The History of Humāyūn (Gulbadan Begam) 5: Section III — Under Akbar.
The History of Humāyūn (A. S. Beveridge) 5
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Section III — Under Akbar.
5.1.1
Protected by the capable men who upheld Akbar, the royal ladies had not again to flee before foes or to suffer violent change of fortune. Humayun had planned their journey from Kabul to India. Akbar more than once in his first year of rule had to cancel the orders he had given to effect it. Three military affairs disturbed the plan, — the suppression of the revolt of Abu’l-ma'ali, the operations against Sikandar Afghan, and the encounter with Himu at Panipat. At length amirs were named to escort the ladies from Kabul. The officers set out, but on their march received orders to act first against Sulaiman Mirza, who, on hearing of Humayun's death, had come over from Badakhshan to besiege Kabul. This was the first of a series of his attempts on the city, to which he laid fanciful claim as head of the house of Timur after Humayun. The approach of the imperial troops broke up his siege, and his claim having been accommodated by reading his name once in the khutba at Kabul, he went home and left the ladies free to start. They made their journey in time to arrive during the first quarter of 1557 near where lay the royal camp, at Mankot, in the western Sewaliks. The Emperor came a stage from it to meet them, and was 'much comforted by the reunion.' With Hamida-banu Begam, to whom, as Empress-mother, the chief place must be assigned, were Gul-badan, Gul-chihra, Haji, and Salima Begams. There was also a large company of officers' wives.
5.1.2
Perhaps the ladies remained near the camp until it broke up and went to Lahor. It left that city on its march for Dihli on December 7th, 1557; at Jalandhar it halted, and here, with pomp and amidst general interest, Bairam Khan-khanan married Salima Sultan Begam, a granddaughter of Babar. She was a half-niece of Humayun, and she had with Akbar cousinship of the 'four-anna' degree. Babar was their common ancestor, and their differing grandmothers diluted the cousinly relation. This alliance had been arranged by Humayun, and the use of sipardan by Abu'l-fazl when writing of it, shows that what was now celebrated was a marriage, and not a betrothal. This point is mentioned here because some writers fix Salima's age at this time as five, an estimate which is not supported by known facts of her life. The bride was probably a reward for the surpassing services done by Bairam for Humayun, the newest being those of the Restoration. Bairam was a man to whom seems due the largesse of the hand of a king’s daughter, he out-topped his contemporaries by his full stature in capacity, culture, faithfulness, and character. Salima, though much his junior, was in other respects a fit wife for him. She was an educated woman, ranks amongst verse-makers so completely as to have a pen-name (takhallas), and stands out gently, by birth, character, and attainments.
5.1.3
Khizr Khwaja Khan had gone to Hindustan with Humayun in 1554, and early in 1556 had been appointed by Akbar to the government of Lahor. He was left to carry on operations against Sikandar Afghan when Akbar was called away by Himu’s movements, and he was defeated. The few words said about him give the impression that he was not a good soldier, and he is never again named in responsible command. The slight things recorded of him point to subsequent comfortable existence at court as the ‘husband of the Emperor’s aunt, Gul-badan Begam.’ Once he made a gift of horses to Akbar; in 1563 he helped to nurse Akbar when the latter was wounded in Dihli; and there is no record of his death. He was raised to high military rank, and at some time was amiru-l-umara, but the Ain-i-akbari does not place him in its list of mansabdars. He stands twelfth in the general list of the Tabaqat, and amongst the chiefs of 5,000. From her coming to India in 1557 to the time of her pilgrimage in 1574, our princess is not mentioned by the historians. The interval held much of deep interest to her and to others of her generation whose lives were slipping away under the safeguarding of Akbar. Some survivors of an older day, witnesses of Bairam’s fidelity to Humayun, must have felt his downfall keenly. Hamida can hardly have been ignorant of the intrigue which brought this about, because she was related to the chief actors in it,—Moham anaga, Adham Khan, and Shihabu-d-din Ahmad.
