by Ruby Lal
In 1622, Nur ordered the construction of a spectacular garden tomb in honor of Ghiyas and Asmat. It would take nearly six years to complete. Although remembered as I’timad ud-Daula’s Tomb, after Ghiyas’s title, it houses both his and Asmat’s sepulchers. The Jewel Box, as the tour guides of Agra call it today—an exquisite rectangular building made entirely of white marble inlaid with semiprecious stones, colored mosaic tiles, and latticework called pietra dura—sits on the banks of the Jamuna, on the other side of the river from the structure that would later echo its architectural form, the Taj Mahal.
Nur built a walled garden, divided into several sections, for her parents’ mausoleum. The crypts rest in the center where the pathways cross. In a singular touch, the empress added a pavilion that served as a gate, facing the river. Under an ornamental vault in the central chambers, the grand wazir and his noble wife lie in ochre-colored cenotaphs under a vault richly painted with Persian motifs, such as rose-water vases, wine cups, lilies, and red poppies—a lot of red, red flowers signifying suffering and death, a motif that would appear later in the Taj, built little more than a decade after Ghiyas and Asmat’s tomb was completed. Quranic inscriptions decorate the outside walls of the mausoleum.24
Nur Jahan built this memorial garden along the classic pattern that Babur had begun: the tomb at the center of the various intersecting paths. But she added her own flourishes—terraces and platforms. The latticed garden plan, says a Mughal garden architecture scholar, with an emphasis on the axis in the center was “a device that would be realized on a grand scale in the Taj Mahal garden,” while the marble inlay with multicolored stones on the exterior of this building “anticipates the even more refined inlay of the Taj Mahal.”25
Josef Tieffenthaler, a multilingual Jesuit missionary and a geographer, who was in Agra in the 1740s, found the tomb of Ghiyas and Asmat more fascinating than the Taj. It surpassed all Agra monuments, he wrote, “if not in size, in art and ornamentation.”26 Though rickshaw pullers and tour guides in Agra today call the tomb the Baby Taj, in truth, the Taj Mahal is the baby of the memorial that Nur Jahan built for her parents.
THIRTEEN
Fitna
The year 1622 started badly and got worse, bringing one disastrous event after another. In January, with the pain of Ghiyas’s death still fresh, news came of Prince Khusraw’s death in the Deccan. Jahangir’s eldest son—once a favorite and an aspirant to the throne but ultimately brokenhearted, half-blind, and fifteen years a prisoner—was thirty-four years old. Shah Jahan had insisted on taking his older brother south with him because he was suspicious of Khusraw’s kingly ambitions and persistent appeal among some members of the Mughal family, especially elder royal women. Many in the court’s inner circle were certain that Shah Jahan had ordered Khusraw’s murder. In his official report, Shah Jahan gave the cause of death as colic—that is, intestinal blockage. Other documents draped Khusraw’s death in euphemisms, referring to it as a painful accident.1 When Khusraw’s body was brought back to Agra, crowds flocked to view it, and when it was exhumed and moved to Allahabad in eastern India for final burial, people lined the streets to pay their respects and installed shrines along the way.
Nur was caught up in other unfolding troubles. By midwinter, as Shah Abbas amassed Safavid troops near the Kandahar border, aiming to seize the fort there, the royal couple had to choose a commander for the imperial forces who could counter this threat; no simple decision. Meanwhile, Nur and the ailing Jahangir were increasingly troubled by Shah Jahan’s belligerent behavior toward the empress.
Since Shahryar’s marriage to Ladli, Shah Jahan had known that his powerful stepmother would not back his imperial ambitions. Clearly her new son-in-law was now the center of her hopes for maintaining some sovereign power after Jahangir’s death. “The elevation of his younger brother became a source of anxiety and disturbance to [Shah Jahan],” the emperor wrote in his journal. “Helplessly he sought for patronage and begged the protection of Nur Jahan Begam, expressing shame and contrition and sought a refuge in her mediation.”2
Shah Jahan didn’t consider his older half-brother Parvez to be a threat, even though at Nur’s urging, Jahangir was considering reconciliation with his least successful son.3 Nur and Shahryar were the ones standing in the way of Shah Jahan’s succession plans, and he set about plotting their downfall. From his base in the Deccan, he ordered a group of his soldiers north to seize properties belonging to Nur and Shahryar, including the lands and troops of Dholpur, which had once been owned by Shah Jahan but had been reassigned by the emperor to Shahryar. The man in command of the Dholpur garrison fought a brave battle before he was overpowered by Shah Jahan’s army; men died on both sides as the senior prince reclaimed his lands and soldiers.
