14 MANUSHI

Many women of the Mughal eraare known to history by name.Although secluded behind carvedmarble screens or by covered haudaswhen they went out, women of theMughal families are available now tocontemporary Indian culture aspersonalities of substantial education,considerable power and enduringcharisma. This is due in large measureto the wealth of detail and the historicalimmediacy of the written sources of theperiod, whether they be Persian,Sanskrit, or European language. Oneof the women whose person hasachieved some stature through thisprocess of cultural reification is NurJahan, last wife of the emperor Jahangir(r. 1605-1627), whocame to the thronewith their marriage in 1611 and whosevirtual domination over court andimperial affairs lasted until Jahangir’sdeath in 1627 and her own exile toLahore.

Nur Jahan was born Mihrunnisa inthe city of Kandhar as her familytraveled from Tehran to Akbar’ s courtin Agra in order to better its politicaland economic fortunes. Mihrunnisawas originally married to a Turkishadventurer, who had been given the

title Sher Afgan “tiger slayer” by thenprince Salim and with whom she hadonechild,a daughter Ladli. Sher Afgandied in a political struggle in Bengal in1607 and Mihrunnisa returned to theMughal court with her daughter to liveout four years of relative anonymityunder the watchful care of one of theelder women of Akbar’s harem,Ruqayya Sultan. Then, at the Naurozbazaar of 1611, Jahangir spied thethirty-five year old widow and madeimmediate plans to marry her. Thisevent took place a few months later.At that time Jahangir was increasinglyunder the influence of alcohol andopium, and Mihrunnisa (to be giventhe title Nur Mahal “light of thepalace” on the occasion of her secondmarriage and Nur Jahan “light of theworld” in 1616) quickly took control ofthe channels of decision and influence.The immediacy of this preeminencewas recognized by William Hawkins,an early English trader at the Mughalcourt, who noted already in 1611 thathe had “to seeke out for jewels fittingfor the kings, new paramour” (sic) inorder to win favor with the emperor.1

Nur Jahan was soon established as thecentral figure of consequence in a

powerful configuration of rule, calledthe “faction” by the Englishambassador Sir ThomasRoe, whichincluded herself, her fatherItimaduddaula, her brother Asaf Khan,and her step son Khurram (ShahJahan). The extent of her control boththrough the faction and on her ownhas been given in a famous passagefrom the Iqbalnama: “Day by day herinfluence and dignity increased....Nogrant of lands was conferred upon anywoman except under herseal....Sometimes she would sit in thebalcony of her palace, while the nobleswould present themselves, and listento her dictates. Coin was struck in hername...On all farmans also receivingthe Imperial signature, the name of‘Nur Jahan, the Queen Begam,’ wasjointly attached.”* The uses, andperhaps abuses, of power by Nur Jahanwere legendary and appeared in everyarena in which she lived and worked.Using as a model increasingly far-reaching concentric circles (mandalasor fields of power ),we will examineseveral examplesof Nur Jahan’sinfluence at court and in thecountryside, maintaining throughoutthat while she used every channel

Nur JahanA Woman’s Power in a Mughal Court

Ellison Banks Findly

Nur Jahan, Mughal Painting, 18th c.

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available to her through which to exertand manipulate power, she neveroverstepped the boundaries ofpropriety given to Muslim women, onthe one hand, and to sovereigns overIndian life on the other.

Life with JahangirThe Iqbatnama passage begun

above continued with a statement byJahangir that, as he “bestowed thesovereignty on Nur Jahan Begam,” hehimself required “nothing beyond a sirof wine and half a sir of meat.”4 Thissentiment pervaded all accounts of theprivate life of Jahangir and Nur Jahanin which the empress was depicted asnurse, governess, and dominatrixterrible. Jahangir was in partresponsible for the widespreadperception of her as having almostcompletecontrol over his personal life,for he routinely used his memoirs (theTuzuk-i Jahangiri) to discuss suchthings as his illnesses, which he didwith great intimacy, and then to declarethat he told such things only to NurJahan “than whom I did not thinkanyone was fonder of me.”5 That NurJahan ordinarily acted as personalphysician to her husband is confirmedin the memoirs for the year 1621 whereJahangir described the habitual careshe gave in trying to reduce his cupsof wine, to get him to accept the adviceand medication of the court physicians,and even to make substantial medicaldecisions on her own based on hisresponses to care to date. Her “skilland experience are greater than thoseof the physicians.... She, by degrees,lessened my wine, and kept me fromthings that did not suit me, and foodthat disagreed with me.”6