5.1.4
The last was governor of Dihli, where she lived, and part of the scheme to separate Akbar from Bairam took him to Dihli to see her, and thus under the eye of Shihab. Hamida must have had clear in memory the truly valid services done for her husband by Bairam during the Persian exile. The plot had its nucleus in a Sayyid circle and in families religious by inheritance, and it was carried out at the point of the tongue. Muhammad Baqi Khan, the anaga's older son, does not appear as taking part in it. He served the Emperor till 1584, rose to be a chief of 5,000, and of his character nothing is known. His younger brother, Adham, although put to death in 1562, had become chief of 5,000. All that is said of him is bad, and he, like his mother, was fluent in detraction and did all in his power to poison the mind of Akbar against the worthiest of his amirs.
5.1.5
Many comments have been made upon Maham anaga, both by the Persian writers and by their European commentators. Abu'l-fazl calls her "a cupola of chastity," and it is now possible to wipe from her reputation the stain suggested by Professor Blochmann when writing of the parentage of Adham. She was wife of Nadim Khan Koka, a faithful servant of Humayun. This fragment of useful information was brought to light by Mr. Beveridge, who found it in a MS. of Colonel Hanna, which may yield other valuable matter on quasi-domestic points. Maham anaga may be granted the praise she deserves as a nurse who earned the affection of Akbar to the end of her life; she is entitled to such praise as belongs to a mother who screens a son’s every fault and pushes his fortunes with all her influence. She must take the dispraise of not pushing her elder son’s as she did Adham’s. Bayazid tells little stories which show her the centre of small affairs. I have not discerned in her any sign of talent. Whatever influence Akbar’s affection gave her would be strengthened by her connection with his mother, and perhaps, too, with other women who were descended from Ahmad-i-Jam. Amongst these was Haji Begam, Humayun’s widow and a person much regarded by the Emperor.
5.1.6
In the year following Bairam’s death, Adham Khan, who, says the Tabaqat, held a place higher than the other courtiers because he was his mother’s son, was on duty in Malwa against Baz Bahadur. Six incidents resulted which emphasize regret that for such as the actors in them Bairam had had to make way. Maham anaga was de facto prime minister, Mu'nim Khan had been made Khan-i-Khanan, and it was looked for by his friend the anaga that he should become prime minister de jure. Baz Bahadur was defeated and fled from Sarangpur. Aping the Hindus, he had ordered his servants to kill the women of his household in the event of his defeat. Several had been so killed, many had been wounded, when the sacrifice was interrupted by the imperialists under Adham. Badayuni says that there followed slaughter by Adham and his colleague, Pir Muhammad Khan, of terrible extent, and his own eyes saw that these two regarded God’s creation in mankind as leeks, cucumbers, and radishes, — a quaint turn of words which covers awful butchery. When remonstrated with in the name of the law, the murderers asked what was to be done with so many prisoners.
5.1.7
If the order for the death of the women of Baz Bahadur’s household had issued from a Rajput heart, there would have been no need for executioners while he was in flight. The victims were, however, not Rajputnis, and they suffered only to gratify the vanity of a Moslim. Amongst those wounded was Rup-mati, a dancing-girl renowned throughout Hindustan for beauty, singing, and poetic gifts. Her name seems that of a Hindu. Her wounds, inflicted by Baz Bahadur’s order, were severe and she wished to die. Adham let her know that, if she would care for herself, he would send her to her master when she could travel. She took his promise as true, had her wounds dressed and recovered. When she claimed fulfilment of Adham’s word, she was told to consider herself as his slave. He entered her room, raised her veil, and saw her dead by her own act. Perhaps the point of deepest social degradation in this story is that Rup-mati was, by men’s decree, born to sin without blame, and yet she died because she loved one man. Her heart was single, and yet she was only the most charming, clever and beautiful of a crowd of dancing-girls, purchased slaves, to whom no man’s loyalty and no mercy were thought due.
