Arwa al-Sulayhi

The name Arwa () literally means "female ibex". 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. ==Sources==

Arwa was born in 1047 or 1048 CE (440 AH) to Ahmad ibn al-Qasim al-Sulayhi and al-Raddah al-Sulayhi. In 1065/6 (458 AH), around the age of 18, Arwa was married to her paternal cousin, the wali al-ahd (crown prince) al-Mukarram Ahmad. 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. In the 1094 schism, Arwa supported Al-Musta'li to be the rightful successor to Al-Mustansir Billah. Due to the high opinion in which Arwa was held in Yemen and western India, these two areas followed her in regarding Imām al-Musta'li as the new Fatimid Caliph. Through her support of Imām at-Tāyyīb she became head of a new grouping that became known as the Tayyibi Ismaili. Her enemies in Yemen in turn gave their backing to Al-Hafiz but they were unable to remove Sayyadah Arwa from power. The Tayyibi Ismaili believe that Imām al-Āmir bi-Ahkām Allāh sent a letter to Arwa commissioning her to appoint a vicegerent for his infant son, Imām Tayyib. In accordance with this wish, she appointed Zoeb bin Moosa as ''Da'i al-Mutlaq'', the vicegerent of the secluded Abū'l-Qāsim al-Tayyib. The line of succession continues down to today through the various Tayyibi Duat. Hafizi Ismāʿīlīsm, the following of al-Hafiz, intimately tied to the Fatimid regime in Cairo, disappeared after the collapse of the Caliphate in 1171 and the Ayyubid invasion of southern Arabia in 1173. But the Tayyibi dawah, initiated by Arwa, survived in Yemen with its headquarters remaining in Haraz. Due to the close ties between Sulayhid Yemen and Gujarat, the Tayyibi cause was also upheld in western India and Yemen, which gradually became home to the largest population of Tayyibis, known there as Sulaymani, Dawoodi Bohra and Alavi Bohra. The fact that Arwa had been chosen as hujjah necessitated theological explanations for why the infallible imam would choose a woman for this position. One source is the Ghāyat al-Mawālīd by al-Sultan al-Khattab, a high-ranking da'i who played an important political and military role in the last years of Arwa's rule. Al-Khattab presented an original argument – albeit one grounded in existing Isma'ili theological principles – to justify Arwa in this role. According to him, a person's actual sex is not determined by the bodily "envelope" they physically have. Rather, their sex can only be discerned through their actions. It was possible, then, for there to be people who occupied the higher, or "male", level despite having the physical form of a woman; such as Fatimah or Khadijah. Therefore, he wrote that it was unfair to consider those with a female body envelope as spiritually inferior. A dhakar is spiritually perfect and has reached the highest levels of spiritual knowledge, while an unthā is on a lower level and can still progress with help of a dhakar. Once reaching the highest level of religious knowledge, he would immediately become a dhakar even if having the bodily envelope of a woman. Arwa, he argued, had done just that since al-Mustansir's appointment of her as hujjah was because she had reached such a level of wisdom, so there was no contradiction between her sex and her rank. Al-Khattab said that a person must be judged on their knowledge and not based on physical appearance. Al-Khattab was basically claiming that Arwa was male in essence. Building works and economic policy In Sana'a, Arwa had the grand mosque expanded, and the road from the city to Samarra improved. In Jibla, she had a new Palace of Queen Arwa and the eponymous mosque constructed. She is also known to have built numerous schools throughout her realm. Arwa improved the economy, taking an interest in supporting agriculture. ==Death and legacy==

Arwa died in 1138 at the age of 90. With Arwa's death, the Sulayhid dynasty effectively came to an end. She gave all her wealth to the Tayyibi ''da'wah'' when she died, and although some members of the Sulayhids held on to scattered fortresses in the decades after her death, they were relatively insignificant. During her own lifetime, Arwa's political role may have inspired another Yemeni woman, Alam al-Malika, to assume power as queen. Alam had been the concubine of the Najahid ruler Mansur until his assassination in 1125; she then ruled as regent for her infant son Fatik. Later queens in Yemen may have also been influenced by Arwa's legacy to take an active role in political affairs, such as the Ayyubid queen mother Umm al-Nasir in 1215, and later the Rasulid princess al-Dar al-Shamsi (d. 1295), who defended the Rasulid capital of Zabid after her father al-Mansur Umar died and was later made queen of Zabid by her brother al-Muzaffar Yusuf I. Fatema Mernissi has lamented that Arwa, along with her mother-in-law Asma, has remained obscure both in the Muslim world and to Western scholars. Samer Traboulsi notes that, as an Isma'ili woman from Yemen, Arwa was a "triply marginalised" figure who was neglected by Muslim historians; and that if not for Ali's sack of Mecca, the medieval Islamic world would not have even heard of the Sulayhids. ==Personality==

Historical sources "are unanimous in their praise" of Arwa's intelligence, charisma, and political acumen. Idris Imad al-Din, for example, described her as "a woman of great piety, integrity, and excellence, perfect intelligence and erudition, surpassing men even". Umara describes her as "well-read and, in addition to the gift of writing, [she] possessed a retentive memory stored with the chronology of past time." He also described her knowledge of the Qur'an, her memory of poetry and history, and her skill in glossing and interpreting texts. In modern times, Farhad Daftary has characterised Arwa as having had an independent personality. Historical sources also describe her physical appearance, although Shahla Haeri wonders whether that many people would have seen her in person. Umara described her as "of fair complexion tinged with red; tall, well-proportioned, but inclined to stoutness, perfect in beauty of features, with a clear-sounding voice". According to Haeri, these accounts would have relied heavily on oral tradition; El-Azhari says these "are based on her later status, thus praising her personality and wide knowledge, but without providing further detail." File:Tasbih Hurrat-ul-Malaika .JPG|Wooden Tasbih of Hurrat-ul-Malaika Arwa File:Hurratul malika.jpg|The grave Hurratul Mallika Arwa ==See also==