Empress Page 4
From the food stalls wafted the aroma of cooked food and whiffs of raw meat. Rice was central to Persian cuisine, but in Lahore, it was served in piquant dishes unfamiliar to Asmat and Ghiyas, such as biryani—rice with meat, onions, peppers, cinnamon, cumin, and other spices; or its variants, yakhni (rice and meat cooked in a gravy or broth with onions) and yulma (a sheep scalded in water until its wool came off, and then prepared like yakhni in potage). Accompanying these dishes were breads large and small, baked in the oven or made in skillets.
Everywhere Ghiyas and Asmat would hear the melodious tones of their mother tongue, which had become the favored language of the Mughal elite. A large number of Persian-speakers had settled in Lahore, among them scholars and literary figures from Safavid Iran and neighboring Central Asian regions. Booksellers in the markets of Lahore, Delhi, and Agra sold anthologies of Persian poetry. The fourteenth-century Iranian poet Hafiz had predicted that Persian was so irresistible a language that someday “all the Indian parrots [poets]” would relish “this Persian candy.”6 Quoting in Persian from admired poets was as common among the cognoscenti in India as it was among intellectuals in Iran. Persian infiltrated everyday phrases and exclamations, as well: In the name of Allah; at the door of the grave; may you be damned in hell.
But there were words in the vernacular of Lahore that Ghiyas and Asmat wouldn’t have recognized. In India, Persian mingled with Gwaliyari, Braj, Kashmiri, Punjabi, and other rich dialects that contributed to Hindavi, the evolving language of Mughal India. Words, metaphors, and ideas from the Indian world had been integrated into the Persian language. Sufi centers in India played a vital role in this commingling. More than two centuries before Ghiyas and Asmat arrived in India, a new form of poetry was born, the genre known as Sabk-i Hindi—Persian poetry in the Indian style. From its beginnings, the form embodied the constant exchange between India and Iran, and the potential fruits of coexistence.7 Pre-Mughal Sufi poets Amir Khusraw and Hasan Sijzi of Delhi, for instance, urged in their Persian poetry the transcending of religious and sectarian differences—ideas that entered Indo-Persian culture and, later, deeply influenced Emperor Akbar’s promotion of tolerance.
The caravan was Mihr’s first nursery, and Lahore her second. The family stayed only a few months, a necessary stopover during which Asmat could rest and the children adjust to a new environment—the sight of grand Indian elephants, green parrots, and bright-blue peacocks; the absence of cypress trees. Ghiyas had time to think his way forward, considering the best possible plans. That Asmat’s uncle was still favored by Emperor Akbar was a promising sign of good fortune ahead. The uncle had already found a place in Akbar’s court for a cousin of Asmat’s, a young man who’d risen in the imperial ranks. Now it would be Ghiyas’s turn.
Ghiyas Beg’s first encounter with Emperor Akbar took place sometime between late 1578 and early 1579. From afar, as Mihr’s family approached Fatehpur-Sikri, they would have seen the pinnacles of the red sandstone harem, its multilevel stone pavilions crowned with umbrella domes. The capital was a stunning example of visual harmony. All its buildings were made from the same red sandstone, sang-i surkh, and its many gardens were cooled by the leafy shade of mango and neem trees and lush henna bushes. Hundreds of feet below Akbar’s harem was the caravanserai, the travelers’ lodging, from which Ghiyas and Asmat could gaze up at the majestic heights of the women’s quarters.
Ghiyas and Asmat would have known the legend of the founding of Fatehpur-Sikri before they arrived in the city. Nearly a decade earlier, when Agra was the capital of Mughal India, Emperor Akbar was in despair. Although several children had been born from his many marriages, none had survived. His courtiers suggested that he seek the blessings of the Sufi saint Salim Chishti in the village of Sikri. When Akbar visited Salim Chishti, the saint blessed him and foretold that he would have three sons. Prince Salim, n amed after the mystic, was born on August 30, 1569, to the first of Akbar’s Hindu wives, Harkha. The grateful emperor announced that as a tribute to the saint he would build the city of Fatehpur-Sikri.8 Fatehpur means City of Victory. Construction began two years after the birth of Prince Salim, who would one day take the name Jahangir, and continued into the 1580s.