Knowing that Jahangir himselfmade such references to her highvisibility in the attentive care given hisbody makes it easier to accept thesimilar accounts of contemporaryDutch traders. Francisco Pelsaert wasa senior factor for the Dutch East IndiaCompany stationed in Agra from 1620

to 1627. His normally concise narrativefairly bloom s when describing the dailylife of Jahangir and, turning to themoment when the emperor was to goto bed, he noted that Nur Jahan andsome female slaves came to him to“undress him, chafing and fondling himas if he were a little child.” Subduedand made responsive by drink Jahangir

had become easily malleable to thosearound him: “...his wife, who knows sowell how to manage him that sheobtains whatever she asks for ordesires gets always ‘yes,’ and hardlyever ‘no,’ in reply.”? Pieter van denBroecke, Pelsaert’s superior while inIndia and from whom he may havederived his own contemporary

Mughal Painting, ca. 1615, said to be of Nurjahan and Jahangir

16 MANUSHI

account, embellished this same storyand went on to suggest that Jahangir“suffered in his mind because hefound himself too much in the powerof his wife and her associates....She didwith him as she liked, his daily rewardbeing pretended love and sweet words,for which he had to pay dearly.”

The portrayal of Nur Jahan’sinfluence over Jahangir in his ownpersonal habits was elaborated by thenext generation of European sources.Niccolao Manucci, originally fromVenice, arrived in India in 1656 at theinauguration of Aurangzeb’s rule and,from either street bazaar gossip or courtwhispers, devised an elaborate accountof Nur Jahan’s hold over her husband.“It was enough for the queen to denyhim a drink of wine to drive him totears,” he stated, “and to dry them youhad only to present him a glass wellfilled with liquor.” More specifically,Manucci noted that Nur Jahansuc-ceeded in getting Jahangir to agreeto drink less, down to nine cupfuls, aslong as they were offered by her ownhand. The report continued, however,by describing what would happenwhen Jahangir wanted more and NurJahan held the line: “When he saw thatthe queen would not give ear to hiswords, he fell into a passion, laid holdof the queen and scratched her, shedoing the same on her side, grapplingwith the king, biting and scratchinghim, and no one dared to separatethem.”*

That these accounts have originalsupport from passages in the Tuzuksuggest that there must have beensome truth to at least the general tenorof the stories. Jahangir’s own remarkswere probably grounded in his prideat Nur Jahan’s skill and attentiveness;the Dutch narratives in the need topass on all information found in thelocal contemporary marketplace; andManucci’s story in a love ofembellishing material, now manydecades old, spun from many threads.

The Khusrau AffairNur Jahan was involved almost

daily in the intrigue at court, whetherin the established palaces at Agra andLahore, in more temporary settingssuch as Mandu, or in camp whiletravelling. She took on cases ofpromotion and demotion, allocation ofjagirs , trade decisions, and marriagenegotiations, for example, with suchease that most sources of the timeassumed that she was the only onereally making decisions. Said IheIqbalnama: “At last her authorityreached such a pass that the King wassuch only in name". While moststatements abouther power were likethis one in that they gave only ageneral description but no specificcase examples, the case was played outin some detail: that of the politicaldisenfranchisement of Jahangir s eldestson Khusrau as hinted at by Jahangirand as stated more openly by Roe.

From Jahangir’s perspective, therehad been trouble with Khusrau for along time. Late in the reign of Akbar,Salim had become impatient for thethrone and, in the breach that hadoccurred between him and his father,the eldest son (or grandson) hadbecome a serious contender withserious courtly backing. AlthoughSalim eventually reconciled with Akbarand mounted the throne upon hisfather ’s death in 1605, Khusraucontinued to entertain imperial designsand in 1606 went into revolt againstJahangir. Jahangir successfully quelledthe sedition, humiliating or executingall the perpetrators, and from then onkept Khusrau under what amounted tohouse arrest until the son’s death in1621 in the Deccan while under thesupervisory care of his brother ShahJahan.