5.2.1
Adham Khan took much booty from Baz Bahadur, and he disregarded the rule which required the choicest part to be sent to the Emperor; he also comported himself more like an independent ruler than a king’s lieutenant. This angered Akbar, and he hurried off to Sarangpur, out-distanced a messenger of Maham anaqa whom she had sent with warnings, and took Adham by surprise. She herself came in next day and counselled surrender of the spoil. This and other matters having been adjusted, the Emperor started for his capital. No sooner was he gone than Adham, with his mother’s connivance, regained possession of two of the most coveted of the captive women. News of this went after Akbar, who ordered them to be returned to the royal camp. When they came again within her power, the anaqa had them murdered, so that they might not tell the tale of their abduction.
5.2.2
Having spent so many years under the influence of Maham anaqa, it is to the credit of Akbar’s humanity and mental force that there are not more than the recorded blots on his scutcheon; at nineteen he rebelled against his nurse, when she had set his feet on the primrose path to ruin of person and empire. He did not punish the murder of the captive girls, but he soon manifested his intention to depose his nurse and her son from power. Instead of appointing their friend Munim prime minister, he summoned his foster-father, Shamsu-d-din Ahmad Ghaznavi and gave him the post. Shamsu-d-din was an unlettered man, but he was staunch and had sons who were true to Akbar. The next episode in which Maham anaqa and her son appear, was one to shake the home fabric to its foundations, for Adham murdered Shamsu-d-din, bursting in upon him as he sat in business audience and unsuspicious It was done on the night of May 16th, 1562 The incident is well known, how the murderer rushed to the haram door and on the appearance of Akbar began to palliate his crime, but was struck down by a blow of the royal fist and then killed by royal order.
5.2.3
It was the Emperor who told Maham anaga of her son’s death ‘Mama! we have killed Adham,’ are the words put into his mouth by Bayazid She fell ill from anger and grief, this blow shattered her heart’s idol and her ambition for him and herself Badaoni says that she died after having presented the food of the fortieth day of mourning, and this points to her belief that the souls of the dead take final departure from earth on that day and after partaking of the food of their choice which the care of relations sets for them Mother and son were buried in one spot, and Akbar placed his shoulder under his nurse’s bier in sign of his sentiment to her
5.2.4
Quite stirring news for discussion through some years, amongst the elder ladies of the royal family, would be the conduct of Mah-chuchak Begam in Kabul She was the last recorded wife of Humayun, and was married in 1546, after the coming of Hamida from Qandahar to Kabul She was not a woman of birth, — one gathers a general impression that few royal wives married late in life were so, — and her title of begam was probably owed to her having borne a son, Muhammad Hakim In 1554 Humayun had left her three-years-old boy as nominal governor of Kabul under charge of Mu'nim Khan, and in 1556 Akbar had confirmed the appointment When Mu'nim went to court in 1561, the discussion between them of his wish to take Muhtarima to wife, which Haram had frustrated by marrying the khanam to Sulaiman's son instead of to himself, but she had been angered extremely by the murder of one of her brothers by her husband and her son. She took the resolution of deserting Sulaiman and went over to Kabul, where then Mu'nim Khan was governor, and she had meant to carry on her complaints to Akbar. Mu'nim, however, who had been begged to mediate by Sulaiman, gave her good advice and pacified her, so that at last she consented to return to Badakhshan. He rode out to bid her farewell, she bade her camel kneel and dismounted, he got off his horse, and there was exchange of friendly greeting.
5.2.5
She told him she regarded him as a brother and that for his sake she would never bring the army of Badakhshan against Kabul. It came several times later and with her approval, but Haram could swear and break even 'awful oaths'. Bayazid Bayazid accompanied her to the Ghurband and was charmed by her suavity and agreeableness. On the death of Abu'l-ma'ali, Sulaiman sent home for a daughter and married her to Muhammad Hakim, partitioned out some of the lands of Kabul to his own people, and went home to Qila'-i-zafar. Irritation against the interlopers led to their expulsion by the Kabulis, and this brought the Badakhshi forces again to Kabul, in 1565. Muhammad Hakim hurried to the Indus and complained to his big brother, and Sulaiman was made to retreat.
