Khurram’s next stop was Bengal, the northeastern frontier of the empire. Here lay the fertile rainy delta where the Ganga joined the ocean; an area that had relatively recently been incorporated into the Mughal empire. Although large tracts of the region remained forested, over the course of the previous century, peasants had been settling the land, moving eastward. Religious men—Sufis—came with them, attracting their own followings. Gradually, with each successive generation, more and more of the population of Bengal came to identify as Muslim. But the river itself and the surrounding network of tributaries, waterways, and swamps, clogged the swift movement of cavalry. It was only under Jahangir, in 1610, that the Mughal state was able to infiltrate farther and capture the city of Dhaka, which was renamed Jahangirnagar in his honor.40
During Khurram’s incursions in the eastern provinces, he started amassing allies from among the local nobility. One of those whom he pressed into his service was a khanazad, or “house-born” military commander of Isfahani origin, which meant that his father, too, had served the emperor—in this case, in the navy. Ala-ud-Din Isfahani, the commander in question, was also known as Mirza Nathan, an honorific meaning “lord of the nose ring,” probably because his nose had been pierced in childhood as a talisman against illness.41 A couple of years earlier, in 1621, Jahangir gave him the title Shitab Khan after he successfully put down a landowner’s rebellion. Though he had never met Jahangir or been summoned to court, Shitab Khan had managed to get officially inducted as the emperor’s murid, or disciple, which was a privilege, drawing on Sufi practice, of only a select few nobles.42
Once Khurram had made inroads into Bengal and seized Jahangirnagar, Shitab Khan joined the rebel prince with alacrity. By April 1624, Khurram’s army, led by Abdullah Khan, had defeated and killed Ibrahim Khan, governor of Bengal and uncle of Ahmad Beg of Orissa. The prince sent a decree summoning the services of Shitab Khan and other nobles, which they received reverently, as though in the presence of the emperor. We know this because Shitab Khan penned a long autobiographical history of Bengal, a work that opens a window onto the life of a nobleman on the court’s fringes, at the empire’s eastern frontier. The last part of the chronicle treats Khurram’s revolt. Because Shitab Khan goes out of his way to show his closeness to Khurram, we can catch here intimate sightings of the rebel prince’s family life that we would not otherwise see in official histories.43
We learn, for example, that Arjumand Bano was involved in negotiating the surrender of Mirza Salih, the commander of the Burdwan garrison who initially held out against Khurram’s siege. She was in touch with Mirza Salih’s wife, who in turn convinced the nobleman to awake “from his sleep of negligence” and submit to Khurram. Children, too, were expected to play their part. Before finally choosing to take on the governor Ibrahim Khan, Khurram proposed that the soon-to-be six-year-old Aurangzeb stay with the governor in Bengal as a sort of figurehead. The plan, which never came to pass, was for Khurram to then go ahead with the rest of the family as he sought to conquer Bihar. Aurangzeb was likely chosen for Dara, as the eldest son, could not be spared, and Shuja in any case was still living apart from his parents with the emperor and Nur Jahan. But Ibrahim Khan made the ultimately fateful decision to resist and was eventually killed. And thus Aurangzeb remained with his family.44
Khurram’s military forays during his rebellion entailed a slew of responsibilities. Apart from managing a stream of new supporters, rewarding loyal servants with gifts and positions, punishing deserters, and planning his next moves, he also had to arrange the travel and housing of the women and children with him. Arjumand’s pregnancy was advancing, and her child was due any day. Shitab Khan’s status as a house-born imperial servant often meant that he was charged with overseeing the women’s well-being. One letter from Khurram ordered him to send from Bengal five boats to Patna, in the province of Bihar, for the ladies’ use. Among many other tasks, Shitab Khan was instructed to arrange for Itimad Khan, a eunuch who came from Arjumand’s father’s household, to accompany the ladies to Rohtas via Patna, facilitate the safe passage of several elephants to the warring prince Khurram, and give one hundred gold coins to a prominent Sufi, Shaikh Abdullah of Ghazipur. In his account, Shitab Khan deftly handled all these logistics and was granted the opportunity to pay his respects to the ladies in person.45
By this point, Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb were old enough to live among the menfolk, with guardians and tutors watching over them, so initially they were not sent to Rohtas with their mother. But then Khurram had second thoughts and entrusted them to the safety of the fort, where they entered at an astrologically auspicious hour.46 Khurram got wind that the imperial forces led by Parwez and Mahabat Khan had crossed the Ganges with their armies. He retreated to Banaras, then crossed over to nearby Bahadurpur. Both sides prepared for battle, keeping a close watch on the other.
