Badr al-Din, lord of Mosul. Umm Khalil took offence and had him murdered in the bath: Sanjar al-Jawjari and a group of servants fell upon him, seized his testicles, and he expired—after which she herself was cut in two.

Another report says that she was strangled, not halved, then flung out dishonoured, while al-Jawjari and the servants were crucified. They installed his son al-Malik al-Mansur ʿAlī ibn Aybak, then fifteen years old, and made ʿAlam al-Din al-Halabī his atabeg.

Al-Muʿizz lived somewhat more than fifty years and was killed in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 655 AH.

Shajar al-Durr (1)—Umm Khalil—was an umm walad of al-Ṣāliḥ. She was beautiful, witty, shrewd, and intelligent, and she achieved a degree of power and prestige unknown to any woman of her age. Al-Ṣāliḥ’s mamluks deferred to her and held her in awe, so after al-Muʿaẓẓam was slain they placed her on the throne for more than two months. Al-Muʿizz decided nothing without her, and she exercised real authority over him. She was bold and brazen: she had her vizier al-Asʿad killed. In al-Karak she had borne al-Ṣāliḥ a son, Khalil, who died in childhood, and al-Ṣāliḥ loved her dearly. She used to keep al-Muʿizz under tight constraint, which he resented.

It is said that when she realised death was inevitable she took a cache of priceless jewels and pounded them in a mortar.

When al-Fāris Aqṭāy was killed, al-Muʿizz gained the upper hand, seized the sultanate for himself, deposed al-Malik al-Ashraf, erased his name, and summoned his Qutbī aunts. Al-Ṣāliḥ’s mamluks protected Shajar al-Durr, so she was not put to death until twenty-two days later; then she was slain and her corpse thrown out in disgrace.

Another version holds that the Friday sermon was given in her name for three months. Al-Mansur and his mother continually pressed for her execution, and she was killed on the eleventh of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, less than a month after al-Muʿizz’s assassination. She was buried in her own mausoleum, near the tomb of Sayyida Nafīsa.

(1) Shajar al-Durr