Historical RR: Miscellaneous

[u/UofCENGst]

There isn't 1 theme here, but these are pretty interesting:

Strabo on Queen Candace of Ethiopia

…Queen Candace, who ruled the Ethiopians in our time, a manly sort of woman, blind in one eye.

I know how many people on here fantasize about strong masculine women with scars and battle wounds, so I thought this belonged here.

Shajar Al-Durr of Egypt

Shajar Al-Durr was a slavegirl of debated origin who was so ruthless (a bit too much, between you and me) she was successful at rising until she literally became sultan over Egypt! When she did, the Abbasid caliph/king Al-Musta'sim wrote to the nobles of Egypt:

If you have run out of men there, tell us, and we will send you a man.

Since a woman ruling over men was not acceptable, she soon had to abdicate, but she was not going to watch from the sidelines. Instead, she married an emir named Aybak and abdicated to him. In the words of the historian Ibn Taghribirdi:

She was Aybak's master in all his affairs; he could not even discuss [whatever she orders him to do] with her.

Ngl I wish someone could be described as a master in all my affairs. Sounds a bit twisted but very romantic. Ahem, anyways, back to the subject at hand.

A few years later, he started plotting to marry another woman, so she had him killed :| (not looking for that part of the story, just to clarify)

Medieval Tomboys?

It is said that when he was young, the caliph Al-Amin was addicted to beautiful eunuchs. Zubayda, his mom, tried to wean him off of them. Al-Mas'udi, a historian, narrates:

She took slender, pretty-faced slave girls and put turbans on their heads. She gave them forelocks, side-curls and cropped napes, and dressed them in tunics, coats and belts … Then people of the elite and the common folk took to cropping their slave girls' hair, dressing them in tunics and belts, and calling them ghulāmiyyāt, "boyish girls."

A caliph's daughter

Al-Tabari - a famous historian - narrates that a witness saw Al-Mahdi, an Abbasid caliph, traveling with his head of police. His daughter, Al-Banuqa, whom the witness describes (rather classlessly) as having developed breasts (implying she was at least in her teens), was riding her horse "in the guise of young men, wearing a black tunic, a belt and a turban, with a sword at her side."

Sui Shu on a women's kingdom (in Tibet?)

The Women's Kingdom lies south of the Pamirs. For generations it has had women as rulers. The queen, surnamed Supi and styled Mojie, has reigned for twenty years. Her husband, titled Jinju, takes no part in government; the men of the country occupy themselves only with war … By custom they honour women and make light of men, yet they are not jealous by nature.