Nur was furious; the rift between her and Shah Jahan was now in the open. Jahangir, heartsore, recognized Shah Jahan’s attack as the first sign of revolt. He knew the omens all too well; he had launched a similar rebellion against his own father, and Khusraw had launched one against him. He ordered Shah Jahan, still fighting in the Deccan, to restrict himself to the lands he’d been assigned, and to send troops for the looming Kandahar campaign. The prince refused. Jahangir had planned to have Shah Jahan command the Mughal forces against the Safavids in Kandahar, but now that was impossible. Once again seized by debilitating shortness of breath, the emperor was distraught: “Of which of my pains should I write?” Was it really necessary for him to mount a horse and in hot weather gallop “off after such an undutiful son?”4 He declared that Shah Jahan should be called bidawlat, “disgraceful” or “luckless,” the opposite of the address he typically expected for the princes: iqbalmand, or “favored by fortune.”
With Shah Jahan out of favor with the emperor, Nur moved to advance Shahryar’s fortunes, proposing him as the commander of Mughal forces in Kandahar. Jahangir agreed, and now it was Shahryar whom he called the fortunate son. Experienced nobles and commanders joined Shahryar’s troops. The emperor upped Shahryar’s rank and gave more of Shah Jahan’s lands to the new favorite. There was more good news: Ladli was pregnant. A potential heir might strengthen Shahryar’s claim to the throne. To celebrate the rise of Shahryar, Nur gave the emperor two large Anatolian pearls, subtly underscoring what she knew well—that any future power wielded by the prince would derive from his being the emperor’s son, and not from being her son-in-law.5
Some members of the court felt that the imminent battle over Kandahar, the insurrection of Shah Jahan, and the subsequent re arrangement of alliances were all Nur’s fault—and that she was regularly overriding the emperor’s orders. “Not at all under the power and will of his Majesty; everything was contrived and accomplished by the Begam … [she] changed everything,” wrote Bhakkari. The current conflicts, he declared, were due to the “mischief-making of Nur Jahan.”6 Bhakkari might praise Nur for her political skills, her artistry, and her generosity—but he still believed a woman should rise only so far.
Nur knew that court alliances and factions could twist, snap, and reconnect in unexpected ways. Without her closest supporters and advisers, Asmat and Ghiyas, by her side, and her brother Asaf’s leanings uncertain, the political order Nur had consolidated over the last decade was at risk of fragmenting.
Kandahar, Nur’s birthplace, a rich commercial center at the border between Hindustan and Iran, had magnetic appeal for the Mughal emperors. Each in turn had fought for the hereditary kingdom of his ancestors, a major link on the trading routes traveled by merchants, mystics, and those seeking haven in India. The vast northwest territory of Central Asia beyond Kandahar held great dangers. Raiders and conquerors, including his Mughal forefathers, had invaded India from the northwest. Since the 1600s, the Mughals and the Safavids had clashed repeatedly over Kandahar, currently in Mughal hands. Surrounded by Sunni monarchies across Central Asia, the Shi’a Safavids felt vulnerable; the Mughals were unsure of the leanings of the Shi’a rulers in southern India. These skirmishes had so far not flared into outright war, but now
the situation was urgent; the troops of the Safavid emperor Shah Abbas seemed poised to attack Kandahar.
Getting the Mughal Army to Kandahar wasn’t easy. In winter, snow blocked the southern passes through the Sulaiman Mountains and in summer, sweltering heat and scarce water threatened travelers. Spring was hardly better; torrents often caused mudslides that blocked the narrow passes. Autumn, too, posed logistical problems, since most camel herders headed eastward then, making it hard to hire camels to go westward.
Despite Shah Jahan’s rebellion in the south and Shah Abbas’s ambitions in the northwest, ceremonial court activities continued, and the emperor and empress went about their engagements. Jahangir appointed men to various postings and promoted favored nobles, including the late Khusraw’s son, Dawar Bakhsh, who began to appear frequently in the pages of the emperor’s memoir. Within a year, Jahangir would appoint him governor of Gujarat.
