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  In various seasons, Hindus recited tales from the glorious epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, marking the triumph of good over evil. Mihr may have read Persian translations, or learned about the characters in Hindu epics and fables from the non-Muslim employees of the household. They would tell the children the stories of women such as Shakuntala (the wife of a king who overcomes the curse separating them) and Draupadi, a major character in the Mahabharata—and gently reprimand the children when they misbehaved by reminding them of the morals of these stories: be brave, be obedient, learn from elders.

  As she matured, Mihr would note the subtlety of the tales she heard and read, picking up insinuations of the earthy and the divine in poetry and fables. She would learn that the story of the Wak-Wak tree appears in a Quranic verse that calls it the Tree of Zakkum and says that its fruit was the head of a demon. (The tale may have even deeper roots; a sixth-century Chinese writer mentioned a similar legend.) A great intellectual in the ninth-century court of the Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad described the tree as a cross between plant and animal. In tenth-century Arabic literature, it was noted that the tree grew in India, though over the centuries various writers conjectured that it could be found in the Indian Ocean, on Madagascar or islands off the coast of East Africa, on the Pacific Rim near Japan. Asmat or Ghiyas might have told her that Alexander the Great was said to have visited the talking tree of Wak-Wak; male and female heads on the tree prophesied his death.7 The many rich variations of this story may have sparked her love of literature and poetry.

  Ghiyas and Asmat would have seen early signs of Mihr’s agile mind, her ingenuity and literary imagination. She would continue a tradition, a way of thinking and being, that Ghiyas and other Persian migrants like him longed to nurture. In Nasir al-Din Tusi’s Akhlaq-i Nasiri (Nasirean ethics), one of the detailed and dogmatic childrearing manuals popular with Muslim parents, the author declared that well-bred girls and boys should keep away from “frivolous poetry, with its talk of odes and love and wine-bibbing … for poetry can only be the corruption of youth.”8 Ghiyas disagreed; lyrical sensibilities ran deep in his family. His father, Muhammad Sharif was an accomplished poet, as was his brother, who took the pen name Wasli, the One Who Seeks Union with the Divine. His cousin Shapur, who had visited India before Ghiyas, produced a collection of poems. To these men, the boundary between the human and divine was porous; longing across differences was the great unifier. Poetry and mysticism shared this desire to dissolve dualisms.

  In Safavid Iran, speaking of direct union with God, extolling the majesty of love and youth, even displaying a questioning or introspective attitude had come to be viewed as heretical. Poets, mystics, and thinkers were persecuted or killed for what was considered blasphemy.

  In India, Ghiyas was able to nurture his expressive inheritance. His haveli became a haven for poets such as Hakim Arif, who was so moved by Ghiyas’s love for the genre that he wrote a panegyric poem in his honor. Ghiyas also welcomed Talib Amuli, whom he would one day introduce to Jahangir. Amuli so impressed the monarch that he awarded him the title Malik us-Shu’ara, the King of Poets.9 Perhaps when she was a little girl, Mihr sneaked up close to the men’s quarters and hid in a corner to hear the visiting poets recite.

  While Mihr would acquire a taste for narrative and poetry informally, from listening to stories and poems and from her own unfettered explorations of literature, and from memorizing the Quranic verses—becoming familiar with the torments and travails of Quranic characters—her reading would have also had to follow certain parental and societal prescriptions. She and her sisters would be expected to read aloud the elegant, lyrical prose of Gulistan (The rose garden), written in 1258 by Saadi, the Shakespeare of Persian literature. The spirit of the book would suit Asmat and Ghiyas’s mild temperaments. Within Saadi’s parables lay instruction for handling the challenges of adulthood and guidelines for wise leadership, as in the first chapter, “The Conduct of Kings,” where Saadi calls for prudence and justice in a ruler.10 Mihr and her parents never dreamed that she would someday put this advice to practical use in ruling their adopted homeland along with her emperor husband. Such a position—or anything close to the exercise of political power by a woman—was simply not part of their world.

