 634 AH.

She took power by demanding justice before the people

for a crime committed by the reigning sultan,

her brother Rukh al-Din.

And there was Shajarat al-Durr,

a ruler of Egypt who gained power in Cairo in 648 AH

by leading an army

like any other military leader,

and through her command of strategy,

beat the French Crusaders and captured king Louis IX.

Both of these women were Turks,

and members of the Mamluk dynasty

After the Mongol conquests,

the thrones of an impressive number of muslim states were occupied by women,

with the privileges of the khutba and the coinage of money.

Kutlugh Khatun and her daughter Padishah Khatun

ruled over the Persian province of Kirman in the 7th and 8th centuries AH,

and there were at least six Mongol queens

Ibn Battuta reports that women ruled the Maldives for over 40 years,

from 750-790 AH,

first Sultana Khadija,

then Sultana Myriam her daughter,

and Sultana Fatima,

whose names were also praised at the khutba.

He was also quite surprised to find that women of the Islands

wore only a waist wrapper, and walked freely bare headed and bare breasted.

Anyway, he liked it enough to get married

and live there for a few years, working as a jurist.

A'isha al-Hurra lived in the Alhambra

in the wing containing the court of the lions,

her husband being Ali Abu al-Hasan, king of Granada, who ruled from 866AH.

But dissatisfied with his behaviour, she raised an army and overthrew him

and installed her son as nominal king in his place.

Then, with the fall of Granada,

Sayyida al-Hurra,

an Andalusian Moroccan

took to sailing the Mediterranean as a pirate,

became a friend of Barbarossa,

and took over governorship of Tetouan,

where she held power for over thirty years

In the middle of the 9th century AH,

Sharifa Fatima,

a Yemeni Zaydi chieftain and religious leader

took San'a by force of arms.

Then in the 11th century AH

in Atjeh, Indonesia,

four women ruled over a period of 60 years,

Sultana Tajj al-Alam Safiyyat ud-Din Shah,

Sultana Nur al-Alam Nakiyyat al-Din Shah,

Inayat Shah Zakiyyat ud-Din Shah,

and Kamalat Shah.

At the start of the 12th century AH, a Hanbali woman from Tarba near Ta'if,

Ghaliyya al-Wahhabiyya,

led a military resistance movement in Saudi Arabia

to defend Makkah against foreign takeover,

and finally in the 15th century AH, and the age of democracy,

the populations of two muslim countries

voted women into power,

with Khaleda Zia and Sheikha Hasina being put in charge of Bangladesh,

and with Benazir Bhutto twice elected as Pakistan's Head of State.

Unfortunately she was removed from power

in a manner that is quite familiar from muslim history,

namely assassination.

Apparently there were those who felt that a woman in power

was so against the muslim way of life

that it overrode any concerns for

the Islamic tolerance by which the Messenger defined it,

or the mercy that is so intrinsic to the God they claim to worship.