Shitab Khan notes that the imperial army had “eighty thousand brave horsemen, one thousand nine hundred elephants, and a hundred thousand experienced infantry.” It was tiny in comparison with Khurram’s forces, which numbered “one hundred and eighty thousand iron-clad horse-men, one hundred and ninety thousand brave infantry, two thousand four hundred war-elephants, seven hundred of which were in a state of heat, five hundred war-boats and fifteen hundred cannon.” The sight of Khurram’s army was so impressive, it blinded the eyes of the opposing side, he added.47
The khan exaggerated wildly. But perhaps the point of his description here lies not in its accuracy or lack thereof, but in the clear way it states the author’s loyalties. Another later account estimates the size of the imperial army at a more reasonable forty thousand and Khurram’s at a more plausible ten thousand. A host of allies had joined Jahangir’s forces, including Raja Bir Singh Bundela. The battle moved to the banks of the Tons, a Ganges tributary. Abdullah Khan and other commanders, seeing that they were outnumbered, wanted to retreat. But Raja Bhim, who had helped secure Patna, insisted that they fight. The result was disastrous for the rebel forces, who were quickly surrounded just “as a ring encircles the fingers.” Raja Bhim, for all his bravado, was killed, his body sliced by swords before being pulled off his horse.48 Khurram’s mount was slain and he too barely escaped with his life. Abdullah Khan gave him a horse to get off the battlefield, and they fled toward Patna.49
Meanwhile, in Rohtas, on the ninth of October 1624, while Khurram was in the thick of preparing for battle, Arjumand Bano gave birth to a son. He was her tenth child, the sixth so far to live. There was no question now of Jahangir giving him a name, so his parents called him Murad Bakhsh, “wish-fulfiller,” after one of the divine attributes. A messenger conveyed the happy news to Khurram, who, according to Shitab Khan, held an “assembly of joy” for three days and nights, and asked Arjumand to issue a writ to Shitab Khan for any items she might need for the celebrations. The commander furnished the money and got the wife of the deceased Ibrahim Khan to make the purchases. If the widow was reluctant to assist relatives who were responsible for her husband’s killing, he does not tell us, though Shitab Khan’s memoir reveals that he himself took care to cultivate a good relationship with the noblewoman. Ibrahim Khan’s wife bought, he reports, at Arjumand’s request, huge quantities of expensive perfumes and rare aromatic substances. These included thirty seers (equivalent to almost sixty pounds) of “white ambergris of the sea,” “two thousand pods musk of Khata and Khutan,” “ten thousand bottles of the rose-water of Yazd,” and fifty maunds (about four hundred pounds) of saffron.50 One suspects that, just as with Shitab Khan’s description of Khurram’s army, these enormous numbers need not be taken literally. They are useful to Shitab Khan’s story by making him sound important and indicating his regard for Khurram’s family.
At the time, the acts of sprinkling, burning, and appreciating pleasant fragrances were prized ingredients of a social gathering. From Shitab Khan, we learn that even in the midst of war, Khurram’s family strove to uphold social rituals. But Shitab Khan’s anecdote also calls to mind
another story about a Mughal birth. Roughly eighty years earlier, Khurram’s grandfather, Akbar, was born to parents in exile. When the newborn’s father Humayun heard the news of his son’s birth, he cracked open a pod of musk in his tent. It was all he had in his abject state then. But the scent filled the air just as he hoped, no doubt, that his son’s renown would one day spread. Humayun’s water carrier, Jauhar, related this story years later when interviewed for his reminiscences of the previous emperor.51
After Khurram’s defeat, the rebel prince, along with those commanders who remained with him, traveled for a night and a day without halting. Then, Shitab Khan writes, the prince rested under a tree, using his quiver as a pillow, while his companions too caught some sleep before setting out for more grueling hours of riding. The next morning, some of those in this starving group pilfered a goat and roasted its meat, but they were too embarrassed to offer this coarse repast to the prince. After the insistence of two religious shaikhs in the group, Khurram put aside his pride and ate a little. They were now close to Rohtas, and Khurram proceeded there alone, sending the others to Patna.
