Arwa al-Sulayhi
Arwa al-Sulayhi, was a long-reigning ruler of Yemen, firstly as the co-ruler of her first two husbands and then as sole ruler, from 1067 until her death in 1138. She was the last of the rulers of the Sulayhid Dynasty and was also the first woman to be accorded the prestigious title of Hujjah in the Isma'ili branch of Shia Islam, signifying her as the closest living image of God's will in her lifetime, in the Ismaili doctrine. She is popularly referred to as As-Sayyidah Al-Ḥurrah, Al-Malikah Al-Ḥurrah, and Malikat Sabaʾ Aṣ-Ṣaghīrah.
As female sovereign, Arwa has an almost unique position in history: though there were more female monarchs in the international Muslim world, Arwa and Asma bint Shihab were the only female monarchs in the Muslim Arab world to have had the khutbah, the ultimate recognition of Muslim monarchial status, proclaimed in their name in the mosques. She founded several mosques, the most prominent of which is Queen Arwa Mosque.
Arwa was the first queen regnant in the Muslim world. Through her title of hujjah, she is the only Muslim woman to ever wield both political and religious authority in her own right.
Her political career can basically be divided into four parts. The first spans the period from her marriage to al-Mukarram Ahmad in 1065 until the death of her mother-in-law Asma in 1074. During this period, there is no evidence that she held any political power. The second begins after Asma's death, and Ahmad began to delegate all power to Arwa at that point until his 1086 death. Third, after his death, Arwa wielded power as queen mother to her son Abd al-Mustansir, and she was also ordered by al-Mustansir to marry Saba' al-Sulayhi for legitimacy and then was nominally consort even if she held the real power. Finally, after Saba's death in 1097 or 1098, Arwa reigned as sole queen in her own right, with no male nominally in charge.
Name
The name Arwa literally means "female ibex". It is also a traditional Arab name for girls connoting gracefulness, beauty, softness, and liveliness. There is some controversy over whether this was actually her real name – S.M. Stern and Sultan Naji, for example, argue that Arwa's real name was Sayyidah, not Arwa. Stern suggested a possible confusion with a different Sulayhid princess named Arwa, and Naji wrote that she is "wrongly called Arwa". However, Abbas Hamdani says that early Isma'ili sources do in fact call her Arwa, such as Idris Imad al-Din and one version of Umara al-Yamani's Tarikh. The name "as-Sayyidah al-Hurrah", or "the noble lady", is used in these texts as an honorific title "qualifying the name Arwa". Hamdani says Arwa was probably known interchangeably by both names during her own lifetime. Samer Traboulsi argues that the names "Sayyidah" and "Sayyidah Hurrah" are "titles used out of respect" and that Arwa was her actual name.Life and reign
Arwa was born in 1047 or 1048 CE to Ahmad ibn al-Qasim al-Sulayhi and al-Raddah al-Sulayhi. The Sulayhid ruler Ali al-Sulayhi was her paternal uncle. Her father died while she was young and her mother remarried 'Amir ibn Sulayman al-Zawahi, a member of an allied tribe who would later become one of Arwa's major political rivals. After her father's death, Arwa was raised in the royal palace under Ali and Asma. The royal couple supposedly realised her intelligence early on and provided her with the best education available.In 1065/6, around the age of 18, Arwa was married to her paternal cousin, the wali al-ahd al-Mukarram Ahmad. This marriage was arranged by Ali shortly after his older son and original heir al-A'azz died. As her mahr, or bride wealth, Ali gave Arwa the net yearly revenue from the city of Aden, which amounted to 100,000 dinars. This was paid by the Ma'nid emirs of Aden, but they later suspended its payment when Ali died, only to be resumed when al-Mukarram Ahmad restored Sulayhid authority there.
Arwa had four children with al-Mukarram Ahmad: Fatimah, who married Ali b. Saba'; Umm Hamdan, who married her cousin Ali al-Zawahi; and two sons Muhammad and Ali who both died in childhood around 1087.
As queen consort
In 1067, Ali al-Sulayhi was killed by the Najahid ruler of Zabid, Sa'id. Queen Asma was taken prisoner in Zabid along with several other women. Al-Mukarram Ahmad succeeded Ali as both king and da'i, bringing Arwa to the new rank of queen consort. Local rulers across Yemen were rising up in defiance of Sulayhid authority, hoping to take advantage of the power vacuum after Ali's death. Ahmad spent the next few years campaigning to try and reassert his authority, which he eventually succeeded at doing.According to Shahla Haeri and Taef El-Azhari, there is no evidence that Arwa was ever in a position of political or religious authority during this period. According to Samer Traboulsi, however, al-Mukarram's absence during his continuous campaigning would have given Arwa a chance to play a political role.