  What mattered most to noble Muslim families of Mughal India was strengthening character—teaching children what a growing boy should learn in order to be a gentleman; how a girl should behave in order to be an ideal woman. Such instruction covered every aspect of their lives: where they slept; how they dressed; what they learned; what and how they ate; whether they drank wine or composed poetry; whether and where they played with kites or pigeons; how and where they mixed socially, and with whom.

  Among Tusi’s prescription for girls in Akhlaq-i Nasiri, first published in 1235 and one of the five books that Emperor Akbar regularly had read to him:

  In the case of daughters, one must employ … whatever is appropriate and fitting to them. They should be brought up to keep close to the house and live in seclusion (hijab), cultivating gravity, continence (‘iffat), modesty and other qualities we have enumerated in the chapter on Wives. They should be prevented from learning to read or write, but allowed to acquire such accomplishments as are commendable in women.11

  Two centuries earlier, another guide to conduct, Qabus-Nama, also a favorite among kings and aristocracy, spoke of a girl’s lot in more starkly negative terms:

  If you have a daughter, entrust her to kindly nurses and give her good nature. When she grows up, entrust her to a preceptor … [to] learn the sacred law and the essential religious duties. But do not teach her to read and write; that is a great calamity. Once she is grown up, do your utmost to give her in marriage; it were best for the girl not to come into existence, but, being born, she had better be married or be buried … daughters are captives of their parents … helpless and incapable of finding employment. Make provision for her … fasten her about someone’s neck so as to escape from anxiety for her.12

  Although the idea of universal education for women didn’t exist, there was a tradition in Persia and Al-Hind of men acknowledging the intellectual achievements of women. Poets and compilers of biographical compendiums wrote of women who were literary stars, and of those learned in religion. According to these books, thirty-two female scholars lived in Baghdad in the eleventh century; two hundred “noteworthy” women lived in Damascus in the twelfth century. A fifteenth-century Egyptian, Al Sakhwai, wrote Kitab al-Nisa, an extensive collective biography of several women in his time who were transmitters of the traditions of the hadith, the records of the Prophet’s words and deeds.13 Mihr would learn about awe-inspiring, well-remembered queens and princesses in the Islamic world, such as Pari Khan Khanum, a daring Safavid princess and fine poet from Asmat and Ghiyas’s native Iran, and, from their adopted land, Gulbadan, Akbar’s bold and independent memoirist aunt.

  As for boys, in almost all manuals of comportment that parents or tutors would use, the discipline of the senses was primary. “Let [the boy] also from time to time adopt the custom of eating dry bread,” Tusi counseled. “Such manners, albeit good in poor men, are even better in rich.… He should be accustomed not to drink water while eating and he should on no account be given wine and intoxicating drinks before he reaches early manhood.” Boys shouldn’t be allowed to sleep too much, or during the day, Tusi said, because that produced “deadness of mind.” Walking, riding, and exercise were to be “customary pursuits.” To be humble and gracious with peers, they were not to boast about wealth or possessions or what they ate or wore. Boys must be taught to refrain from arrogance and obstinacy. The tutor who imparted this guidance, Tusi counseled, should be intelligent and religious, well versed in the training of dispositions, “with a reputation for fair speech and gravity, an awe-inspiring manner, manliness and purity; he must also be aware of the characters of kings, the manners involved in associating with them and addressing them …”14

  The evidence of Mihr’s later accomplishment
s suggests that the gentle Asmat and Ghiyas didn’t follow Tusi’s harsher dictates. But even without the stern advice of strict authorities like Tusi or the author of the Qabus-Nama, they would insist that all their children embody such virtues as patience, discernment, and the dutiful practice of their faith. Asmat and Ghiyas would teach their sons and daughters the value of courtesy and proper demeanor. Gravity and courage would mark a man; gravity and modesty, a woman. Indelicate language was not allowed under any circumstances. Short and refreshing were the “watchwords of conversation.”15

  Mihr’s parents would make sure that their daughters would be known for intelligence, piety, self-control, good judgment, tenderness, and temperate speech. In their sons, they cultivated the strength, dexterity, daring, resolution, and loyalty that led to the advancement of noble men in the Mughal court. Being skilled in the martial arts, archery, swordsmanship, riding and managing elephants and horses, along with the craft of calligraphy and polished discourse, would also come in handy.