There, Khurram met Arjumand with their newborn son Murad Bakhsh and their other children. She soothed him, blaming his generals for the defeat. For two of them in particular, Abdullah Khan and Sher Khan, she had harsh words. “Both these men are shameless, they ought to die by taking poison,” Shitab Khan reports her as saying.52 Khurram had wanted to send them on individual expeditions and remain in Rohtas, but she dissuaded him from doing so. The family made plans to retreat eastward, via Patna, leaving behind baby Murad. Given his age and the perils of their situation, they decided against taking him with them. They put him in the care of nurses and appointed caretakers for the fort—Sayyid Muzaffar Khan of Barha, and Raza Bahadur of the infamous Khusrau incident, who had been Khurram’s trusted childhood slave.53 Khurram, Arjumand, and the rest of their children left for the Deccan by way of Akbarnagar. But the imperial army led by Parwez and Mahabat Khan soon chased after them.54
Though Khurram and his family stayed in Akbarnagar for only twenty-four days, Shitab Khan describes this period in detail. He includes an anecdote about the six-year-old Aurangzeb. On one occasion, Khurram distributed bananas, of the choice “Martaban” variety, to his nobles. But the portion allotted to Shitab Khan was missing. After investigating, the servants found that just two bananas remained, because little Aurangzeb had gobbled up the rest. Khurram was furious. Only Shitab Khan’s pleas stopped him from punishing his son.55
Khurram had asked Darab Khan, who was in Jahangirnagar, to meet them in Akbarnagar, but the governor made excuses that the road was blocked and never turned up. The prince and his family headed south the same way they had come, but without the pomp that had accompanied his recent victories. With nowhere else to turn, Khurram approached the aging Malik Ambar. This time the Nizamshahi prime minister placated him, hoping to enlist Khurram’s help against an alliance that Mahabat Khan had formed with the neighboring state of Bijapur. He sent his commander, the Ethiopian Yaqub Khan, to Burhanpur with ten thousand horsemen. Khurram arrived with his family and pitched camp at Lal Bagh, on the city’s outskirts. They raised a siege, attacking the fort from two sides. The intense fighting lasted some months. At times it looked as though Khurram’s men were about to make a breakthrough, but on each occasion they were thwarted. Then Parwez and Mahabat Khan arrived at the Narmada, and Khurram decided to quit. Exhausted and ill, he moved to Balaghat, at the empire’s southern edge, and finally, in March 1626, wrote his father begging for forgiveness.
Jahangir, pleased by this contrition, replied in his own hand. His son performed the appropriate obeisances before opening the letter. The emperor made two principal demands: Khurram was to ask his men to vacate the fortresses at Rohtas and Asir and to send Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb to the imperial court in Lahore. If he complied, he would be pardoned and receive Balaghat province as his fief, recently wrested back from Malik Ambar.56
Not only was Khurram’s status severely diminished from what it had been before his rebellion, but he and Arjumand now also had to relinquish their sons, with no certainty that they would see them again. There was no knowing how long Jahangir would remain alive or what would happen to the boys should he die. Nur Jahan may have insisted that Jahangir take the children hostage so that she would have some control over Khurram if a struggle for succession were to take place.57 Khurram arranged for the infant Murad Bakhsh to be brought to them and for Rohtas and Asir to be handed over to Jahangir’s men. He then moved to Nasik, in Malik Ambar’s territory, with Arjumand, the rest of their children, and a small band of soldiers and retainers.
As Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb prepared to leave their parents to join the emperor, suddenly the monarchy’s foundations quaked—and almost crashed. It was mid-March 1626, just before the New Year celebrations. On his way to Kabul, Jahangir camped on a bank of the Bahat River, now known as the Jhelum, along with Nur Jahan and a handful of attendants. Mahabat Khan, accompanied by hundreds of Rajput soldiers, stormed into his tents. He forced the emperor to ride an elephant, accompanying him as though the two were going on a hunting expedition. Mahabat Khan had seized advantage of a glaring oversight in Jahangir’s security: Nur Jahan’s brother Asaf Khan had already crossed the river with the rest of his army, entourage, and baggage. Mahabat Khan got his men to block the bridge and cut the emperor off, effectively taking him prisoner.