Studded with domes and cupolas raised on columns, the tiled rooftops of the palace extended as far as the massive Jami Mosque. Near the palace was a great tower called the Hiran Minar, decorated with mock elephant tusks that commemorated Akbar’s capture and domination of elephants. On the maydan, a large open space, Akbar and his court enjoyed polo, elephant fights, gladiatorial battle, acrobatics, and the flying of trained imperial pigeons. A court historian described Fatehpur-Sikri, surrounded by desert, as “Paradise on the brink of the precipice.”9
Akbar gave two audiences every day. The first, for the general public, usually took place after he had finished his morning ablutions and prayers. He would appear at one of the balconies of the palace, showing himself, at a distance, for the jharokha darshan, the public viewing during which he blessed his people from on high.10 One scribe grandiloquently described the Mughal emperor during such an appearance as “the sun of heaven of great fortune … who gives asylum to the world, the splendor of whose forehead illuminates the eyes of the world.”
At the rise of the sun, as is customary, the kettledrums of rejoicing and success are sounded … fleet-footed horses, with jeweled trappings … and female elephants are displayed … before the imperial gaze … On every side, a wave of tumult of God-given magnificence rises … Renowned princes, exalted offspring of kings … khans, sultans, mirs and mirzas of Iran and Turan … exalted lords of pen, high-ranking amirs, amirs’ sons in service, a variety of swordsmen, triumphant elite servants, nimble quiver bearers … Arabs, Persian, Turks, Tajiks, Kurds, Tartars … various groups and castes of learned men from Hindustan … from all the perfected imperial realms … are honored to kiss the threshold.11
It would not be surprising if Ghiyas and Asmat went to view His Majesty upon arriving in the new capital. After all, Ghiyas was preparing for an audience with Akbar, and seeing the Mughal’s majesty would prime him for their meeting.
Akbar held a second, more exclusive audience each day, for local nobles and officials as well as ambassadors and trade representatives from other parts of the world.12 Typically, this took place in the State Hall, usually toward the close of the day or at night. There the emperor announced court appointments, facilitated by contacts and associates. It was at such a gathering that Ghiyas Beg was introduced to Akbar.
According to the inventive Khafi Khan, the historian who popularized the legend of Mihr’s abandonment, the caravan leader Malik Masud served as Ghiyas’s intermediary as he sought the monarch’s favor. Or perhaps Asmat’s uncle was the key. In any case, Ghiyas’s family and personal connections, and his previous service to the Persian shah were definite advantages in gaining access to Akbar.
The spacious State Hall was located at the eastern extremity of the palace, at the opposite end of the city from the harem. Tucked into one side of this meetinghouse was the pillared courtyard of the Audience Hall, the Dawlatkhana or Abode of Fortune. Here Akbar sat cross-legged on an elevated platform bearing a rug-draped red sandstone throne, clad in a knee-length gold-embroidered silk cloak tied at the waist with a delicately embroidered kamarband, the imperial dagger hung at his side. He wore a lamb’s wool shawl, tasteful necklaces of gold and pearls, finger rings, and gold-embroidered shoes with pointed toes. The emperor chose his clothes according to the traditional color of the day’s reigning planet, a practice his father had begun and that he continued.
The beating of a large drum and incantations to the divine inaugurated the assembly. Body guards, princes, grandees of the court, and men like Ghiyas Beg, who had permission to attend, stood barefoot in their designated places. Prince Salim, age ten, Akbar’s longed-for eldest son, was near him, at a distance of a yard or so when standing, and a yard and a half to six yards when sitting. The second little prince, Daniyal, stood a little farther off,
and the third, Murad, farther still. Railings of gold separated the king and the princes from the devoted nobles, next highest in rank, and these men were divided by a railing of silver from a group comprising the senior nobles, some lesser nobles, and other officials. A wooden railing set apart the rest of the men in the hall. Learned men and accomplished craftsmen paid their respects; imperial clerks presented petitions; and officers submitted their reports. From distant lands and fabled ports, merchants and traders came bearing expensive gems and other valuables, rarities and goods. Agile gladiators and wrestlers, singers, and entertainers waited in readiness for an imperial command.