Jahangir’s own accounts overdevelopments with Khusrau indicatedclearly his paternal worry over “theunhappy affair of Khusrau.” Theyshowed his “concern for the physical

well-being of his son: “I ordered himnot to be kept in the fort like a prisoner,but that they should provideeverything necessary for his comfortand convenience in the way of eatingand clothing.” And they also showedthe firmness with which Jahangirwanted filial submission: “As hisappearance showed no signs ofopenness and happiness, and he wasalways mournful and dejected in mind,I accordingly ordered that he shouldnot come to pay his respects.” Late inthe imprisonment, Jahangir relentedand, in the spirit of forgiveness, said:“I accordingly sent for him and badehim salute me.” Khusrau’s death,however, noted a full half year after itactually occurred, was recorded in onesentence, simply that he had died froma disease of colic pains.” No mentionwas made of the murderous affair thatJahangir probably suspected it reallywas. If we had relied only on Jahangir,nothing would be known of NurJahan’s involvement in the Khusrauaffair. For this, we must go to the travelmemoirs of Thomas Roe who waspresent at the court from 1616to 1618.His account implicated Nur Jahanexplicitly as the author of the “impudentbouldnes in a faction that dare attemptanything.” “Normahall attemptes theking with the false tears of womansbewitching flattery” and, with thefaction specifically, “resolued it wasnot possible for them to stand if thePrince Sultan Corsoronneliued,...therfore Practised how to bringhim into their Power, that poyson mightend him.” (sic)” Nur Jahan, he arguedlater in 1616, was party to a plot to allyKhusrau with her brother Asaf Khan,to the ultimate detriment of the former,and in this acted with “witt andsubtiltye.” (sic)13 Although thealliance was made and Khusrau’sdeceptive “liberty” effected, it did nogood for him in the end for these verysame people and, in particular NurJahan, were involved in persuading

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Jahangir to let Shah Jahan takeKhusrau to the Deccan withhim,presumably for safekeeping but (asall knew) for a quick end, far from thewatchful eyes of the Mughal durbar.

In spite of how suspect Nur Jahanmay be as the pivotal engineer in theoppressive court machinations againstKhusrau in the latter part of his life, wemust understand her role in theintrigues around him not necessarilyas malevolent actions towards him butas actions protective of her ownfamily’s interests. Khusrau hadrejected Nur Jahan’s overtures formarriage to her daughter Ladli and,while part of her support of hostilitiestowards him may stem from motives ofrevenge, most reflected her attemptsto clear the way for whoever her son-in-law should be, in the hopes ofgaining the throne and thus ensuringthe continued presence of her familyat the center of power for at least onemore generation. By happenstance,that son-in-law would turn out to beShahryar, a weak off-spring of Jahangirand a concubine, who would die in thesuccession struggles following thedeath of Jahangir. Nur Jahan’s effortshere, then, would be for naught.

Martial ProwessWhile many Mughal women

attended their ailing husbands andworked the channels of power withadroitness, Nur Jahan added to thesewhat appears to be the uniqueachievements of skillful marksmanship,military strategy, and tremendouscourage in battle. We focus here ontwo somewhat unrelated expressionsof this in her life: her skill in shootingrifles, and her physical involvement incountering the rebellion of MahabatKhan.

We first hear of Nur Jahan’s facilitywith the rifle in a 1616 passage fromthe Tuzuk in which Jahangir noted thatshe had used a gun to shoot a largebird, the likes of which in size and colorhad not ever been seen before.14 The

next year Nur Jahan offered to kill tigerswith her gun if Jahangir so ordered-which he did.

