Lannister schmannister--have I ever got a game of thrones for you.

Most of us are broadly familiar with the notion of a queen regent, the widow of a king who might rule in place of her minor son until he comes of age. Various medieval and early modern Islamic principalities had their women regents (and in fact, we'll meet a princess regent in the next story). But of course, it would be...poor form...for a queen consort to say, "You know, I think I'd like to rule for real."

In 1250, however, Egyptian royal concubine Shajar al-Durr (or Shajarat) made herself the exception.

Shajar did indeed give birth to the caliph's son, in 1240, but the boy died young--well before his father in 1249. At that point, Shajar held no authority in the formal sense, but she had been the caliph's favorite concubine and she was a pretty savvy operator, so she held a lot of power. With two high officials, she actually plotted to conceal the caliph's death for about six months while his older son, Turan Shah, traveled to Cairo to claim the throne.

Of course, when the son did arrive, he turned out to be a terrible ruler that everyone hated. As the story goes, Shajar turned to the palace guards for help. I think the party-line story is something about her wanting to keep her jewels. But you look at what happened, and then tell me what kind of "assistance" you think she asked for: The guards murdered Turan Shah and crowned Shajar as full-blown sultan. Regent nothing. Regnant.

The Egyptian side of the Ayyubid empire, evidence suggests, eagerly accepted Shajar as their ruler.

The Syrian side was not so happy, and the sultan of Aleppo was getting ready to invade. Whether the Syrians were specifically mad about Shajar or were generally unhappy with the concept of a woman ruler, the Cairene palace guards figured their empire would be safer with a male ruler.

The interesting thing, though, is that they cycled through male rulers rather quickly--but always staying right in Shajar's orbit. First, her commander-in-chief Aybak held power for five whole days (!). Then, the guards changed their minds and decided they were most secure with someone connected to the Ayyubids via a family link (Shajar's stepson). Then, the guards decided it actually was okay to have Aybak as ruler...if he married Shajar.

So once again without formal office, Shajar still essentially got to rule for about seven more years. And to Aybak's increasing dismay. In 1257, he tried to set her aside and raise a different wife to prominence.

So she had him murdered, too.

Shajar's case seems about typical for powerful women in the medieval Mediterranean world. In general, men would very much prefer not to have women rulers, and the system (laws) tended to be stacked against women. However, women themselves had ambition, skill, and sometimes opportunity. And in the moment, in specific cases, the politics of a situation would lead women and men alike to listen to a woman say, "I want to rule," and act to make that happen.

Shajar, of course, was a prisoner of war, a slave, and a concubine--hardly a Princess Jasmine for the ages. Asma bint Shahib and her daughter-in-law Arwa al-Sulayhi in 11th century Yemen come closer. They both ruled in their own rights, including for a time as co-queens. (How is THAT for a relationship with your mother-in-law?!) Asma in particular had married her cousin (...it was the Middle Ages; roll with it) long before he rose to power, and in fact, probably masterminded his climb.

But if we really want a power-hungry princess, I think we should look to Sitt al-Mulk (970-1023) in Fatimid Egypt. Sitt was a legit princess, the caliph's daughter. Power was definitely on her mind from an early age; as a teenager, she was one of her father's advisors, and apparently a good one.

But she had this brother.

Sitt al-Mulk and al-Hakim did not get along.

Now, Shajar al-Durr had had Turan Shah and Aybak assassinated; their fates were known. Al-Hakim...disappeared.

On Monday night, when there were still three nights left in [February 1021]..al-Hakim, the master of Egypt, disappeared. And no one had any information about him.

His disappearance occurred when he went out for a walk at night as he was accustomed to do...People went out searching for some trace of him up until the end of Shuwal. On the third of the following month a team of people from the palace went out...they found al-Hakim's donkey. They followed the footprints, which led them to his clothes, which had been hacked to pieces.

The team returned, and there was no longer any doubt about who had killed him.

(Ibn al-Athir, I think trans. Lakeland)

...I am reminded that the alternate title of one of the stories in 1001 Nights is "The Craft and Malice of Women."

Sitt al-Mulk still could not rule in her own name. Being a princess was a raw deal in the medieval world, Christian and Islamic alike. (And Sitt al-Mulk was actually half-Muslim, half-Christian!) But she maneuvered to rule as regent for her nephew until her death.

