Empress

by Ruby Lal

  The newlyweds were rather different from each other. Quli was a man of the sword, strong, daring, and dogged. Prince Salim would one day give him the title Sher Afgan, or Slayer of Tigers. Mihr was cerebral, an aesthete, a woman of many interests, from poetry to design to hunting. They shared the Persian language and the heritage of the Iran he knew so well and about which she had heard so much. He would appreciate her curiosity and innate intelligence. Rather isolated in the eastern provinces, he would be likely to lean on her and discuss matters of trade, taxes, public grievances, the particulars of his visits to Rajmahal, and news from the Mughal court. Mihr’s later grasp of governance suggests that Quli talked about these things with her—or that she was very observant and perspicacious.

  When her husband was away, Mihr might have pondered the new religious and philosophical ideas she was encountering. Burdwan was the hinterland of a hinterland, a border town aggravated by bureaucratic and feudal oppression. Even so, the people recognized and celebrated the beauty of the landscape and riverscape. Bengalis regarded water as a living thing, a relationship reflected in their many water songs. An abode of shrines and temples, Bengal was rich in many modes of direct veneration of the divine—especially of the child-god Krishna, but also Ganesha, Shiva, Saraswati, Lakshmi, Vishnu, the snake-goddess Manasa, and the goddess Durga, protector from evil. Ordinary Bengali men and women were also enthralled by charismatic Sufis and Hindu holy men who moved from region to region.

  In Burdwan, men and women of all walks of life incorporated many forms of natural cures, spirit worship, and trances into their everyday practices and belief systems. Among the stories going around was one about a worshipper of the goddess Kali, who, with the aid of supernatural powers, managed to dig a tunnel to rescue a captive from a Mughal prison.23 Many Hindus had also turned to new forms of direct worship of a personal god. Devotion, not reason or knowledge, was the way of salvation in this approach to Hinduism, centered on the god Krishna. The incantation of Krishna’s name was the ultimate form of worship.24 Recitation as a way of forging harmony with the divine was familiar to Mihr. She, like other Muslim women of her time, had grown up reciting the Quran. Mihr and Quli’s daughter would do the same.

  Mihr gave birth to their daughter in Burdwan, in 1600 or 1601, and they named the child Ladli, the Loved One, an affectionate term for a little girl.25 The steadfast Dai Dilaram, an experienced and cherished confidante, would have been by Mihr’s side as she brought her baby daughter into the world. New traditions from Bengal would accompany Ladli’s birth. Women in the mansion and from the neighborhood would light a fire with straws taken from thatching and make an offering to Shashthi, the goddess of children. They might place the skull of a cow at the door of the labor room to ward off the evil eye and avert “unnatural happenings,” such as the entrance of a crow or a wild fowl into the house. Local medicine men, masters of medicine and astrological science, and Muslim hakims, wise men, could be consulted in a medical emergency.26 Bengali and non-Bengali dancers and musicians, luliyanis and kalawants, popular among the Mughal bureaucrats, would perform at Ladli’s birth. When a woman had a baby, her mother and other close relatives would visit. Asmat or one of Mihr’s sisters may have gone to Burdwan.

  As a toddler, Ladli would play with stone toys and tortoiseshell and seashell bracelets, Bengal specialties, and with domestic animals: goats, rams, cocks, and birds such as mynahs and parrots. She might have learned archery or dart throwing, or blown toy trumpets. Perhaps Mihr and Quli took her to see snake charmers and acrobats, even those who wound red-hot chains around their bodies.27

  She would feed on the fresh and fragrant Bengal fish and rice, dried fruit from Persia and Kashmir, and the sweet rice-and-nut dish khirsa; she would listen to servants, neighbors, or fishermen singing magnificent water songs in Bengali, her twin first language along with Persian-Hindavi. Her parents would teach her to speak in both tongues with gentility and restraint.

