Tree of Pearls

Tree of Pearls PDF Author: D. Fairchild Ruggles
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190873205
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book

Book Description
Shajar al-Durr--known as "Tree of Pearls"--began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to the Ayyubid Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his favorite concubine, was manumitted, became the sultan's wife, served as governing regent, and ultimately rose to become the legitimately appointed sultan of Egypt in 1250 after her husband's death. Shajar al-Durr used her wealth and power to add a tomb to his urban madrasa; with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed architectural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that remains widespread today. A highly unusual case of a Muslim woman authorized to rule in her own name, her reign ended after only three months when she was forced to share her governance with an army general from the ranks of the Mamluks (elite slave soldiers) and for political expediency to marry him. Despite the fact that Shajar al-Durr's story ends tragically with her assassination and hasty burial, her deeds in her lifetime offer a stark alternative to the continued belief that women in the medieval period were unseen, anonymous, and inconsequential in a world that belonged to men. This biography--the first ever in English--will place the rise and fall of the sultan-queen in the wider context of the cultural and architectural development of Cairo, the city that still holds one of the largest and most important collections of Islamic monuments in the world. D. Fairchild Ruggles also situates the queen's extraordinary architectural patronage in relation to other women of her own time, such as Aleppo's Ayyubid regent. Tree of Pearls concludes with a lively discussion of what we can know about the material impact of women of both high and lesser social rank in this period, and why their impact matters in the writing of history.

Tree of Pearls

Tree of Pearls PDF Author: D. Fairchild Ruggles
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190873205
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book

Book Description
Shajar al-Durr--known as "Tree of Pearls"--began her remarkable career as a child slave, given as property to the Ayyubid Sultan Salih of Egypt. She became his favorite concubine, was manumitted, became the sultan's wife, served as governing regent, and ultimately rose to become the legitimately appointed sultan of Egypt in 1250 after her husband's death. Shajar al-Durr used her wealth and power to add a tomb to his urban madrasa; with this innovation, madrasas and many other charitably endowed architectural complexes became commemorative monuments, a practice that remains widespread today. A highly unusual case of a Muslim woman authorized to rule in her own name, her reign ended after only three months when she was forced to share her governance with an army general from the ranks of the Mamluks (elite slave soldiers) and for political expediency to marry him. Despite the fact that Shajar al-Durr's story ends tragically with her assassination and hasty burial, her deeds in her lifetime offer a stark alternative to the continued belief that women in the medieval period were unseen, anonymous, and inconsequential in a world that belonged to men. This biography--the first ever in English--will place the rise and fall of the sultan-queen in the wider context of the cultural and architectural development of Cairo, the city that still holds one of the largest and most important collections of Islamic monuments in the world. D. Fairchild Ruggles also situates the queen's extraordinary architectural patronage in relation to other women of her own time, such as Aleppo's Ayyubid regent. Tree of Pearls concludes with a lively discussion of what we can know about the material impact of women of both high and lesser social rank in this period, and why their impact matters in the writing of history.

Tree of Pearls, Queen of Egypt

Tree of Pearls, Queen of Egypt PDF Author: Jurji Zaydan
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 081560999X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book

Book Description
Shajar al-Durr, known as Tree of Pearls, was one of the most famous Arab queens and the only woman in the medieval Arab world to rule in her own name. Her narrative is one element of a much larger story of the unsettled political climate of thirteenth-century Egypt. In this eponymous novel, Zaydan charts the fall of the Ayyubid Dynasty and the rise of the Mamluke Dynasty through the adventures of Tree of Pearls and Rukn al- Din Baybars, a young Mamluke commander who eventually triumphs as the ruler of Egypt. War, political intrigue, murder, and a female ruler who was born a slave combine for an irresistible story, while Zaydan’s keen observations on royal politics and subverted gender roles offer readers a richly detailed glimpse of the cultural milieu of the time. Tree of Pearls, originally published in 1914, is the last in a famous series of historical novels written by Zaydan, an accomplished historian whose books continue to be read widely in the Arab world today. Selim’s fluid translation introduces an English audience to one of the Arab world’s influential writers.

