Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan

I recently ended my journey reading Ruby Lal's biography of the Empress Nur Jahan, twentieth wife to the fourth Mughal emperor, Jahangir. I knew little about Nur Jahan before reading her life-story, and this book was a great introduction to her life.

Mehr-un-Nissa was born to Ghiyas and Asmat Beg in modern-day Kandahar, under the Safavid empire. She was born into a family of nobility, and later moved to India. Her father worked in King Akbar's court, and was well-respected. At the age of 17 she married a soldier who was an official in the Mughal empire, Ali Quli, and moved to Bengal where he was a jagirdar (tax-collector). It was there where she gave birth to her only child, Ladli.

Mehr-un-Nissa tragically lost her husband a few years later, and was sent to the royal harem. She was then re-introduced to Prince Salim, and married him some months later. She was bestowed the title of Nur Mahal, and years later on was given the name of Nur Jahan.

Nur Jahan also wanted to find a way to continue her lineage in the Mughal empire, and so the nuptials of her daughter Ladli, and Jahangir's son Shahryar took place. This was an interesting exchange, as the children that Nur Jahan and Jahangir had with different people formed a legal bond in hopes of Shahryar procuring the throne.

Due to the marriage alliance that Nur Jahan had set forth, she was intent on Shahryar inheriting the Emperor's seat. However, he was de-throned by Prince Khurram, known as Shah-Jahan, after the death of Jahangir. After Shah-Jahan's rise to power, he aimed to distort the image of Nur-Jahan due to her initial aim to put Shahryar onto the throne.

Her interest in statecraft was what gave her the opportunity to rise alongside her husband, Jahangir. Although the Mughal empire was a patriarchal society where the role of a woman was clearly defined by the norms of the time, her operations of the empire's running ensured her name to go down in history.

Her co-sovereignty was declared when her face and name found its way to the coins, something unheard of in the rules of past Mughal emperors. Kings such as Akbar firmly believed that women must stay in the harem, and not in positions of leadership, something his son clearly defied as he allowed his wife to remain on equal footing. Jahangir was a person imbued with great eccentricities, (he had a pet pair of cranes named Layla and Majnun whose mating cycles he detailed in a notebook) and he regularly indulged in opium. This may have been a reason that Nur Jahan could rise to the position she reached, as her husband was someone who, though involved in the statecraft, also spent his a great deal of his time in consuming drugs, and exploring the world of the arts.

Nur Jahan herself was a poet, and wrote many poems about nature and love.

Something I would like to note on Ruby Lal's biography of Nur-Jahan is that it was far more Jahangir centric than giving a detailed narrative of Nur-Jahan's life. This is not something that I would blame the author for, as there was far too little written about Nur-Jahan due to the dominance of males at the time, and few scriptures penned at the time write in vivid detail of the life Nur-Jahan led. The erasure of Nur-Jahan can also be attributed to Shah-Jahan's repulsion towards her due to her supporting his enemy-brother's claim to the throne. All though most writers at the time wouldn't have thought it right to write all about the accomplishments of a female co-sovereign simply due to the orthodoxy prevalent in the society at the time, Ruby Lal has written Nur-Jahan's biography in a manner that gives justice to the legacy that she has left behind, a legacy of being a strong female in a time where the very idea of a woman being more than a mother and a wife was abominable. The book is an attribute to a female that subverted and rose above the pre-set expectations, and in a world where women continue to fight for their voice to be heard, Nur-Jahan's historic memory should be celebrated for her resolve and valor in an era that didn't allow for it.