For a few months in the spring and summer of 1250 CE, a queen ruled Islamic Egypt. Tree of Pearls traces this unique figure, known as Shajar al-Durr (literally “Tree of Pearls”), as she rose from the rank of slave to become the wife of an Ayyubid sultan and ultimately sultan in her own right. The book also reassesses her role as a patron of architecture in Cairo at the dawn of the emerging Mamluk regime. As a historical figure, Shajar al-Durr has not been overlooked per se—her life story is too remarkable to have been omitted from the annals altogether—but scholars have routinely set her aside as an anomaly, while popular culture has tended to fictionalize her as a melodramatic caricature. D. Fairchild Ruggles, a widely published authority on the history of architecture and landscape in Islamic Spain, brings to this project an abiding commitment to connecting architectural history with feminist theory. Her extraordinary talent for reading historical architecture and cities sheds new light on this well-known figure and her buildings.The opening chapter not only introduces Shajar al-Durr and her thirteenth-century milieu but also provides an introduction to the book, deftly mapping out the main thesis, relevant primary source material, previous related scholarship, and chapter summaries in such a conversational mode that one never notices a signpost. Ruggles presents the case for Shajar al-Durr’s importance to both political and architectural history while exposing the dismissive way that much modern writing has treated her and her works. At the same time, the author introduces herself, narrating her own encounters with her subject and taking the reader on a journey through the research, teaching, and fieldwork that have culminated in this publication. In the process, she touches upon the modern context of the monuments under study, including the patterns of twentieth- and twenty-first-century preservation in Cairo, modern veneration practices at the city’s monuments, and contemporary reception and reinterpretation of Shajar al-Durr. Ruggles’s introductory descriptions of Shajar al-Durr’s monuments and their present surroundings immediately showcase her innate sense of urban space and architectural context as well as her skillful handling of Cairo’s multiple phases of history. Ruggles’s refreshing use of the first-person voice subtly but explicitly foregrounds her own relationship to the context as a visiting researcher from another place, space, and time, as an act that appears at the same time both natural and radical. Throughout the book, in another understated departure from conventional architectural history writing, Ruggles foregrounds the contributions made by recent conservators, foremost among them Nairy Hampikian and May al-Ibrashy, to the preservation and interpretation of these buildings.In the second chapter, Ruggles examines the historical context, social institutions, and cultural practices surrounding Shajar al-Durr’s rise to prominence. The rapid political and military transformations that occurred between late Ayyubid and early Mamluk rule peaked during the lifetime of her husband, Sultan Salih Najm al-Din Ayyub (r. 1240–49). While providing an overview, this historical section also explains developments that figure significantly in Shajar al-Durr’s story, including the emergence of the madrasa as an educational institution and the significance of madrasa construction under Ayyubid patronage. In this context, Ruggles not only differentiates between the hereditary system of rule favored by the Ayyubid dynasty and the slavery-based military recruitment system of the Mamluk period but also distinguishes the latter from the various forms of female enslavement that existed at the time. Noting the dearth of information in documents and chronicles about women, especially unfree women, Ruggles draws on representations in medieval Islamic storytelling and book illustration to envision the tenor of Shajar al-Durr’s early life.The architectural legacy of the royal couple’s early years in Cairo assumes center stage in the third chapter. Ruggles first reconstructs the city as Shajar al-Durr might have seen it from her perch at the citadel, seamlessly integrating this discussion with a concise history of Cairo’s architectural and urban development; she then presents an in-depth analysis of the innovative madrasa complex commissioned by Salih in 1243–44. Ruggles scaffolds this investigation with supporting analysis, including an examination of the characteristic divergent orientations of streets and monuments in Islamic Cairo, a description of the waqf system of endowment, and an excursus on the history of the madrasa as an institution and its various architectural expressions, with reference to the relevant art historical literature.The next chapter returns the reader’s gaze to the historical developments that shaped Shajar al-Durr’s brief sultanate. Ruggles’s ability to transform the complex political maneuvering that ended Salih’s rule into a gripping succession drama is sheer expository alchemy. While this engaging account can