“She shot two tigers with one shoteach and knocked over [i.e., killed] thetwo others with four shots.” Theunusual aspect of this feat was not somuch her accuracy, which Jahangirwould in fact go on to make much of,but that Nur Jahan shot from inside ahauda mounted on the back of anelephant. How she managed so manygood shots without causing the tigers

to spring or move was a great marvelto Jahangir.15

The final Tuzuk account took placein 1619. Jahangir had taken a vow ofnon-violence “that I would not injureany living thing with my own hand”and, when his party was faced with anapproaching tiger, had to call on NurJahan to kill it, which she did with oneshot. Jahangir remarked here again onthe two unusual features of her action:that Nur Jahan’s elephant was so wellcontrolled that it did not get scared of

Lady with a Rifle”, probably Nur Jahan, Mughal Painting, ca. 1612 -15

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the tiger (“An elephant is not at easewhen it smells a tiger, and is continuallyin movement, and to hit with a gun froma litter is a very difficult matter”), andthat Nur Jahan needed only one shotwhen Mirza Rustam, Jahangir’s bestmarksman,” “has several times missedthree or four shots from an elephant.”18

Nur Jahan’s skill with a gun andher courage in the face of real physicaldanger were exhibited in a secondcontext, that of the river battle duringthe rebellion of Mahabat Khan.Mahabat Khan had been an oldcolleague and friend of Jahangir’s whohad been involved in imperial affairsfor almost all the years of the emperor’sreign. In 1626, however, a year beforeJahangir died, Mahabat Khan acted ondecades of repressed feelings ofhostility towards the throne and tookJahangir and his party captive whileencamped on the bank ofthe Jumna river. After longhours of feinted actionsand secret negotiations,most master-minded by NurJahan, a river battleensued.

At the high point of thebattle, after the search forpassable fords had provedhopeless, Nur Jahanplunged into the river onelephant back to join thevolley of arrows as thoseimperial troops not yetcaptured tried to move upriver to free Jahangir. Bythe account of theIqbalnama, Nur Jahanfought well and mostbravely, but her mostfamous act was to save oneof her own party. “TheBegam Nur Jahan had inher litter the daughter ofShahriyar [her own granddaughter], whose anka ornurse was the daughter ofShah Nawaz Khan. The

anka received an arrow in her arm andthe Begam herself pulled it out, stain-siing her garments with blood.” NurJahan’s own elephant suffered blowsto the side,19 but the entire partysurvived and returned to the royalcamp. Eventually Mahabat Khangained control of all of the imperialretinue, but was tricked out ofdominion several months later, againin almost full measure by thestratagems of Nur Jahan.20

The Dutch trader van den Broecke,being present at the time, made muchof the battle in his accounts, sayingthat Nur Jahan’s preeminence was dueto “her great bitterness” on accountof which “she wanted to show herwoman’s courage to Mahabat Khan.”In comparison to others on her side,including her brother Asaf Khan whoretreated almost immediately, Nur

Jahan “fought longer and bravely, andwould have gladly rallied theirretreating troops.”21

Once captured by Mahabat KhanNur Jahan suffered tremendous

indignities: “When formerly Nur JahanBegum used to ride out, with peopleplaying and singing before her, she wasreceived by every one with marks ofexcessive honour and reverence, evenlike a goddess. This was forbidden byMahabat Khan.”22

Nur Jahan went on, however, torecover her place and, through her owndevices, to regain control of the thronefor Jahangir for the last year before hisdeath.

It is noteworthy that the Europeanrendering of Nur Jahan’s part in thesemilitary campaigns, both mental andphysical, highlighted the ways inwhich she wanted to expand the

repertoire of activitiesavailable to woman;memorable here is thatthroughout she showed a“woman’s courage.”Architectural Interest

By the luck of history, NurJahan’s time on the thronecoincided with a tremendousupswing in the Mughal arts.While it would be convenientto argue, as some havedone,”23 that she was the oneprimarily responsible for thegreat profusion of buildings,gardens, paintings, anddecorative arts that now beganto grace Mughal life with newstandards of luxury andelegance, it is safer toconclude that, although herinfluence was ubiquitous inthe arts, documentation ofthat influence is in many caseshard to find. Nevertheless, ifwe turn to perhaps the easiestfield, that of architecture, wecan certify in a number ofinstances (here, two) the greatOrnamental Relief, Nur Mahal Sarai, Jalandhar

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confluence of influences she broughttogether in her own buildings: e.g., theNur Mahal Sarai in Jalandhar and theItimaduddaula tomb in Agra.