5.2.6
In 1566 he and Haram and their girls were again before the coveted Kabul, and on this occasion Haram tried to supplement their failing military action by treachery. She got Sulaiman to lay an ambush for Muhammad Hakim, whom, with 'awful oaths' of amity, she had persuaded to have a meeting with her under profession of desire to adopt him now that her son Ibrahim was dead. The end of this affair was, in net result to the Badakhshis, nothing; Haram went home and Sulaiman followed. With them went the unfailing daughters, of whom Haram seems to have had many, or who were betrothed and not ‘entrusted,’ so many recorded times. They had been near capture by the Kâbulîs in the Four-Walled Garden, but the commandant of the city recalled his men and let the girls go free, because he did not think it seemly to capture women.
5.2.7
This is not the place to follow Sulaiman’s interesting fortunes to their close, under Akbar’s protection, by death in Lâhor in 1589. For our purpose, it is enough to say that he held Badakhshân so long as Haram’s watchful eye was on him, and lost it at her death. It was Muhtarima’s son, Shâh-rukh, his own grandson, who turned him out of his beloved Badakhshân, and in this, too, there may be Haram’s hand. Muhtarima would not be likely to teach her boys dutiful conduct to Haram or to Haram’s husband, for the two women were foes, and Haram had tried to separate Muhtarima from her son, and to expel her from Badakhshân to her parental home in Kâshghar. If Haram had lived, her pride would have found content in two alliances of her grandson with daughters of the royal blood,—one a child of Muhammad Hakîm, and the other of Akbar himself. The ill-behaviour of Hamîda-bânû’s brother, Khwâja Mu’azzam, must have been a frequent annoyance to the inner circle of the elder ladies at court. From boyhood he had been fantastic and mischievous, and perhaps carried always the germ of the madness which overtook his last years. Bairâm, the sensible, had exiled him, then had given him some countenance; on Bairâm’s fall he had received a fief, and, so far, had been favoured. But Akbar did not like him, and the murders he had committed were sufficient to warrant dislike. He was a true parvenu, assertive and relying on his sister to excuse his faults.
5.2.8
Hamîda had been conscious before her marriage that her lowly birth was a point against her wedding with Humâyûn. The disparity in her case, as in other misalliances of the time, had raised unworthy people to power. Now, in 1564, Bîbî Fâtima lamented to Akbar that Khwâja Mu’azzam had threatened to kill his wife Zuhrâ, who was her daughter. The Emperor consequently sent the khwaja word that he was coming to his house, and followed the message closely. As he entered, the khwaja stabbed Zuhra and then flung his knife, like a challenge, amongst the royal followers. Abu'l-fazl says that for punishment the murderer was flung into the river, but 'would not drown.' The more sensible Nizamu-d-din Ahmad says he was beaten and then soused in the river. He died insane, in prison, at Gwaliar. All the shortcomings and crimes of the man notwithstanding, Hamida must have cherished some warmth of feeling for the tricksy boy who had lifted suspicion from her in the matter of the stolen rubies of the Persian episode. In 1571 another old acquaintance comes to the front in the person of Nahid Begam, in whom our princess must have maintained interest for the sake of her father Qasim, Babar's foster-brother. Nahid, as has been said earlier, was the daughter of Qasim and of Mah-chuchak Arghun, who must not be confounded with Kamran's wife of the same name, one common amongst the Arghun women of the time.
5.2.9
She had married Muhibb-'ali, son of Nizamu-d-din 'Ali Khalifa Barlas, and who had risen to high military rank but now lived remote from soldiering and in reposeful retirement. Nahid's mother was now in her (third) widowhood for 'Isa Tarkhan Arghun, and she was not well regarded by her last husband's son, Muhammad Baqi Tarkhan Arghun, the ruler of Tatta. Nahid, in 1571, went to see her mother, and perhaps conveyed to Baqi the impression that her visit was something more than filial. He put Mah-chuchak in prison, and so behaved to Nahid that she hurried off to court and made bitter complaint of her own wrongs and of the rudeness shown to the royal attendants who had been with her in Sind. She told Akbar, too, that she had talked with Sultan Mahmud Bhakkari, that old retainer of Shah Husain who had kept the island-fort against Humayun in the forties, and for whom Sidi 'Ali Reis had negotiated terms in 1555. Mahmud had suggested an attack on Tatta, and, supported by him, With Muhabb 'Ali’s detachment from court and put at the head of the force sent with him went Nahid and also a wife of Mirza 'Isa and her son Mujahid (or 'Isa-tarkhan?). Into the story that followed we need not enter. An amusing picture of it is that at a time when things did not go well, Nahid went into rebellion against Akbar and actually laid an entrenchment against the royal army, a day and a night. In the end, Muhabb 'Ali obtained a comfortable local appointment and nothing more is heard of the ladies.