  The little girl would almost certainly have heard recitals on the vina, the stringed instrument associated with Saraswati, the goddess of learning, which was popular in Bengal at this time. She would play in the mansion garden on her own or with the children of the household staff, visit the mosque and the bazaar, or ride with Mihr to Bahram Sakka’s grave in a palanquin covered with camlet, cloth made from camel or goat hair. Perhaps there’d be picnics on the river with Quli, Mihr, and attendants, and dice games, polo, elephant fights, or hunting to observe. Very likely, Ladli listened to Bengali pathaks, professional readers who told stories from ancient Indian books—about the mischievous Krishna, for example, dancing in his yellow robes. Eventually, like her mother, Ladli would have elementary lessons in rhetoric, logic, and the poetry of Persian masters, and she’d memorize passages from the Quran.

  In Bengal in those days, seven was the ideal marriage age for a girl; consummation came at puberty. An unmarried girl crossing twelve would bring social opprobrium upon the family. But Mihr and Quli were not likely to have followed that custom, and in any case, Mihr left Bengal to return to Agra in 1608, when Ladli was seven or eight, long before she became an old maid of twelve.

  Mihr and Quli had no more children after Ladli. Perhaps their daughter’s birth was so difficult that it prevented Mihr from having more children. What did the couple, or Mihr’s relatives, make of this circumstance? They lived in an age and culture in which boys were prized. Kings, nobles, officers—and indeed, matriarchs, elite or non-elite—longed for sons. Mothers coaxed younger women to keep birthing until a son was born. If it took another marriage, they would urge their sons to marry again. Whatever a sonless home meant for Quli and Mihr, there is no indication that Quli ever took another wife in quest of a male heir.

  Quli’s official duties kept him away from home a good deal of the time, like other Mughal men who sallied forth for politics, trade, warfare, and adventure while women and girl-children stayed at home. And after 1599, when he was drawn into unsettling events involving Prince Salim, eldest of the emperor’s three sons, Quli became an absentee husband and father.

  SEVEN

  Grave Matters

  The year that Mihr and Quli married, Emperor Akbar suffered a serious illness, unnamed in the chronicles but so dire that his sons began vying for the throne they thought would soon be vacant. The Princes Salim, Daniyal, and Murad—aged twenty-five, twenty-four, and twenty-two—each mobilized supporters, anticipating a war of succession.

  Akbar recovered and resumed full kingship, but he was keenly aware of his mortality, and the question of who would succeed him became a great preoccupation. During his reign he had dramatically expanded the Mughal Empire, from Bengal in the east to Afghanistan in the west, including Kabul and Kandahar. In the north and northeast, he held several mighty Himalayan regions. The areas adjoining the river Godavari in the south were his, even though the Deccan was not yet in Mughal control. He was deeply concerned about leaving an enlarged and thriving Hindustan in the right hands.

  In theory, he had plenty of choices. Mughal monarchs didn’t follow the law of primogeniture, automatically passing the throne on to the eldest son. Technically, an emperor could choose any male member of the royal family as his successor. Akbar had declared that he would choose his successor from among his own immediate family; there would be no accession of some distant cousin. But that still left plenty of room for uncertainty and anxiety among his sons, based on historical precedent. Babur, the first Mughal emperor, had for more than a decade favored his oldest son, Humayun, as his heir. Near the end of his life, however, he declared that his youngest son would follow him as emperor. After much factional squabbling among his court advisers, Babur, on his deathbed, finally did name Humayun, Akbar’s father, as successor.

  Akbar had groomed his three sons carefully, especially Salim, his favorite. The boy’s first ataliq, the all-important royal tutor/guardian, was a son of the Sufi saint who had prophesied Salim’s birth. The prince was taught next by a high-ranking noble of Central Asian background,
and then by Abdur-Rahim, the poet-general who brought Quli to the Mughal court. Akbar saw to it that Salim attained all-around excellence. Part of the cultivation and training of the prince was learning to forge his own networks of authority, a degree of independence vital for learning the leadership skills that a future emperor would need.

  But after Akbar’s brush with death, he became troubled about Salim, by then a fully established adult prince with a high numerical courtly rank, provincial and military assignments, and a separate princely establishment with the attendant perquisites, including his own harem. Akbar worried that Salim’s independence could evolve into rebellion.