The problem, actually, had been rumbling for a while. Mahabat Khan’s rising station and military successes alarmed both Asaf Khan and Nur Jahan, because through him Parwez was becoming more powerful. Kami Shirazi, a panegyrist of Jahangir and Nur Jahan, wrote a narrative poem about this incident, in which he blames Mahabat Khan for luring Parwez into disobedience: “During that time, Mahabat Khan cast a spell / He threw out all the emperor’s farmans from [Parwez’s] heart.”58 Though Nur Jahan had backed Mahabat Khan’s crushing defeat of Khurram, she was afraid that with the khan’s support, Parwez would prevail over the younger, sheltered Shahryar. Asaf Khan’s friction with Mahabat Khan was older; Thomas Roe had mentioned it ten years earlier.59 But Asaf Khan, always careful to appear on the side of his sister and the emperor, remained circumspect about his concern for the fate of his daughter, Arjumand Bano, and son-in-law, Khurram. If Mahabat Khan could somehow be subdued, Khurram could hope to make a realistic bid for the throne.
Nur Jahan and her brother convinced Jahangir that Mahabat Khan was incompetent for having let Khurram escape into exile. An imperial decree ordered the nobleman to leave Parwez and take up the governorship of Bengal. But, at Asaf Khan’s behest, another decree followed, stripping Mahabat Khan of the position and summoning him to court to return the elephants and wealth that he had acquired while beating back Khurram’s armies from Bengal.60 The latter decree intimated that the emperor suspected Mahabat Khan of financial impropriety. Mahabat Khan rushed to court, on the pretext of salvaging his reputation with the emperor. But in fact, he sought more than just to clear his name, for he brought with him several thousand (Kami’s poetic account has ten thousand) Rajput soldiers from his fort in Ranthambore.61 What is more, their wives and children accompanied them as well; apparently this would spur them on to greater acts of valor. The able general, banking on his tactical prowess and his good rapport with Jahangir, decided that a show of strength was the best way forward.
As Mahabat Khan drew near the emperor’s camp on the Bahat River, the emperor summoned him to come alone, without his army. The khan instead sent his son-in-law, Khwaja Barkhurdar. Jahangir had him hauled off with his hands bound around his neck. The Khwaja’s stated crime was that he had married Mahabat Khan’s daughter without the emperor’s permission. Until then Mahabat Khan’s plan of action was perhaps not entirely clear, but he was now willing to risk what no nobleman had ever done before. He forced his way to Jahangir’s tent and sweet-talked the emperor into mounting a horse and going over to his own camp. When describing this humiliating moment, Kami the panegyrist insists
that Jahangir kept his cool. The poet writes, “Because, at the moment, it was a delicate time / The emperor revealed neither too much nor too little.”62
Mahabat Khan took the emperor, securely in his custody, over to Shahryar’s tent. The khan soon discovered to his dismay that Nur Jahan had somehow broken free of the cordon and escaped to the other side of the embankment. Kami relates that when Jahangir tried to reach Nur Jahan in a boat rowed by his attendant, Mahabat Khan had the boatman, Chajju, brutally killed. The emperor did not dare protest.63
Asaf Khan, together with his son and a couple of hundred soldiers, expediently locked himself up in the nearby fortress of Attock. Over the next days, Jahangir placated Mahabat Khan by playing along with his confinement. Meanwhile Nur Jahan, riding an elephant with her daughter Ladli, her granddaughter, and the infant’s nurse, led the imperial army against Mahabat Khan’s troops, with Asaf Khan’s support. Nur Jahan almost drowned when her elephant was wounded while crossing the river, and an arrow struck her granddaughter. In Kami Shirazi’s account, the empress’s injured elephant represented her own valor: “Then, in rage, like a roaring lion / the Begam’s elephant charged towards the battlefield.”64
The imperial forces proved no match for Mahabat Khan’s Rajput army. They were forced to surrender. Kami, the imperial couple’s loyal poet, spins Nur Jahan’s defeat to make it seem as though it was part of a deliberate strategy. Asaf Khan vacillated and then withdrew his forces, Kami suggests, partly because Jahangir had warned him not to fight and ultimately because Mahabat Khan’s brother had been killed in the skirmish, and for this reason Asaf Khan feared the nobleman would take his wrath out on the emperor.65 But in any case, all the members of the imperial family present were now Mahabat Khan’s captives: Nur Jahan, Jahangir, Shahryar, Ladli, their infant daughter, Asaf Khan, his son and daughter-in-law, and Dawar Bakhsh, Khusrau’s son. It is likely that young Shuja was also with them, though the sources do not mention him.
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