The role of Asma bint Shihab at this point is disputed, as is her influence on Arwa. According to Fatema Mernissi, Asma had in effect been co-ruler of Yemen alongside her husband Ali during his life, and then was the power behind the throne during al-Mukarram's nominal reign. Taef El-Azhari, however, says that this assertion is not supported by contemporary sources – while they do portray Asma as a highly esteemed individual, there is only one instance of her actually setting policy: in 1063, when she got her brother As'ad appointed as deputy over the Tihama region. As a result, El-Azhari says, Asma was probably not a major influence on Arwa's political career. On the other hand, Delia Cortese and Simonetta Calderini suggest that Umara's account of Asma convincing her son to wage war on another tribe indicates that she did wield political influence during his reign. They also point to Ibn Khaldun, who "candidly" wrote that Asma was the one who was really in charge during her son's early reign. Meanwhile, Shahla Haeri says that Asma was "in charge of political affairs and governance, controlling sensitive strategic information and managing all state and financial matters" until her death, and that Arwa "might have learned from Asma simply by observing her or assisting her in her various official duties, given the close relationship between the two women and the ease with which Arwa replaced her mother-in-law after her death".
1074–1084: regency for al-Mukarram Ahmad
Asma died in 1074/5, and Ahmad became bedridden due to paralysis soon after. Based on Umara's account, Ahmad's paralysis may have been caused by wounds sustained in battle at Zabid against the Najahids at the start of his reign. While Ahmad remained the de jure ruler of Yemen, Arwa became the de facto sovereign as he delegated all power to her.According to Husain Hamdani, Ahmad delegated responsibility to Arwa because he "honored the counsel of his wife and had great faith in her shrewdness and intelligence". The 12th-century account by Umara al-Yamani, however, attributes this decision to Ahmad having "given himself up to the pleasures of music and wine" and wanting to pass off the responsibility of governing to his wife. In Umara's version, Arwa was reluctant to accept this authority, saying "a woman who is desirable in bed is not suitable for running a state". Cortese and Calderini say that "while this statement is presented as an expression of her personal reservations, one suspects that it was indeed constructed by the panegyrist Umara as a device to praise her modesty by showing her reluctance to be thrown into the spotlight." Umara may have also been uncomfortable with this gender role reversal and needing to find a culturally acceptable rationalisation for it.
In practice, whether Umara's description of her reluctance is true or not, Arwa seems to have had "few, if any, qualms about her gender or the extent of her political authority". Not long after becoming regent, she made two important decisions. The first was moving the capital from Sanaa to Dhu Jibla, further south. Ostensibly this was for medical reasons on Ahmad's behalf. Most likely, however, the decision to relocate was made because the Sulayhids wanted a better capital than Sanaa, "where Sulayhid authority was being eroded". Arwa marched in person at the head of an army to Dhu Jibla, where she enlarged the city and supervised personally the construction of the new Dar al-'Izz palace. She would reside here for most of the year, while al-Mukarram would reside in the nearby citadel of al-Ta'kar.
The second decision she made was the bold move to have the khutbah proclaimed in her name, after those of the caliph and her husband. This is the first time the khutbah was ever said in a woman's name.
In contrast to her mother-in-law, Queen Asma, Arwa did not appear unveiled when she attended councils as Asma had famously done. The reason for this was reported because she was much younger than her mother-in-law, it would have potentially been more scandalous in her case to follow that example. However, although she was veiled, she still attended state councils in person and thus mixed with men, and refused to conduct the meetings hidden by a screen.
In 1075 she made a move against the Najahid leader Sa'id al-Ahwal, leading to "the mother of all battles", as Umara described it. The Najahids were devastated, and Arwa had Sa'id's head displayed directly under her room's window at the palace at Dhu Jibla. This was both to avenge Ali's death and to "show her strength and determination domestically, in addition to eliminating the Najahids in her western territories".
Arwa's extensive correspondence with the Fatimid chancery is first attested during this period, in the form of three sijills addressed to her between 1078 and 1080. The first is dated to August 1078, the second is from April 1080, and the third is undated but probably was also sent in 1080. Another, sijill #51, was sent to her from the Fatimid queen mother Rasad in 1078. These sijills do not call Arwa "queen", but they do give her extensive titles such as "deputy of the commander of the faithful". The first and third don't even mention Ahmad, the nominal ruler, indicating that the Fatimids at this point recognised Arwa as the de facto sovereign over Yemen.
Important members of Arwa's administration during the 1070s included the qadi 'Imran al-Yami and Abu al-Futuh ibn As'ad. Her mother's husband 'Amir al-Zawahi and her own husband's cousin Saba' ibn Ahmad al-Sulayhi, who both went on to play an important role in the 1080s, are not mentioned in historical chronicles during the 1070s. They likely were already important during this period but the chronicles simply do not mention them yet.