  In 1594, when he was well again, Akbar made a move that caused a huge rift between him and Salim. He gave to Salim’s eldest son, seven-year-old Khusraw, a high imperial rank and a share of the revenue from the newly conquered eastern province of Orissa, adjoining Bengal. The governor of Bengal, Man Singh, under whom Quli served, was Khusraw’s maternal uncle. Akbar appointed him the boy’s protector. Furthermore, the emperor stated openly in court that he “loved [his] grandchildren more than [his] sons”—a sharp challenge to Salim’s growing imperial ambitions.1 Salim, who had already begun wooing nobles even before Akbar bestowed high rank on Khusraw, intensified his efforts to gain supporters.

  Akbar directed Salim to lead Mughal forces against the Rajput state of Mewar, to the west. The emperor generally had fostered good relations with the Rajputs, but occasionally had to deal with a recalcitrant leader. Salim hesitated, and his supporters argued that it was vital for him to stay close to the capital, given the emperor’s advancing years. But Akbar insisted that Salim go. Quli was part of the military contingent that Salim led to Mewar, and the prince was greatly impressed by the provincial officer’s valor. “I gave him the title of Shirafgan [tiger slayer],” he would later record in his memoir.2

  Not long after he returned from Mewar, Salim, determined and ambitious, openly rebelled against his father. While Akbar was away from the capital on a military campaign, the prince had his own name read during the khutba, the sermon at Friday prayers, and ordered imperial coins struck in his own name—two acts that were the prerogative of the king. Salim even tried to seize control of the Agra fort, but he was turned back by imperial troops. By late 1599, he’d set up an alternate court in Allahabad, halfway between Agra and Bengal. The choice of location was strategic: Akbar had built a fort there from which Salim could keep an eye on both Agra to the west and Bengal to the east, where his son Khusraw, boosted by Akbar, was popular. Furthermore, Allahabad provided a stable agrarian base—landowners with substantial fighting forces to abet the defiant prince’s plans. This would be his princely seat until 1604.

  A growing number of provincial officers of both high and low rank joined Salim’s court in Allahabad, including Quli. Records suggest that he may have been involved in building alliances and mobilizing fighting forces, reaching out on Salim’s behalf to dignitaries and religious authorities across the North Indian plains.

  Salim had wide support. He’d built connections with nobles from Kashmir, a group alienated by, among other things, Akbar’s increased tax demands. He extended a friendly hand to local Hindustani Muslims, and to the Afghans, a dominant political group in northern and eastern India who deeply resented the Mughal conquest of their lands.

  He also cultivated religious leaders, scholars, poets, and artists, whom he patronized handsomely. A marvelous group of twenty-one artists brought to life the eclectic tastes of the spirited prince and his Allahabad court in paintings that represented a new approach to Mughal art. Instead of depicting wars and the heroes of ancient epics, these works featured men and women in more intimate settings, such as feasts and other celebrations. Salim also commissioned a series of unusual paintings based on Mirror of Holiness: A Life of Christ, a text written for Akbar by Jesuit father Jerome Xavier. These new subjects and styles of painting reflected Salim’s experimental bent of mind, which would come to influence not only his patronage of the arts but also his style of statecraft.

  Salim relied considerably on his dedicated lieutenants, which meant that five years into his marriage to Mihr, Quli would have been absent from their home outside Burdwan for even longer periods than usual. He may even have relocated to Allahabad semipermanently. Mihr was left on her own in a remote area plagued by tigers and robbers. She had the reliable Dai Dilaram and others to help look after Ladli and household affairs. Mihr may have taken up the musket at this time so she’d be able to defend her family.

  As Mihr went about her life in Burdwan, interacting with the populace in various ways—whether joining hunting parties, visiting shrines, or gathering with neighbors—she came to understand the structure and politics of governance in Bengal. She learned how imperial policies affected poor peasants, rich landlords, women, and children. She heard about the intricacies of Mughal factions, and about political and military affairs all over the empire. And she was exposed to various viewpoints on what was going on between Akbar and Salim—from conversations with her husband, a supporter of Salim; letters from her father, Akbar’s loyal courtier; and the accounts of visitors.