Yaacov Lev suggests that Sitt al-Mulk's rule was supported by the Fatimid government because her brother had done a completely atrocious job of it. (Al-Hakim had vehement supporters as well, though.) In other words, another example of what I mentioned above: men supporting a woman's rule because it was the least bad of available options. I do think it's worth pointing out that she ruled the empire over her nephew. That's not exactly a traditional position for an auntie. The unorthodox throne points to Sitt al-Mulk's desire for power, and her skill at both gaining and holding onto support.

Systems of law governing royal succession in the medieval Islamic world cut women out of the picture. But individual women raised around the throne, or aiming at the royal family from long before they were in any position to issue coins or laws, absolutely nursed the ambition to rule. Some of them could and did play the game of thrones every bit as ruthlessly as their male counterparts.

But while Jasmine feels smothered by "The law says you must be married to a prince," the opposite was almost always the fate for royal women in the medieval world. They married beneath their birth, and lost the access to power that we so often hear about with teenage princesses and their sultan or emperor fathers. In general, it was just really not fun to be the real-life counterpart of a Disney Princess.

After /u/sunagainstgold 's amazing answer, I must also add that it did not take until the 13th century (European calendar) for an ambitious woman to try to wrest power away from a man.

Aisha, The Prophet's youngest wife, raised an insurrection against his Nephew, Ali. A kind-of dry run for the later split that produced the Sunni and Shi'a. And its roots are as fascinating.

Aisha bint Abi Bakr was married very young to Muhammad partly as a political marriage between Abu Bakr and the house of The Prophet. According to sources, Muhammad treated Aisha the best and, in turn, she often used her position to influence his rule. One particular incident which some scholars say influenced at least one of the Qur'an's proscription against rumor-mongering and false allegations of adultery has shady origins.

Allegedly Aisha let her palanquin (well, howdah, but same difference) leave without her in it. Her slaves allegly didn't feel any weight difference, so when the caravan arrived in the new camp, it send Muhammad into a tailspin and he ordered a search. When she was found in the original camp, she claimed to have been searching for a necklace and didn't realize the caravan had left. Luckily a handsome young soldier found her and returned her where others had failed. Rumors swirled that Aisha and the young soldier had had a brazen dalliance. Ali ibn Abi Talib in particular kept asserting that Aisha was not only loose in her morals, but was disposable on top of it. Muhammad is supposed to have received divine revelation that exhonerated Aisha and led to Sura 24 which goes on at length about adultery and false accusations.

Aisha remained important, both symbolically and in the spread and regulation of Islam, in the first (led by her fahter) and second (led by a lieutenant of her father's) Caliphate. She acted as advisor, commenter on jurisprudence, and became an authority on the Qur'an for the early years of the Islamic expansion. Her position waned during the third Caliphate (partly because she hated Uthman and he hated her...) but she really found herself faced with a nightmare as the fourth was selected...

Ali's and Aisha's enmity had persisted through the rest of Muhammad's life and during the first three Caliphates' rule. When Ali was chosen as the fourth Caliph, the move was...controversial. And not just to Aisha. She, however, parlayed her connections and reputation into building a coalition with the ultimate goal of mounting an insurgency to unseat Ali. The board was set, the battle lines were drawn, and the fate - and leadership - of the Umma was set. Aisha participated in the battle in modern day Iraq, now known as The Battle of the Camel (so named because the battle swirled around the camel she rode), but her side lost and she was eventually banished to Medina for the rest of her life.

Already some great answers, I'll add some things. First of all it is a big misconception that women almost never held power, even in regions of medieval europe in which laws specifically gave inheritance rights first to men and then to women there were plenty (but of course not the majority) of women rulers, not only consorts. Dido was queen and founder of Carthage around 800 BC, but even by then the Eyptians had already had several (a few really) women leaders almost a thousand years prior to Dido. When Castille and Aragon unifeied through marriage it was Isabella who became the important figure, not Fernando because it was more about the presitge of the kingdom than the gender itself. I forget her name but a Lombard princess was able to get the throne of italy just by manipulating the pope and other kings. One reason why women leaders are not so prominent in history is because their modus oeprandi was usually espionage, manipulation. etc. You don't want people to know you exist when you're the puppetmaster right?

Now if we go into the golden age of Islam it depends as it engrosses about 400 years or so. Islam was quite different from what it is right now; most of the things we associate with Islam and opression of women comes from when Islam spread to persia and assimilated with their culture and traditions. So, is Jasmine living in a pre-persian-assimilation caliphate or post-persian-assimilation caliphate?