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Description
Although she had enjoyed tremendous power in her lifetime, particularly after the death of her husband the Sultan Al-Salih Ayyub, when she had ruled for three months in her own right, she rather quickly remarried to Izz al-Din Aybak, who was the first Sultan of the Mamluk Bahri dynasty of Egypt. She had to give up her power as monarch of Egypt because of the rejection of certain powers which also undermined the power of the Mamluks themselves, but a solution was achieved by way of a marriage between Shajar al-Durr to the new sultan, after she had abdicated and passed the throne on to him. Even though her sole reign had been brief, it had seen the expulsion of King St. Louis IX from Egypt, and the end of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.

The marriage was not a happy one, however, for ambition was Aybak's focus, who desired to be the supreme ruler over Egypt. This led him to regard his wife with suspicion, because of her own tremendous power and authority, and because she was successful in keeping Egypt from collapse. The divide, suspicion and intrigue between husband and wife grew so great that Shajar al-Durr, feeling deeply betrayed by the man she had elevated to the throne, had her husband murdered by servants while he bathed. This proved fatal for her, and she and the servants who had committed the evil deed were arrested. Aybak's fifteen-year-old son became sultan in place of his father, and not long thereafter, his bondmaids and those of his mother stripped Shajar al-Durr and beat her to death with clogs. Dragged by her feet with only a cloth around her waist, Shajar al-Durr's naked body was thrown from the top of the Citadel down into the moat, where it stayed for three days until a mob came to steal the cloth, for it was made of silk and pearls.

In spite of her inglorious end, the Queen was buried in a tomb she had created for herself, which has just recently been renovated. Inside is a mihrab, one of the most sacred places of the tomb, and the perfect spot where she had Byzantine artists decorate a mosaic depicting the "tree of life," a play on her own name, a way of immortalizing herself, where it can indeed be seen to this very day.

Description
Although she had enjoyed tremendous power in her lifetime, particularly after the death of her husband the Sultan Al-Salih Ayyub, when she had ruled for three months in her own right, she rather quickly remarried to Izz al-Din Aybak, who was the first Sultan of the Mamluk Bahri dynasty of Egypt. She had to give up her power as monarch of Egypt because of the rejection of certain powers which also undermined the power of the Mamluks themselves, but a solution was achieved by way of a marriage between Shajar al-Durr to the new sultan, after she had abdicated and passed the throne on to him. Even though her sole reign had been brief, it had seen the expulsion of King St. Louis IX from Egypt, and the end of the Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt.

The marriage was not a happy one, however, for ambition was Aybak's focus, who desired to be the supreme ruler over Egypt. This led him to regard his wife with suspicion, because of her own tremendous power and authority, and because she was successful in keeping Egypt from collapse. The divide, suspicion and intrigue between husband and wife grew so great that Shajar al-Durr, feeling deeply betrayed by the man she had elevated to the throne, had her husband murdered by servants while he bathed. This proved fatal for her, and she and the servants who had committed the evil deed were arrested. Aybak's fifteen-year-old son became sultan in place of his father, and not long thereafter, his bondmaids and those of his mother stripped Shajar al-Durr and beat her to death with clogs. Dragged by her feet with only a cloth around her waist, Shajar al-Durr's naked body was thrown from the top of the Citadel down into the moat, where it stayed for three days until a mob came to steal the cloth, for it was made of silk and pearls.

In spite of her inglorious end, the Queen was buried in a tomb she had created for herself, which has just recently been renovated. Inside is a mihrab, one of the most sacred places of the tomb, and the perfect spot where she had Byzantine artists decorate a mosaic depicting the "tree of life," a play on her own name, a way of immortalizing herself, where it can indeed be seen to this very day.