Though Nur and Jahangir were much distressed by Shah Jahan’s open hostility, Asaf Khan stayed silent. Alarmed by her brother’s apparent swing toward favoring the rebellious prince, Nur summoned the noble Mahabat to the capital from Kabul, where he was governor. Though he’d been hostile to Nur’s family, the “nucleus of Iranian nobility” at the Mughal court, and he’d spoken out against Nur to Jahangir on the way to Kashmir, Mahabat was also Jahangir’s longtime, much-tested supporter.7 He had begun to turn against Shah Jahan, perhaps over the death of Khusraw, and Nur believed that Mahabat could be convinced to transfer his support to Shahryar. Mahabat wrote back to Nur Jahan that he wouldn’t come to Agra if Asaf were there. Mahabat had already suspected Asaf of secretly supporting Shah Jahan. But more than this, he feared that because of his outspoken opposition to the power held by members of Nur’s family and other Persians, Asaf had marked him for death.
Mahabat’s relations with Jahangir were cordial at this point. He wrote to Nur that he would come to court only if she dispatched her brother to the province of Bengal and punished the paymaster Mu’tamad Khan, who, Mahabat said, was one of a party of nobles conspiring with the rebel prince. Rather then sending Asaf to Bengal, however, Nur ordered him to transport some of the gold and precious jewels in the royal treasury from Agra to Lahore, hoping that his departure would look like fulfillment of Mahabat’s request.
Mu’tamad escaped punishment; in fact, the emperor gave his paymaster the esteemed task of continuing to record imperial events in the Jahangirnama. Mu’tamad would submit notes for the emperor’s verification and then add the entries to the emperor’s memoir. Mahabat, however, came to the court anyway. Perhaps he was satisfied that Mu’tamad’s new job moved him safely away from the center of political machinations. And perhaps the still-close relationship between the royal couple and Asaf, warm enough that Jahangir conferred on him a new honorific, Prop of the Sultanate, reassured him. Mahabat may have been convinced that Asaf would do as the emperor required, and the emperor required that Asaf not harm Mahabat.
Princely rebellions were usually supported by disaffected nobles, and it wasn’t always possible to predict who might be nursing a grievance or how these men of different backgrounds and interests would affiliate in times of upheaval. Nobles whom Shah Jahan wooed to his side included Abdur-Rahim, the famed general and mentor of Nur’s first husband, by then seventy years old. Some who had joined Shah Jahan were already returning to the imperial court after a brief flirtation with insurrection, among them the eunuch Fidai Khan, master of ceremonies—the courtier in charge of etiquette. Jahangir accepted Fidai’s renewed loyalty.8
For over a year, between late 1622 and late 1623, Shah Jahan and his men fought his father’s imperial forces. The prince established a base in the region of Khandesh, just north of the Deccan, a place with plentiful supplies of wheat and millet, fertile pasturelands, and commercial wealth from three critical trade routes: northward toward Agra, southward toward the Deccan plateau, and westward toward Gujarat. Shah Jahan left some soldiers behind, but apparently suspended his military campaign in the Deccan against Ambar’s troops. The independent southern states continued to evade Mughal rule.
From Khandesh, Shah Jahan and his forces marched to Agra, hoping to seize the treasury. The assault seemed well timed, since Kandahar preoccupied the imperial forces. But to the prince’s chagrin, the imperial response was swift. When he and his men reached the gates of Fatehpur-Sikri, not far from the capital, they found them shut. Shah Jahan ordered his ally of many years, Sundar Das, who had fought bravely at his side during the Mewar and Kangra campaigns, to take a contingent to Agra and confiscate whatever treasures he could find. Sundar Das and his men entered several houses, seizing money and jewels. But Jahangir’s soldiers chased them away and the imperial treasury remained safe.
While the thwarted prince and his forces were regrouping outside the gates of Fatehpur-Sikri, Jahangir dispatched a message to his son saying that he should send a representative to Agra who would outline the terms under which Shah Jahan would call off his rebellion. Shah Jahan’s emissary brought the emperor a list of demands. Jahan gir, though he didn’t record Shah Jahan’s exact demands, found them quite unreasonable. Most likely, the prince required restoration of his lands and privileges, and a promise of the throne after his father’s death. Jahangir was so enraged by Shah Jahan’s requests that he had the prince’s representative imprisoned. Shah Jahan retreated to Khandesh to plan his next move.