The master of ceremonies, the courtier in charge of protocol, would have called out the name of Ghiyas Beg, who’d step forward dressed in the manner of a typical sixteenth-century Indo-Persian noble, in a white flowing cloak and elaborate turban, tasteful attire emphasizing his temperate demeanor in the presence of the almighty king. He would have worn no red, scarlet, or yellow; those colors were reserved exclusively for Akbar. Ghiyas would place the palm of his right hand upon his forehead and bend his head forward, performing kornish—a sign of the saluter’s humility and submission to the royal presence, and his readiness for any service that may be asked of him. Akbar was known for his polite address to those present in official assemblies. He spoke to all comers with “the correctness of his intentions, the unbiasedness of his mind, the humility of his disposition, the magnanimity of his heart, the excellence of his nature, the cheerfulness of his countenance, and the frankness of his manners.”13
Silence was an important part of court decorum. Those admitted to the emperor’s presence weren’t entitled to initiate a conversation. Ghiyas Beg would have stood before the Grand Mughal in stillness. If the emperor turned to look at a courtier or raised an eyebrow toward him, that courtier would be pleased; if the emperor spoke, he would feel blessed.
Khafi Khan reports a charming exchange between Akbar and the caravan leader that may or may not have actually occurred. Akbar remarked to Malik Masud that the caravan leader hadn’t brought fine presents this year as he had in previous years. Masud was pleased. Artfully, he responded that he had in fact brought a living present such as had never come from Iran or Turan [Central Asia].14 The emperor took the measure of Ghiyas Beg, who, well schooled in courtly etiquette, stood humbly, head slightly bowed, hands folded, awaiting any royal directive. Following the audience, he was given employment by the Grand Mughal.15
Akbar had devised a complicated system for assigning warrior-nobles, mature princes, and elite officers numerical rankings called mansab—ranging from 10 to 10,000—that determined their salaries. Nobles and officers served in a variety of capacities: as provincial governors, commanders of strategic fortresses, heads of military campaigns, revenue collectors who oversaw local tax collectors, provincial judicial officers, and chief town officials.
Ghiyas’s first job and starting rank in Mughal service are unrecorded.16 But sources note that when he became the diwan (fiscal or a revenue officer) of Kabul in 1595–96, he was granted a mansab of 300. By the time Akbar’s son succeeded him as emperor early in the seventeenth century, Ghiyas’s rank had soared to 7,000—near the top of the line.
As he left his first audience with Akbar, Ghiyas would have offered the emperor taslim, a salutation that involved placing the back of his right hand on the ground, then raising it gently until he stood erect, putting the palm of his hand upon the crown of his head. Repeating the taslim three times to indicate that he was ready to give himself as an offering, Ghiyas Beg would set forth on his new Indian career.
FOUR
The Cupolas of Chastity and the Perfect Man
As Ghiyas and his family began settling into their new life in Fatehpur-Sikri, two events were still the talk of the town. One was the fire that ravaged a workshop known for producing the finest textiles in the country; piles of fine wool carpets made by Persian weavers and 10 million yards of velvet, silk, satin, and brocade had burned to ash. The other was far more momentous: A few months earlier, several older women of the imperial harem had left on an unprecedented pilgrimage to Mecca. Akbar’s elderly aunt Gulbadan Banu Begum—her name translates as Princess Rosebody—had informed her nephew that she wished to go to Mecca with other women from the harem so she could fulfill her pledge to God that she would visit the holy places. Until recently, however, the route had been unsafe because of squabbles with Portuguese traders who commanded extensive trade rights in the Indian Ocean and issued passes to pilgrims. Once the Portuguese and the Mughals settled their differences, Gulbadan brought up the matter again. Akbar gave her permission to proceed, along with provisions and a large sum of money.1
Gulbadan, cerebral and observant, in her seventies at the time of the pilgrimage to Mecca, was the daughter of the first Mughal, Babur. She left for posterity the only historical chronicle written by a woman in the age of the classical Muslim Empires—the Ottomans of Turkey, the Safavids of Iran, and the Mughals of India—providing extraordinary insight into the lives of Mughal court women.