5.2.10
Probably they too accommodated themselves to the tolerant and forgiving atmosphere of Akbar's court.
5.3.1549
An aged man, Ma'sum's somewhat more sober relation than his passionate and headstrong brother, tells that the Gujarat campaign of 1572 brought the royal ladies' joy enough to burst their hearts while their real delight is pictured. This is the campaign which made beautiful Sikri the City of Victory (Fathpur). Round one incident of the war womanly interest,—and womanly compassion also,—will have centred. The veil of history is here lifted for a brief moment, and shows Gul-rukh, Kamran's daughter, in flight with her son.
Gul-badan's long span of unchronicled life was probably spent in the peaceful occupation of a wife and mother, with variety from books, verse-making, festivities, and outside news. She must have found much to exercise her lively mind in Hindustan. That she went about with the royal camp is shown by the record of the place assigned to her tent in the encampments. It was pitched next to Hamida's, well within the [red] inclosure, and not far from the Emperor's own. Since she was a woman, she might have found food for observation in the diminished position of her sex under the conditions of their life in Hindustan. How did sati look to her? What did she think of the johar? Both these Hindu customs were far different from those of her traditions in similar crises. She came of a tribe which boasts of the fidelity of its wives to the marriage tie. All the women of her house must have heard of the defiant act of Ais-daulat, Babar’s grandmother, who had ordered her maids to stab a man to whom her captor had given her, and who then, for sole excuse, had observed that she was the wife of Yunas Khan. Gul-badan had also in her own family history plenty of examples of the fate of captured girls, for many of her kinswomen had married foes of their tribe, and many too had become contented wives, well treated, and remaining in their foreign homes apparently without constraint.
What Timurid women saw amongst the Hindus reveals another type of virtue and another standard of wedded life. Our princess must have heard something on the topic through her father’s experience when she was a child. Wifehood and motherhood now gave her better insight into the problems which underlie social relations. She would hear that Rajputnis died joyfully rather than be captured, that outmatched Rajputs killed wives and children and went to certain death themselves, — a holocaust to honour. The early years of Akbar furnished plenty of such records. How, one would like to know, did the Musalmani regard the willing death by fire of the Hindu widow, in that exaltation which lifts thought above pain and terror and is admirable, whether in the martyr for faith or for wifely duty? Unfortunately, the barriers of language and habit must have kept Akbar’s Rajput wives from charming the Musalmani ladies by recital of the legends of their race. These Hindus can never have been welcome inmates of the palace to any of the Moslims, but, pagan as they were thought, their conduct must have insinuated the thin edge of conviction that to no one form of faith is committed the nurture of the sense of duty.
One common thought Gul-badan and the rest could have shared with the Hindu ladies,—that of the duty of pilgrimage and of respect for holy places. When next history concerns itself with our begam, it is to tell of her setting out, in 1575, for Makka. The Emperor had been unwilling to part with her, and it may be, even, had delayed with the thought of accompanying her. His heart was now much set upon making the Haj, but he did no more than walk a short distance with a caravan from Agra, dressed in the seamless wrapper of the Arabian ceremonies. Though debarred from leaving Hindustan himself, he helped many others to fulfil this primary duty of their faith, and opened wide his purse for their expenses. Each year he named a leader of the caravan, and provided him with gifts and ample funds. Sultan Khwaja, Gul-badan’s cicerone, took, amongst other presents, 12,000 dresses of honour. He did not bring her home again; this duty fell to Khwaja Yahya (John). What circumstance extorted royal consent to Gul-badan’s absence is not recorded; her advancing age,—she was past fifty,—and her dislike of the laxity in opinion and practice in matters of the Faith would add warmth to her request for leave to go.