In late l620,the vakils of Nur Jahancompleted a large rest-house fortravelers (sarai) in Jalandhar along theroute from Agra to Lahore. There is nodoubt that Nur Jahan was both thechief designer and financial patron ofthis building, known as theNur MahalSarai, for both an inscription on thebuilding itself and a notice in the Tuzukconfirm it: “On the 21st of the samemonth I took up my quarters at Nur-saray. At this spot the Vakils of NurJahan Begam had built a lofty house,and made a royal garden. It was nowcompleted.”24

The sarai was substantial, withlarge carved gateways, manycompartments for travelers, abathhouse, and a mosque. In terms ofthe contributions Nur Jahan made toMughal architecture through it, it wasalso substantial. Nur Jahan combinedtwo types of ornament in this building.On the one hand were traditionalIslamic arabesques, of both thegeometric and organic variety, whichcovered in continuous pattern wholepanels of the two-dimensional surface.This ornamentation, which saw anexpression of the divine in repeatedabstract patterns of nature, paidhomage to Nur Jahan’s own Shiitetheological back-ground. Interspersedbetween these panels, on the otherhand, were some which housedrepresentational images reflective ofboth her cultural origins in Persia andher new-found religious milieu ofHinduism.

The tree of life, for example, andthe guldasta (or purnakalasha), potfilled with flowers, were imagesreminiscent of Persian iconography,while mahout-driven elephants, humanfigures, and peacocks indicatedinfluence from the Hindu arts. In theparticular panel given here, the winged

cherubs above the lower arch may havereflected images of angels currentlycoming in on European prints anddrawings to the Mughal studios.Jahangir miniatures of this period, infact, were just beginning to show suchfigures which were clearly patternedafter European prototypes. The surfaceon the Nur Mahal Sarai, then, reflecteda design direction in Mughal arts whichsynthesized the abstractions of Islamicart with the naturalism andrepresentationalism of Hindu art. NurJahan, we argue, was positionedstrategically at the confluence and,with self-conscious direction,facilitated the integration.

Turning now to the tomb ofItimaduddaula in Agra, we find anumber of decorative conventionsintroduced under her aegis. Begun in1622, this building was completed by1628 and had as its financial and artisticpatron, according to all traditions, thedaughter of the man who was honoredby it. With this tomb, Nur Jahanintroduced not only the full scale useof marble as a building clad, but alsothe full scale use of a sophisticatedstyle of stone inlay known in Persianas parchin kari and in Italian as pietradura. In this technique, the marble

surface was incised with a design andcarefully cut pieces of semi-preciousstone (e.g., agate, onyx, cornelian,mother-of-pearl) were then set in place.

In addition to these innovations oftechnique were innovations of designas well. In the spirit of honoring thePersian origins of her falher, Nur Jahanincluded in her representationalimagery, first of all, such Safavidderived elements as the wine flask/rosewater ewer, covered cups, flower-filledpots, fruit trays (with grapes andpomegranates), and cypress trees.Second, she introduced thewidespread use in architecturalornament of the single flower, isolatedout of the continuous background ofIslamic arabesque and placed againstan empty white ground. Many attributethis fascination with the single flowerto the 1620 Mughal trip to Kashmirduring which Jahangir, Nur Jahan, andShah Jahan were introduced to thefloral extravaganza of the springtimevalley in the north. This single flowermotif would become one of the mostrecognized motifs of Mughal art, andwould be played out to beautifulextreme in the decoration of the TajMahal.

Third, Nur Jahan translated thedomestic women’s arts of carpet design

Tomb of Itimaduddaula, Agra

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and embroidery into more permanentforms in the tomb: on the floor of theupper pavilion, around the twocenotaphs, we see floral arabesquessuggestive of carpet patternsdesigned, say oral traditions, by NurJahan, and inside arches and alonglower dados we find carved reliefsuggestive of embroidery designscreated by Mughal women in theirleisure. Not only was the carved reliefimitative of the three-dimensionalquality of embroidery, but the white-on-white effect suggested the style ofchikan kari, embroidery said to havebeen brought to India by the Mughalsfrom Persia. These examples fromarchitectural ornament illustrate thepower of Nur Jahan, in that she hadavailable to her and made exceptionaluse of whatever channels of imperialexpansionism she found to hand. Morethan this, however, they illustrate thatone of the tremendous freedoms givento her was a freedom to experimentvisually, to make unusual associationsand conjunctions of discreteiconographical elements. With thisfreedom, Nur Jahan made a statementabout the great value of syncretism:not only between cultural andreligious traditions, but betweenartistic media as well.Controlling Overseas Trade