sometimes read like a suspense thriller, Ruggles resists the temptation to sensationalize the events. Rather, owing to her mastery of the difficult art of narration, this is gripping stuff! Explanatory digressions provide cultural context: for example, Ruggles expands on the concept of kingship in medieval Islamic societies. She identifies as the most explicit signs of authority the invocation of the ruler’s name on local currency and in the weekly Friday sermon (khutba), and then examines how Shajar al-Durr deployed such instruments to her advantage.Ruggles returns to architectural analysis in the following two chapters, focusing on the mausoleum that Shajar al-Durr built for Salih at his madrasa complex and the funerary complex that she later constructed for herself. The construction of the mausoleum not only transformed the madrasa into a funerary complex but also led to the further encroachment of the madrasa into the thoroughfare. Drawing on a brief excursus into commemorative architecture in Islam, Ruggles analyzes the implications of patronage of mausoleums by females, demonstrating that Shajar al-Durr, as a childless widow and former slave, had much to gain by publicly honoring her late husband in this fashion. Ruggles further demonstrates how the prime location of this madrasa-cum-funerary complex at the heart of the Fatimid-era walled city contributed to the mausoleum’s success. Ultimately, by experimenting with this new type of architectural ensemble in Cairo, Shajar al-Durr introduced what would become the most iconic typology of Mamluk architecture. As Ruggles notes, “Earlier tombs had achieved the feat of commemoration and semiotic representation as solo structures, but from Salih’s tomb onward, it was the urban placement of the tomb, its extraordinary visibility, and its aggrandizement as a defining element in a larger commemorative complex—guaranteed by its function to be full of people—that became the new paradigm” (101).Having immersed the reader in thirteenth-century Cairo, Ruggles brings us up for air, as it were, in her introduction to the next chapter, where she writes, “From Ibn Wasil and Barhebraeus to modern Cairo’s taxi drivers and this writer, the role of gender has complicated the way that we understand the political struggles of mid-thirteenth-century Egypt” (106). It is this chapter that features Shajar al-Durr’s demise, as well as the study of her own funerary complex (originally much more expansive than what survives today) and the circumstances surrounding its commission. By contextualizing the mausoleum’s extant decoration, Ruggles persuasively reclaims its spectacular glass mosaic mihrab—in which Shajar al-Durr’s moniker is translated literally into a pictorial depiction of a tree of pearls—as part of the former queen’s original commission, putting to rest the notion (asserted by a long chain of scholarship, including my own) that it dates to a later restoration.The book concludes with a chapter titled “Matronage” that brims with thought-provoking insights. Here Ruggles returns again to the first-person voice to ponder broader questions about how to approach the study of women in history. With the closing of this chapter, the reader experiences the ambivalent sensation of having just attended a brilliant symposium where all manner of big ideas have been bounced around: at the same time that one is exhilarated by fresh, inspiring perspectives, one is sad that it is over. How delightful, then, to turn the last page to discover an appendix with a recipe for the delicious Egyptian dessert traditionally associated with the story of the sultan-queen, Shajar al-Durr!This book is written for a wide audience, with glosses of Arabic-language terms and careful definitions provided throughout. Understandably, Ruggles steers clear of the kind of academic jargon and scholarly squabbles that might prove tedious for nonspecialists. And yet she manages to convey the faulty logic that has inhibited a clear-eyed reckoning of Shajar al-Durr’s role in history and architecture by demonstrating the catch-22 frequently encountered in the study of women in history. That is, scholars have regarded Shajar al-Durr as too exceptional, too briefly holding power, or too lacking in agency to merit dedicated research. Alternatively, she has been too popularized to be considered suitable for serious study (an irony that the author is quick to point out). Thanks to Ruggles’s remarkable capacity to make this material accessible, Tree of Pearls is both an invaluable cross-disciplinary teaching tool and fascinating reading for anyone interested in learning more about Islamic art and architecture, women in medieval history, or the city of Cairo. That said, the book is also a must-read for specialists, not only because of its contribution to ongoing scholarly debates within the Islamic art specialization but also because it is an exemplar of an ongoing desideratum in the field, as a monograph that treats individual patrons, buildings, and objects in ways that cut across modern boundaries, disciplines, theoretical perspectives, and history itself.