Though Shah Jahan’s rebellion distressed Jahangir, it didn’t necessarily disqualify the prince from succession. In the reigns of many of the Great Mughals, princes rebelled against their emperor fathers. It was almost expected, a rite of passage in a way, considered a disruption but not a break in the Mughal world order. In writing of such rebellions, chroniclers often downplayed the role of the princes and blamed individuals within the prince’s or the emperor’s inner circle. The underlying belief was that the princes were young and impressionable: shortsighted, inexperienced, easily misled, or even simpleminded. Jahangir wrote as though his son’s rebellion were in keeping with a Mughal prince’s ambition, and an inevitable part of jostling for power. In his memoir, Jahangir called his insurgent son wretch, rash, belligerent, and full of effrontery—but he didn’t declare him unfit to rule.
A rebellious prince was forgivable; a noble-led rebellion was not. And it was certainly unacceptable for an empress to drive a prince to rebellion, as several contemporary chroniclers accused. The empress, Bhakkari wrote, had pushed the Mughal world “to tumult and disruption,” and thus forced Shah Jahan, a model of sincerity, to defy his father, claiming she “destroyed them in domestic squabbles.” Furthermore, Bhakkari said, “the fire (of sedition)” was kindled by Nur Jahan and her allies—Khan-i Jahan Lodi, a noble once out of favor but now restored; Sharif ul-Mulk, who headed Shahryar’s household and later would be in charge of the state of Sind; Nur’s chief eunuchs Jawahir and Nadim; and perhaps Nur’s daughter, Ladli.9 During his rebellion, Shah Jahan publicly accused Nur of being power hungry and condemned Jahangir for allowing a woman to exercise such authority.10 Later, official court historians writing during Shah Jahan’s reign about the actions of Nur Jahan in the 1620s repeatedly used the word fitna—a term in Islamic tradition that describes civil strife so profound that it amounted to cosmic disorder.11 Nur drove a wedge between the father and the son, they wrote, that forced the prince into rebellion.
Rooted in early conflict among Muslims in Arabia, just after Prophet Muhammad’s death, the term fitna was first used to describe the actions taken by the Prophet’s beloved wife Ayisha. She was the daughter of the first caliph, who opposed the fourth caliph, Ali, her first cousin, the son-in-law of the Prophet, and the first leader of the Shi’a Muslims. She led her forces against his in a seventh-century fight known as the Battle of the Camel, considered to be the first example of Islamic fitna—chaos or civil war. Shi’a sources cast Ayisha as the persecutor of Ali, while Sunni canon portrayed her as the champion of the rightful caliph. Ayisha was viewed then in various ways: reviled by some as “misc
hievous,” “worthless,” and “ambitious,” and hailed by others as a great authority and an impeccable transmitter of the Prophet’s traditions.12 Wounded in battle, the defeated Ayisha was rebuked by the victorious Ali: “Is that what the Messenger of God ordered you to do? Didn’t he order you to remain quietly in your house?”13
For centuries after the Battle of the Camel, the Islamic world associated fitna with what were seen as innately destructive elements in women: Their sexuality was ruinous, their ambition damaging. Women were a source of trouble, turmoil, and temptation.14 Women’s domain was the sacred, inner quarters. What else could follow a transgression of these boundaries but fitna? When some women in sixteenth-century Ottoman Turkey became politically prominent, Sunullah Efendi, the foremost guardian of Islamic law there and that empire’s highest-ranking cleric, felt compelled to declare publicly that women should have nothing to do with “matters of government and sovereignty.” To express his disapproval strongly, he recalled a tradition attributed to Prophet Muhammad about the harmful consequences of women’s leadership: “[A] people who entrusts its affairs to a woman will never know prosperity.”15
Shah Jahan and Mahabat—and many others in the Mughal court—shared such views. Jahangir’s assessment was rather different. At the same time that he was invested in Shah Jahan as his successor, he had broadened his vision of his own sovereignty to include Nur Jahan as co-ruler. Perhaps the emperor expected a form of this arrangement to continue after his death, with Shah Jahan ruling the Mughal Empire and Nur serving as his wise adviser and guiding light. There’s reason to believe Jahangir had once hoped that someday the empire would rest safely in the hands of his precious son and his beloved empress, to whom he had given the names King of the World and Light of the World, respectively. Jahangir knew, after all, that throughout Mughal history, women had served as counselors and guides, and Nur was far more politically experienced than any of those women had been. The emperor had observed, until their recent rift, the close, admiring, and supportive relationship between Nur and Shah Jahan, an affinity that had been based on their deeply felt sense of imperial responsibility. That Jahangir had once counted on this relationship to survive his demise is not hard to imagine. But by 1622, he would have seen clearly that his wife and son would never share sovereignty in any form. This must have made Shah Jahan’s rebellion look even more devastating to the emperor.