Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/137

 Y-^,>xwy^xvTxv*xxTxx^xv*xx^y%:^yv' PAINTED DECORATION ON THE CEILING OF ITMAD - AD- DAULAH'g TOMB. CHAPTER V RAZIYA, THE MOHAMMEDAN EMPEESS OF INDIA 1236-1240 A. D. UPON the death of Altamish in 1236, his good-for- nothing son, Firoz, succeeded to the throne, but died after a brief and dissipated reign of seven months. India then experienced a novel sensation in having a woman upon the throne of Delhi. By a curious coin- cidence, noted by Lane-Poole, " the only three women who were ever elected to the throne in the Mohammedan East, reigned in the thirteenth century. Shajar-ad- durr, the high-spirited slave-wife of Saladin's grand- nephew, the woman who defeated the crusade of Louis IX and afterwards spared the saintly hero's life, was queen of the Mamluks in Egypt in 1250. Abish, the last of the princely line of Salghar, patrons of Sa'di, ruled the great province of Fars for nearly a quarter of a century during the troubled period of Mongol 103