Sultan Raziyyah, who ruled the Delhi Sultanate in northern India from 1236 to 1240, is a striking example of a woman who rose to power in a premodern Islamic society. As is commonly acknowledged, it was Raziyyah’s father’s recognition and cultivation of her wisdom and ruling capacities – as well as his apparent naming of her as his successor – that paved the way for her accession to the throne. Relying upon medieval historical and literary sources, as well as feminist theory, this paper will offer an explanation for how Sultan Iltutmish came to groom Raziyyah as his heir and how she was able to rule in an environment in which the birth of daughters normally gave rise to disappointment and women had few, if any, avenues for authority. It will argue that despite medieval Muslim India’s assigning to women a status separate from and normally inferior to that of men, a metaphorical space existed in which women could identify or be identified as men. As in many non-Muslim societies, such an identification could become a means for facilitating a woman’s rise to actual power. For example, the sultan reportedly said of Raziyyah, in justifying naming her as his successor, that “although she is in appearance a woman, yet in her mental qualities she is a man …” (Ahmad, Tabaqat-i Akbari, 1:75). Likewise, Raziyyah cultivated a masculine public image in order to rule effectively. During her reign, she emerged from purdah and donned the tunic and headdress of a man. Interestingly, medieval historians such as Ibn Battuta impute her downfall to an expression of female, heterosexual identity: she supposedly showed inappropriate favor to an Abyssinian who was lord of the stables. Yet no evidence exists that a true breach in ethics occurred, and as has been noted, the story became wildly embellished with every telling. In any event, jealous chiefs arose against her, and after a complicated series of events that included her marriage to a governor who had formerly opposed her, she and her husband lost a battle while attempting to retake her throne and were slain while fleeing. Despite her untimely demise, Raziyyah’s rule was favorably regarded and her grave drew pilgrims seeking the blessings of the slain queen, whose only “flaw” was that she did not truly “attain the destiny, in her creation, of being computed among men.” (Juzjani, Tabaqat-i Nasiri, 1:638).