Accompanied by thirteen senior harem women, and their servants, reciters, and singers, Gulbadan departed from Fatehpur-Sikri in the fall of 1578, just as Asmat and Ghiyas were leaving Lahore. The women planned to cut southwest through the province of Gujarat in western India, where they would board a ship for Mecca. Akbar directed his six-year-old son Murad to lead the pilgrims on their journey to the sea. In the Mughal world of the seventeenth century, a little boy was considered man enough to escort the most senior women of the dynasty. But when Gulbadan made the point that precisely due to his tender age Murad should be left behind, the emperor acquiesced. Three older men escorted the convoy.
The women decided that Akbar’s mother, Hamideh Begum, and a trusted servant woman who was her confidante should remain in the capital to counsel the emperor. Akbar often relied on his mother for support and advice. The two were mutually devoted. Hamideh had a habit of traveling to visit her son unannounced when he was away from the capital. Earlier that year, for instance, the emperor was hunting in the forests of Punjab when his attendants announced to him that his mother had arrived at the camp and was anxious to see him; Akbar was delighted to receive her. He clearly admired her mettle. Once when he went to Kabul to settle scores with a rebellious stepbrother, he left his mother in charge of the province of Delhi.
Gulbadan’s pilgrimage to Mecca with other senior royal women, and their insistence on leaving Emperor Akbar’s mother behind as his counselor, reveals a great deal about the workings of the Mughal harem.
A few years before Ghiyas and Asmat arrived at the capital, Akbar had declared that women of the royal household were to be segregated in a well-ordered, high-walled harem. To ensure their seclusion, he built a large enclosure and gave each woman a separate apartment. According to the first official history of the Mughals, Akbarnama (The history of Akbar), commissioned by Akbar and written by historian Abul-Fazl, the harem housed five thousand women—but Father Antonio Monserrate, a Jesuit priest visiting from Portugal, reported the number as three hundred. The movement of the sequestered women was restricted, and rules governed who could visit them and who could not. The harem was under constant surveillance. Women superintendents watched over each section—the most trusted in the emperor’s quarters, which were guarded by eunuchs. A contingent of Rajputs, a Hindu warrior clan, patrolled the perimeter of the women’s palace.
The harem played a role in Akbar’s grand plan for solidifying political networks and expanding his territory. Early in his reign, Akbar was unsatisfied with the size of his empire. Though he controlled a large central area that included the fertile plain of the river Ganga, in the east, large areas of Bengal were still under the command of local rulers, and in the west, Ajmer was in the hands of Rajputs, while Gujarat and adjoining states had a tributary status. Akbar set out to change that, acquiring territory through massive and bloody military campaigns across India, battles that won him the sultanate of Gujarat and the sta
te of Bengal, among others. He also grew his empire through shrewd alliances. He recruited advisers, governors, and officers of diverse ethnic, regional, and religious backgrounds, and married into the families of several of these men. Having both Muslim and Hindu wives allowed Akbar to create the political networks that helped him rule a Hindu majority and set the foundation for expanding Mughal authority.
Furthermore, the seclusion of women in the harem, which Fazl called the fortunate place of sleep, contributed to what amounted to an imperial rebranding. In the early 1570s, the emperor began casting himself as a sacred figure, an infallible spiritual authority. Fazl, the official historian, amplified the emperor’s illustrious genealogy, hinting at divine roots. The inviolability of the royal harem, penetrable only by the emperor—housing glorious and untouchable women, fitting consorts of a godlike king—was meant to be further proof of his near-divinity. The terms used by Akbar’s court historian to describe the harem—for example, cupolas of chastity and the women within it—the chaste secluded ladies—were meant to make clear that Akbar’s was an unpolluted line. The harem also served as a symbol of the emperor’s strength and virility. Fazl’s assertion in the Akbarnama that the harem held five thousand women was vital proof of the emperor’s power.2
Of course, the Great Mughal (or Grao Mogor, Groote Mogul, Grand Mogol, as the Portuguese, Dutch, and French called Akbar, respectively) wasn’t inventing a completely new body of rules for women. His nomadic ancestors had maintained firm codes of modesty and separation, but their peripatetic lives made complete segregation of the sexes impossible. Akbar carried the process much further by permanently secluding his women, whom he called the veiled ones.