Strand of Pearls

Strand of Pearls PDF Author: Deborah Livingston
Publisher: BalboaPress
ISBN: 1452544379
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 284

Get Book

Book Description
In her memoir, Strand of Pearls, author Deborah Livingston recounts her journey from childhood abuse, frequent tragedy, and adult addiction to a spiritual transformation that brought her an inner peace and joy available to us all. Deborah was the first of three children born to a Canadian father and a New England motherparents who were worlds apart in their own upbringings and views of the world. From two to sixteen, when she was finally able to break free, Deborah suffered abuse at the hands of her father. Her freedom from that abuse took her to abuse at the hands of others and to a tragic accident that cost the life of a friend. Her misfortunes early in life and her inability to see them as the pearls they actually were led to serious addiction in her early forties. And yet this addiction saved her life, preparing her for the inner transformation she would experience. In Strand of Pearls, Livingston invites the reader into the most painful, raw moments of her past so that the light of the present might shine brighteras an invitation to others to embrace hope, faith, and gratitude in their lives.

Pearls of Wisdom

Pearls of Wisdom PDF Author: ME Pearl
Publisher: Apollo Publishers
ISBN: 1954641036
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
Enter the mystical and magical world of the internet sensation ME Pearl, the psychic squirrel deity, and her human mouthpiece Georgette, YouTube's famous "opossum lady." Pearl is a dead squirrel who knows everything. With the aid of her earthly mouthpiece Georgette Spelvin, Pearl has been sharing her psychic wisdom with her human disciples for years, delving into topics as varied and complex as love, money, work, health, and etiquette. Once hidden in the delightful corners of the internet for the canniest lurkers and most sacred seekers on the website MEPearl.com, Pearl’s cosmology now comes to life in print for the first time ever, revealing for the masses the secret for everlasting happiness, in addition to a newly-unearthed trove of Pearl’s bewitching, incisive, and illuminating advice that makes sense of every ancient—and current—mystery. With the same “delightfully peculiar” (New York magazine) flair that has made Pearl and Georgette sensations online and had videos of them featured on shows such as The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Pearls of Wisdom welcomes readers into the bewildering and addictive world of ME Pearl—one rife with Jackie O. glamour, David Lynch lunacy, marsupial melodrama, and psychedelic spirituality. Proffering new insights on everything from wildlife to the afterlife, Pearls of Wisdom is a true sacred text for the internet age—if not eternity.

My Mother's Pearls

My Mother's Pearls PDF Author: Catherine Myler Fruisen
Publisher: Star Bright Books
ISBN: 9781595720054
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 42

Get Book

Book Description
A beautiful pearl necklace has passed from mother to daughter for seven generations on each daughter's wedding day.

Basic Black With Pearls

Basic Black With Pearls PDF Author: Helen Weinzweig
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1681372169
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Get Book

Book Description
A brilliant, lost feminist classic that is equal parts domestic drama and international intrigue. Shirley and Coenraad’s affair has been going on for decades, but her longing for him is as desperate as ever. She is a Toronto housewife; he works for an international organization known only as the Agency. Their rendezvous take place in Tangier, in Hong Kong, in Rome and are arranged by an intricate code based on notes slipped into issues of National Geographic. He recognizes her by her costume: a respectable black dress and string of pearls; his appearance, however, is changeable. But something has happened, the code has been discovered, and Coenraad sends Shirley (who prefers to be known as “Lola Montez”) to Toronto, the last place she wants to go. There the trail leads her through the sites of her impoverished immigrant childhood and sends her, finally, to her own house, where she discards her pearls and trades in her basic black for a dress of vibrant multicolored silk. Helen Weinzweig published her first novel when she was fifty-eight. Basic Black with Pearls, her second, won the Toronto Book Award and has since come to be recognized as a feminist landmark. Here Weinzweig imbues the formal inventiveness of the nouveau roman with psychological poignancy and surprising humor to tell a story of simultaneous dissolution and discovery.