  As Mihr and her siblings grew older, the social, political, and cultural universe of her brothers became ever more separate from that of their sisters. Muhammad, Asaf, and Ibrahim would accompany Ghiyas Beg to festivities and ceremonies at court, where they witnessed Akbar’s embrace of Hindu social rituals. On special occasions, the emperor applied a vermillion mark to the foreheads of select political subordinates in the court. Twice a year, he had himself weighed against a variety of goods and materials that were then distributed as alms. He worshipped the sun publicly, facing the east and prostrating himself before a sacrificial fire as Hindu clerics recited the names of the sun in Sanskrit—even as he bowed to Mecca in the west for the five times’ daily Muslim prayer.

  Akbar took great care in rearing his beloved son Salim to be the next heir. Ghiyas, in grooming his own sons to be worthy aristocrats, could use the Mughal princes as prime models. Just as a well-selected tutor was vital to the training of noble boys, so was a guardian, or ataliq, crucial in the training of princes. The ataliq supervised a prince’s studies of the Quran; various Islamic sciences, including rhetoric, epistolary style, proper speech, and prosody; and military skills—strategy, tactics, and the correct use of weaponry. After their circumcision and the start of formal education, bismillah khani (pronouncing the name of God), usually at the age of four or five, Mughal princes received a daily stipend and began their integration into the life of the empire.

  As an energetic and willful teenager, Salim took part in imperial processions and accompanied Akbar on royal hunts. Ghiyas and his sons would see Salim on many occasions, and in many roles. (Whether Mihr ever saw him is a matter of dispute.) Emperor Akbar ordered that, every month, a day should be set aside for an imperial bazaar where merchants displayed goods from around the world. This was also a day when ordinary men could present their grievances to the emperor.16

  Akbar, his harem women, and women of other noble households were invited to attend the bazaar. Languages crisscrossed: Persian with Braj, Pashto with Bhasha. Travelers and traders told tales of places far and near—the wonders of the world, made even more delicious in romantic renderings. It is not hard to picture Mihr in the bazaar, along with Asmat and Dilaram. And it’s possible that, as legends say but no official records prove, Mihr visited the Mughal palace on numerous occasions and could have been spotted by Prince Salim long before he became emperor and married her.

  As adults, Muhammad, Asaf, and Ibrahim left the haveli for the world outside. Muhammad, embroiled in an act of treason against the Mughals, was executed in 1605. Asaf married the daughter of an eminent Persian man, who served in various military and financial capacities under Akbar—she remains nameless in Mughal records that speak of him—had children, and lived a long life as a distinguished Mughal noble. In due time, references to Ibrahim would appear in court histories, along with Asaf.

  Mihr, Manija, and Khadija would leave the haveli too—but not for the court, the hunting lodge, or the imperial harem, nor the domain of imperial offices. When they left the haveli of Asmat and Ghiyas, it would be for marriage; their new lives would be bound by familiar routines of domestic life and cultural propriety handed down to generations of women.

  Asmat and Ghiyas chose young, rising Mughal officers, men of good inheritance, as their sons-in-law. Manija was married to Qasim Khan, an excellent poet who earned distinction as a treasurer under the governor of Bengal. He became famous as Qasim Khan Manija, the name of his wife, by which the court wits addressed him.17 (What does it tell us about Asmat and Ghiyas’s home that Manija too grew up to be such a strong person that her husband came to be called by her name?) Khadija was married to a nobleman, Hakim Khan, an official in the court of Emperor Jahangir. Except for stray references to their husbands, there is nothing else in the records about Manija or Khadija.

  The matrimonial career of their sister, Mihr, however, would eventually generate volumes of praise, blame, conjecture, and legend. It began with her first wedding to an ordinary provincial Mughal officer.

