The History of Humāyūn (Gulbadan Begam) 150.6

150.6

Her name appears in the histories as a reader, a poet who wrote under the pseudonym of makhfī, and as pleading with Akbar for Salīm’s forgiveness. Her death is chronicled by Jahāngīr who heard of it on Zū’l-qa‘da 2nd, 1021H. (December 15th, 1612). He gives particulars of her birth and descent, and of her marriages, and he states that she was sixty at the time of her death. By his orders her body was laid in a garden which she herself had made. Jahāngīr praises her both for her natural qualities and her acquirements. She creates an impression of herself as a charming and cultivated woman. The genealogical table on the next page illustrates Salima-sultan’s descent, and the following dates bear also upon the topic: Pasha married Mahmud 878H. — 1469 Baisanghar born 882H. — 1477 Mahmud died 900H. — Jan. 1495 Babar married Zainab, d. of Mahmud 910H. — 1504 Zainab died 913H.-914H. — 1507-8 Saliha’s child, the wife of Nuru’d-din, was not born in 917H. — 1511, because she is not in the list of children who left Kabul with Babar in that year (Gul-badan, 12).