Abu’l-fazl has preserved the names of the chief ladies of the pilgrim party, but many others went with Gul-badan Begam, and for all the royal purse bore the cost. She was the lady of highest birth, and was probably a widow; next came Salima Sultan Begam, widow of Bairam and wife of Akbar. It was not usual for a wife to make the pilgrimage, but Muhammadan law stipulates that permission shall be granted to such wives as strongly desire to do so, and Salima’s seems a case in point. Next comes a woman whose presence reveals pleasant things. She was Sultanam, widow of Akbar’s uncle, 'Askari, and of her it is recorded in Akbar’s babyhood that she cared for him when captured, with tender affection It is probable that she had spent many years under the care and at the cost of the Emperor. Then come two step-nieces of Gul-badan, daughters of Kamran, — Haji and Gul-izar Begams. I do not know which child of his is veiled under the title of Haji. She seems to be making her second haj, and may well have gone on her first when her father was in Arabia. To these two the pilgrimage would have humanly pious significance, as a visitation to their father’s tomb and to that of Mah-chuchak Arghun, whom all his children must have held in reverence. Next comes a grand-daughter of Gul-badan herself, named Um-kulsum (Mother of Plumpness), presumably after the daughter of her Prophet. Whether she was the child of Sa'adat-yar is not said, nor whether the last name on the list, Salima Khanam, is that of a child of Gul-badan, as well as of Khizr Khwaja Khan. Here some of the inconveniences of polygamy show themselves to the seeker after family facts.
An old associate of our princess accompanied her in the person of Gul-nar aghaicha, who had been of Babar’s household and was, I think, one of the two Circassians sent as a present to him by Shah Tahmasp in 1526. She was now well on her way through life and considerably older than Gul-badan Begam. Another of the party had also been of Babar’s household, Bibi Saru-qad, or Saru-i-sahi (Straight Cypress). She had been, too, in Humayun’s service and later had married, with full nisbat, Mun'im Khan-i-khanan. She was a widow, had been a singer and reciter, and was a ‘reliable woman’. Like her in accomplishments were Bibi Safiya and Shaham Agha, both formerly of Humayun’s household. Of the first and of Bibi Saru-qad we have the happy little record that they sang in the moonlight on the road to Laghman in 1549.
5.3.p2
Fathpur-sikri seems to have been the rallying-point of the caravan and October 16th, 1575, the day of departure from it. It started earlier than was usual, perhaps because the ladies could not travel fast. Caravans generally left Agra in the tenth month — this left in the seventh — of the Akbar’s second boy, Murad, was told off to escort the ladies to the coast. Salim met them one stage out to give last greetings. At Gul-badan’s request, Murad was excused from his long task of escort to Surat, and he went back to Agra. One smiles to find that the princes were five and four years old. The real charge of the caravan was with several amirs, one being Muhammad Baqi Khan Uzbeg and another Rumi Khan of Aleppo, who may have been Babar’s artillery officer.
It is a real loss that there is no record of the journey from our begam’s pen. It was to be adventurous, even perilous, and it was of great interest whether as sightseeing travel or pious duty. Surat was the port of embarkation, but there are no details of the road taken to reach it. Father Rudolf Acquaviva passed between the same two terminal points in 1580, but the military movements of the interval may well have allowed him to travel where the ladies could not go. When they were first in Surat, it had been a royal possession for two years only, and even when the Father took the fairly direct route from it to Fathpur-Sikri, the Rajput peasantry was in arms against their new lord. The ladies were probably handed on from one garrisoned place to another as the immediate circumstances of conquest dictated. The main body of their fauj joined them by a tedious and weary route, first escorted through Goganda by the army which was on active service, and then passing on to Ahmadabad, and, perhaps by water, to Surat.
5.4.1
The governor of the port, who was to have a good deal of trouble with this caravan, was Qulij Khan Andijani, a sobriquet of pleasant sound in our begam’s ears. He had inherited Timurid service from many generations, and his father had been a grandee of Sultan Husain Baiqra.