  Moving to thwart Salim’s plans and win back the loyalty of those whom the prince had wooed away, Emperor Akbar arranged for two of his daughters to marry eminent men from Central Asia, a region where Salim was building alliances. He went after Salim’s other networks and partisans, removing many from imperial posts and publicly disgracing them. In 1602, at the height of the prince’s rebellion, Akbar called in his trusted friend and adviser Abul-Fazl, the compiler of the Akbarnama, to deal with Salim. The prince, in turn, commissioned the raja of Orchcha to deal with Abul-Fazl. The raja attacked and beheaded Fazl, and presented his head to Salim.3

  That same year, around the time that Salim’s relationship with Akbar began to change, Quli left Salim and his court in Allahabad. Three women in Akbar’s harem—his mother, Hamideh; his wife Salimeh; and his elderly aunt Gulbadan—were attempting to bring about reconciliation between father and son. “When I came from Allahabad to wait on my revered father …” Salim later wrote in his memoir, “most of my attendants and people were scattered abroad, and he [Quli] also at that time chose to leave my service.”4

  Perhaps Quli was fed up with Salim’s unpredictability. By many accounts, Salim strove for righteousness; some called him the “just prince” of Allahabad.5 Yet he put a man to death and jailed two others because they’d accidentally frightened away his quarry while he was hunting. It was hard to tell when Salim would turn to violence. The Akbarnama notes that he had a “hot disposition.”6 Perhaps Quli broke with Salim because he felt the tug of loyalty to Akbar; or because he was repulsed by the assassination of Abul-Fazl; or because he saw that rapprochement between Salim and Akbar was imminent and worried about retribution from the emperor.

  A reconciliation did, indeed, take place. Despite Salim’s insurgency and the gruesome murder of Fazl, Akbar in the end forgave his son. “Loss of prudence” and “the intoxication of youth and of success” were cited in the Akbarnama (continued by another noble after Fazl’s death)—as the pardonable causes of his recklessness.7 Salimeh, a crucial negotiator between Akbar and her stepson, delivered the news of forgiveness to Salim and brought him back permanently to the imperial court, paving the way for his succession. Both of his younger brothers had recently died from alcohol poisoning; no foul play was suspected. Although Akbar still wanted his grandson Khusraw to be the successor, the powerful nobles of his court pointed out that the laws did not permit, as one modern scholar put it, “a son to trump the imperial claims of a still-living father.”8 The emperor acquiesced.

  The 1605 monsoon season was nearly over when Emperor Akbar died in Agra. The news of his death spread faster than the news that he had chosen Salim as his successor. In the outer reaches of the realm, people felt “orphaned and insecure,” remembered the poet and trader Banarasi. “Terror raged everywhere: the hearts of men trembled with dire apprehension; their faces be
came drained of colour.” When Banarasi learned that Akbar had died, he was in Jaunpur, 450 miles east of Agra, sitting on a flight of stairs in his house. He shook with “uncontrollable agitation,” lost his balance, fell down the stairs, and fainted.9

  In fact, the whole town of Jaunpur was in a panic, according to Banarasi, who described the events thirty-five years later, writing in his native Hindavi rather than court Persian. Unaware that the matter of succession had been settled before Akbar’s death, the people of Jaunpur were gripped by fear. Many hid in their houses, he writes; some began stockpiling weapons. Shopkeepers shut their doors, and the rich buried their jewels. Those with ready capital loaded it into carriages and rushed to safer places. To disguise their status, the rich walked the streets in the rough clothing of the poor; women shunned jewelry and dressed in “lustreless clothes.”10 Such was the power of the Mughal emperor. In life, he gave a sense of stability and security to his people; his death occasioned anxiety and bewilderment, even chaos.

  When the news finally reached Jaunpur that Prince Salim had ascended the imperial throne in Agra and assumed the title Nur ad-Din Jahangir—Light of Faith, Conqueror of the World—people were greatly relieved and hailed the new padshah, the emperor.

  Jahangir, thirty-six, became the fourth Mughal emperor of India on October 24, 1605. Compared to his father, Akbar, and great-grandfather, Babur, both of whom started their sovereign careers as boy-kings, Jahangir was a mature monarch, the father of three sons. He’d already married several times, had a flock of concubines, and was adored by senior harem women. He was long-limbed, with a stocky but supple body, although folds of flesh were beginning to appear. His skin was neither dark nor fair but somewhere in between; he had dark eyes, curved brows, and an impish smile. He was distinctly more Indian-looking than his predecessors—darker and more compact, without the Central Asian aquiline nose or high cheekbones of Babur or Humayun.