Sitt al-Sham bint Ayyub

Sitt al-Sham Zumurrud Khatun bint Ayyub, full sister of Shams al-Dawla Turanshah ibn Ayyub; her husband was Nasir al-Din ibn Asad al-Din Shirkuh, lord of Homs. She built a madrasa inside Damascus south of the Nuri hospital, and built the other madrasa outside Damascus holding her tomb and those of her brother and husband; Ibn al-Salah managed the teaching of her madrasa together with the Nasiriyya at Jerusalem, the Rawahiyya and the dar al-hadith. ¹

Sibt ibn al-Jawzi gives her a notice among the deaths of 616 AH in Mir'at al-zaman, calling her "the lady of the khatuns", sister of Salah al-Din and al-Adil and full sister of Shams al-Dawla. ³

Her charity

He describes her as wise and generous with gifts, kindness and alms. Every year syrups, electuaries and drugs worth thousands of dinars were prepared in her house to be given away, and her door was "a refuge for those who sought help and a shelter for the distressed". ³

Family and endowments

She was the mother of Husam al-Din Lajin and the wife of Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn Shirkuh, lord of Homs. She built a madrasa and a tomb for herself at al-Uwayna on the northern Sharaf of Damascus, and shortly before her death endowed her house in Damascus as a madrasa, settling large endowments on the tomb and on the inner madrasa. ³ In the events of the same year Sibt ibn al-Jawzi relates that when she fell ill she left her house as a madrasa by will and called the qadi Zaki al-Din and the witnesses to attest it. Her nephew al-Mu'azzam resented this, saying: "He comes to my aunt's house without my leave, and hears her words, he and the witnesses!" — one of the causes of what he later did to the qadi. ⁴

Her death

She died in Dhu al-Qa'da and was buried in her tomb at al-Uwayna; her funeral was a great one, and her servant Shibl al-Dawla Kafur al-Husami arranged her affairs. ³

Her royal kin

Sibt ibn al-Jawzi says that she and her sister Rabi'a Khatun had "what no one else had": "thirty-odd close kin (mahram) who were kings", not counting their children and grandchildren. He lists her brothers Salah al-Din, al-Adil, Sayf al-Islam and Shams al-Dawla, and the sons and grandsons of Salah al-Din and of al-Adil, and compares this with Fatima bint Abd al-Malik (may God be pleased with her) ibn Marwan, who had thirteen mahram kin who were all caliphs. ^{3 5}