It seems to have been quitecommon for noble women to engagein trade within regular commercialchannels, whether they be bazaarsheld in various palace spaces to whichtradesmen and women would come, orestablished market places on landsowned and operated by palace women.Pelsaert, for example, described justsuch a one belonging to Nur Jahanoutside of Agra: “Here the officers ofNur Jahan Begam, who built their saraithere, collect duties on all these goodsbefore they can be shipped across theriver.”25

The Mughal period, however, sawsubstantial shift in the way this

commerce was carried out. As Indiawas increasingly placed at thethreshold of European mercantilism inits outreach to Africa, the Middle East,and all parts of Asia, Nur Jahan againfound herself well-positionedhistorically: in both the timing of herreign and in the office she occupied,she was poised to take advantage ofthe new openness to foreign goods, interms of controlling what came in andwent out and of negotiating tradingcontracts to govern such commerce.While none of her trading activitieswere mentioned in Jahangir’s memoirs,they were mentioned in some detail inthe documents preserved from the firstofficial English embassy to the Mughalcourt, particularly those penned byThomas Roe.

Although Roe had arrived in Indiaearly in the fall of 1615, he did not makeit to Jahangir’s court until January of1616 because of changes within hisparty and an extended sickness of hisown. When he did arrive, he wasimmediately confronted with the powerof the women around Jahangir: “notonly did his weomen watch within” alldoings at court, but they “guard himwith manly weapons.” To his greatsurprise, moreover, his officialcredentials could not be officiallyaccepted until arrangements had beenmade “to show his [Jahangir’s] queenethe seale;” (sic) it was only when NurJahan approved the documents thatRoe could stay at court and carry outhis negotiations.

Roe never saw Nur Jahan, as shewas protected from foreign view byparda, but he felt her influence in allhe did. She was eventually able toprocure for herself the officialsponsorship of English trade and, inOctober of 1617, Roe was notified by aservant of Nur Jahan’s “that she hadmoued the Prince [Shah Jahan] foranother Firman that all our goodsmight be in her protection, and thatshe had obtained it, and was readie to

send down her servant with that, tosee and take order for our goodestablishment; that she would see thatwe should not be wronged.”(sic)27

With this Nur Jahan officially becamethe “Protectresse” of the English.28

Although Roe was not successfulin procuring the trading contracts withthe Mughal government that he hadcome for, the passage of goods whichensued was substantial. Whatevertrade was to happen had to be primedwith the constant flow of gifts into thehands of the imperial family and, as Roeknew from the beginning, the mostsignificant recipient was Nur Jahan: “Ifthe Queene must be presented (whichI will not aduise too, and doe purpose,as well out of necessytye as ludgment,to break this Custome of daylyebribing)...[a list of things] are here richpresents.” (sic)29 Roe knew that thefate of his efforts in India dependedon the good will he could generate withgifts and, although he tried to stem thecourt’s insatiable requests, hecomplied with regular offerings ofpaintings, prints, and drawings (themost favored gift) to Jahangir, andmirrors, embroidery, gems, coaches,and beaver hats to Nur Jahan. Manygifts turned out to be unsuitableleather that decayed, steel knives thatrusted, horses and dogs that fell sick,and woolens (except in red) thatproved too hot but the indomitable Roekept on experimenting until he foundthe most pleasing items.

The trade which Roe sodesperately wanted was primarily incotton textiles and indigo dye. By thetime the English embassy cameMughal women, especially Jahangir’smother Maryamuzzamani and NurJahan, were running their own shipsin the sea channels which traffickedwith the Middle East and Africa. Unlikethe Dutch who were interested for themost part only in spices, the Englishwanted to sell Indian textiles and dyesin the markets across Europe and in