The Pearls of Lutra

The Pearls of Lutra PDF Author: Brian Jacques
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448171946
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book

Book Description
The ninth book in the beloved, bestselling Redwall saga - soon to be a major Netflix movie! Far away, on the isle of Sampetra, the evil Emperor Ublaz sends his lizard army on a murderous mission to Redwall. Meanwhile, Tansy the hedgehog and her fellow Abbey dwellers race against time to unravel the fiendishly difficult riddles leading to six rose-coloured gems - the Pearls of Lutra.

Pearl's Secret

Pearl's Secret PDF Author: Neil Henry
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520227309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book

Book Description
Pearl's Secret is a remarkable autobiography and family story that combines elements of history, investigative reporting, and personal narrative in a riveting, true-to-life mystery. In it, Neil Henry—a black professor of journalism and former award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post—sets out to piece together the murky details of his family's past. His search for the white branch of his family becomes a deeply personal odyssey, one in which Henry deploys all of his journalistic skills to uncover the paper trail that leads to blood relations who have lived for more than a century on the opposite side of the color line. At the same time Henry gives a powerful and vivid account of his black family's rise to success over the twentieth century. Throughout the course of this gripping story the author reflects on the part that racism and racial ignorance have played in his daily life—from his boyhood in largely white Seattle to his current role as a parent and educator in California. The contemporary debate over the significance of Thomas Jefferson's longtime romantic relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and recent DNA evidence that points to his role as the father of black descendants, have revealed the importance and volatility of the issue of dual-race legacies in American society. As Henry uncovers the dramatic history of his great-great-grandfather—a white English immigrant who fought as a Confederate officer in the Civil War, found success during Reconstruction as a Louisiana plantation owner, and enjoyed a long love affair with Henry's great-great-grandmother, a freed black slave—he grapples with an unsettling ambivalence about what he is trying to do. His straightforward, honest voice conveys both the pain and the exhilaration that his revelations bring him about himself, his family, and our society. In the book's stunning climax, the author finally meets his white kin, hears their own remarkable story of survival in America, and discovers a great deal about both the sting of racial prejudice as it is woven into the fabric of the nation, and his own proud identity as a teacher, father, and black American.

The Giving Tree

The Giving Tree PDF Author: Shel Silverstein
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061965103
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 32

Get Book

Book Description
As The Giving Tree turns fifty, this timeless classic is available for the first time ever in ebook format. This digital edition allows young readers and lifelong fans to continue the legacy and love of a classic that will now reach an even wider audience. "Once there was a tree...and she loved a little boy." So begins a story of unforgettable perception, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein. This moving parable for all ages offers a touching interpretation of the gift of giving and a serene acceptance of another's capacity to love in return. Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk...and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree gave and gave and gave. This is a tender story, touched with sadness, aglow with consolation. Shel Silverstein's incomparable career as a bestselling children's book author and illustrator began with Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back. He is also the creator of picture books including A Giraffe and a Half, Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros?, The Missing Piece, The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, and the perennial favorite The Giving Tree, and of classic poetry collections such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, Falling Up, Every Thing On It, Don't Bump the Glump!, and Runny Babbit. And don't miss the other Shel Silverstein ebooks, Where the Sidewalk Ends and A Light in the Attic!

Hard Crabs and Cultured Pearls

Hard Crabs and Cultured Pearls PDF Author: Jane Vincent
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595291864
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 630

Get Book

Book Description
When real estate agent Diana Sullivan, raised in affluent in Chevy Chase, steps from her car onto the gravel parking lot of Mattingly's General Store in June 1957, she enters an unfamiliar world--the isolated and rural 7th District of St. Mary's County in Southern Maryland. As she walks toward the store seeking directions, she is jostled by a young man. While Harry helps Diana retrieve the scattered contents of her purse, he gives her a preview of the local vernacular and mannerisms. Although Diana leaves the young waterman in anger after this volatile first meeting, she will welcome Harry's assistance later in the day. In time, Diana grows to love Harry, his family, and the region's culture. She enjoys the warmth and acceptance of the locals, a tightly knit community of watermen and tobacco farmers, many of whose families' roots extent back to Southern Maryland's colonial days. However, she knows that her upper-class family would disapprove of her involvement with these rural people. Soon, critical external pressures buffet the cocoon that Diana and Harry have spun around their relationship, causing the two lovers to question whether their love can survive.