  SIX

  The Mirror of Happiness

  Carved in graceful floral patterns, a wooden screen separated the men’s section of the wedding ceremony from the women’s. Asmat, her daughters and daughters-in-law and their children, Dai Dilaram, and a host of other women surrounded the bride, seventeen-year-old Mihr. Dark-eyed and slender, she would have worn a knee-length shirt and shalwar, long breeches, of muslin or fine silk. Both were white, the color of blessedness, with heavy brocade, gold for luck, decorating the sleeves and hem of the shirt. Seamstresses would make sure that Mihr’s wedding shirt wasn’t sewn with any knots; they were inauspicious and would fetter fortune. A taboo on buttons had been relaxed by this time, as with other Indian and Iranian practices that had undergone changes in the Mughal world. Jackets with prized jeweled buttons made of ruby and cornelian were in vogue among kings, queens, and nobles, and Mihr may have worn such a garment over her wedding clothes.1

  She wore jeweled earrings—rubies, perhaps, or pearls—and a shimmering veil of transparent silk, embroidered with gold filaments, would be draped loosely over her head, showing her exquisite face.2 Kohl lined her almond-shaped eyes, a feature that stands out in her later portraits.

  On the other side of the screen sat the groom, Ali Quli Beg, a Mughal government official and former military officer, dressed in a flowing silk top and trousers embroidered in gold. He was accompanied by Mihr’s brothers; Asmat’s uncle, the first member of the family to arrive at the Mughal court; cousin Jafar Beg, who reached India a little before Asmat and Ghiyas; court associates; and family friends. Quli’s first benefactor in India, one of Akbar’s generals, would likely have been present. As was the custom, Ghiyas would have withdrawn from the room when the groom signed the marriage contract in order to leave the new husband in “complete liberty.”3

  The records don’t say precisely where the 1594 wedding of Mihr and Ali Quli took place, but the most likely venue was Ghiyas and Asmat’s Agra haveli.4 A wedding at a nobleman’s house was a big event for the community. The mansion would have been festooned inside and out with lace, tinsel, strings of bells, and colorful embroidered fringes; the trees in the courtyard would be hung with garlands of marigolds and jasmine. Before and during the ceremony, support staff would hurry in and out of the mansion—servants, singers, seamstresses, while palanquin-bearers waited inside the front gate. Women guests from neighboring houses—newlywed and the long-married, young girls and old women—would join Mihr’s mother, her sisters, and her brothers’ wives in the women’s quarters. Some wore bracelets of small seedpods and new buds, signs of favor and love.

  Marriage arrangements in aristocratic Indian households of the late sixteenth century were made according to set protocols. Mihr and Quli’s union was brokered in the usual way, with one likely exception. Traditionally, the groom’s mother, sisters, or another female relative would launch negotiations with the bride’s family. Often this would happen after the groom’s family engaged a female peddler
or a wet nurse—someone with access to the women’s quarters of the prospective bride’s home—to surreptitiously gather information about the family’s background and circumstances. Among the elite Muslims of the time, eunuchs and singers of qawwali, Sufi devotional music, usually carried the marriage offer from the bridegroom’s family to the bride’s. Hastgari, asking for a young woman’s hand in marriage, entailed an offer of two sums of money to the bride’s parents. The first, the marriage settlement, was the insurance money for the daughter in case of divorce or the death of her husband.5 The second, an Iranian practice that Mihr’s family would likely have retained, was the chirbeha or the “price of milk,” given to the bride’s mother in symbolic repayment for the milk with which she nourished her daughter. After the customary bargaining and agreement on appropriate sums, the parents of the bride would accept or reject the proposal. If the answer was yes, the groom’s female relatives would then bring a shawl and a ring to the girl’s house to mark the betrothal. Several festivities and rituals involving the two families followed, but the bridegroom and the bride met only on the day of their wedding.

  No contemporary writer mentions who brought the marriage proposal to Mihr’s family, or what kind of negotiations followed. That’s probably because Quli had no relatives in India to make the arrangements. A former table attendant of Shah Isma’il II, he’d fled Iran immediately after the king was murdered in 1578. No sources reveal how he supported himself during the several years he wandered through the Persian territories. But in 1592, when he reached Multan, a city in what is now the Punjab region of Pakistan, he joined the Mughal Army. The imperial troops, led by Abdur-Rahim, were about to go into battle against the ruler of Sind, a kingdom south of Multan bordering the Safavid Empire.