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other parts of Asia and Africa. Todo this they had to offer Indianmerchants (and the Mughal court)something desirable in return and,since most English goods wereunsuited to the Indianenvironment, they had to fall backon whatever silver bullion theycould procure in Japan which wasa most welcome item in India. Thesilver almost always ended up inimperial hands, and it is not clear atthis earl y date if any of theEuropean goods actually broughtin for trade ever reached non-noblebuyers. NurJahan’s role in the earlyyears of international trade with theEnglish was substantial, for notonly did she control the Indiangoods run out in her own ships inthe Arabian Sea, but she regulatedthe vacillations of interest anddisinterest that marked the Mughalposture at this time. On a regularbasis she bought goods throughthe agents of the English. In Octoberof 1617, for example, Roc told hisfactors in Surat: “I have ordered yourFactory to sell to the seruants ofNormahall and her brotherwhatsoeuer may bee spared,” (sic)M

and repeated letters written to theEast India Company during theseyears by factors like John Browne inFebruary of 1617, James Bickford inMarch of 1617, and a group letter ofNovember 1621 all stated clearly thatNur Jahan was a major buyer of Englishgoods. There is good reason to believe,as well, that Roe’s ultimate failure atsealing his trading contracts may havebeen due to Nur Jahan’s control behindthe throne. Aside from matters ofmismatched diplomatic etiquette andproblems over what goods would ventwell in India, Nur Jahan’s only interestwas in procuring elegant luxury itemsfor the court. India did not needEuropean goods the way Europeneeded Indian cottons and dyes; NurJahan recognized this and used it tobest advantage.

In these ways, Nur Jahan had avisible hand in the many reaches ofpower which flowed out from her: herhusband’ s private toilet, intrigue atthe court, Mughal military matters,imperial architecture, and internationaltrade. Her hand was felt elsewhere aswell, in areas not covered here:international diplomacy with wivesof foreign rulers, Mughal gardendesign, and the formation of officialpolicy on religion. There were manyavenues to power available to her andshe used them all; but she did notabuse them in ways any different fromother courtiers. Her actions in allcases were motivated by two things— her protective love of her ownPersian family, and her love of fine,elegant things and both lovesenriched Mughal culturetremendously.

References1. William Ha wkins in William Foster,

eel., Early Travels in India, 1583-1619(Humphrey Milford: OxfordUniver-sity Press, 1921), p.94.

2. William Foster, ed., The Embassy ofSir Thomas Roe to the Court of theGreat Mogul, 1615-1619,2 vols.(Lon-don: llakluyt Society, 1899),1.118; 2293.3. fkbal-nama-i Jahangiri in II.M. Elliotand John Dowson (E&D), The Historyof India, as told by its own Historians, vol.6 (London: Trubncr and Co.,1875), p.405.4. Ikbal-nama-i JahangiriE&Dp.405.5. Alexander Rogers, trans.,andllenrylleveridge, ed., The Tuzuk-i Jahangiri,2 vols.(Delhi: MiinshiramManoharlal,1909-1914)1266.6. Tuziik 2 213-14.7. W. II. MorelandandP. Geyl, traits.,Jahangir s India: The Remonstrantie fFrancisco Pelsaert (Cambridge:W. .leffcr and Sons Ltd., 1925), p.53. K.Brij Narain and Sri Ram Sharma, /ransand ed., A Contemporary DutchChronicle of Mughal India (Calcutta:Sitsil Gupta Limited, 1957), P.92. 9.William Irvine, trans., Storia do Mogor,or Mogul India, 1653-1708, byNiccolao Manned (London, 1907; rpt.Calcutta: Editions Indian, 1965),pp.168,157-58.

10. Ikbal-nama-i Jahangir E&D p. 405.11. Tuaik 1251,261;2.107,228.12. Roe 2 281.13. Roe 2.363-64, 404.14. Tuzuk 1.348.15. Tuzuk 1.375.16. Tuzuk 2.105.17. Tuzuk 1.363, 402-403; 2.40,133.18. Tuzuk2.104-105.19. Ikbal-nama-i Jahangiri E&D, pp. 425-

27.20. Van den Broecke, p.79.21. Van den Broecke, p76.22. Van den Broecke, p.77.23. Mohammad Shujauddin and Razia

Shujauddin, The Life and Times ofNoor Jahan (Lahore: The CaravanBook House, 1967), p.101.

24. Tuzuk 2.192.25. Pelsaert, p.4.26. Roe 1.106.27. Roe2.436.28. Roe 2.436,444.29. Roe I.I 19.30. Roe 2.437.

Jahangir Dispensing Food at Ajmer