5.4.2
‘There was peace with the isles of the Franks,’ but it took the ladies a year to get to sea. The Akbar-nama attributes some part of the delay to a foolish panic about the Firangis which, after the ladies had embarked in their hired Turkish transport, the Salimi, seized the other pilgrims who were to sail in the royal ship, the IWil. The real ground appears to have been want of a pass. The Portuguese were then masters of the Indian waters, and no ship might dare to put to sea without toll paid and pass obtained. Alarm about the Portuguese was natural, for there were stories that the very pass was sometimes a letter of Bellerophon enjoining capture and death. Abu’l-fazl says that, although the ladies embarked, they were unwilling to put out and desert their fellow-pilgrims. This may be mere broidery, or the one ship may have had a pass and the other not. Perhaps, too, as theirs was a hired transport, it was also one privileged to sail free. However this may be, Badayuni makes the difficulty clear by saying that Khwaja Sultan’s ships lay idle from want of the pass. He also, it may be added, quotes a legal opinion that at this time it was not lawful to make the haj from India because, of the two practicable routes, one lay through the Shiah country of 'Iraq, and the other obliged a pass which bore the idolatrous stamp of the heads of the Virgin Mary and of Jesus Christ ('on whom be peace ’).
5.4.3
The mir haj sent word to the Emperor of his plight, who at once despatched orders to Qulij Khan, in Idar, to go to Surat and arrange the difficulty. Qulij took with him a Cambayan, who was presumably a man versed in seafaring business, — hurried to Surat and overcame the difficulty. It took the ladies a year to get to sea; they sailed on October 17th, 1576. Their port of debarkation is not mentioned; some pilgrims sailed by the Arabian, some by the Persian Gulf. They spent three and a half years in Arabia, and were able to make the haj four times. Some day perhaps a pious and enlightened Musalman will set down the inner meaning he attaches to the rites of the pilgrimage. How interesting it would have been if our princess had told us what it was in her heart that carried her through the laborious duties of piety she accomplished during her long stay in her holy land! She might have given us an essential principle by which to interpret the religious meaning which devout women attach to the rites commanded on the pilgrimage. The visitation duties are set down in Hughes’ ‘Dictionary of Islam,’ where even their brief recital is attractive and adds to the wish of gauging the sentiment of believers in their efficacy. The acts prescribed are exhausting, not only to the body but also, one thinks, to the mind, because the very conception of the pilgrimage as a Divine ordinance keeps brain and heart tense, as all obedience does which sets the human will parallel to the Divine.
5.4.4
The mere recapitulation of the prescribed ceremonies is impressive. The halt six miles from the city to put on the seamless wrapper; the chanting of the pilgrim song; the prayer of intention and of supplication for grace to make the visitation duly; the contemplation, touch, and salutation of the mystic Black Stone; the sevenfold encompassment of the Ka'ba, towards which from distant homes has been directed the prayer of the bygone years; the ascent of the Mount of Purity and prayer and confession of faith upon it; the race seven times repeated from its summit to that of the Mount of Marwa; the common worship in the Great Mosque, and the sermon preached to the assemblage of common believers; the various pilgrimages and prayers of the eighth and ninth days; and on the tenth the extraordinary pelting of devils, which is symbolized by the patriarchal rite of the stoning of the pillars of Mina. Later in the same day occurs the final act of the Hajj, an animal sacrifice. Whether the ladies could pay a substitute to perform this is not said.
5.4.5
During these ten busy days the seamless wrapper is worn; after the sacrifice it is laid aside, and attention may be paid to the neglected toilette. The pilgrim stays three days longer in Makka—days of the ‘drying of the blood of sacrifice,’ ‘three well-earned days of rest after the peripatetic performance of the last four.’ Still, all is not finished; there should be more circuits of the Ka'ba, another stoning at Mina, and a draught drunk from the sacred well. Our princess would certainly do everything which was due, and probably would go to Medina, and she would also make visitation to the tombs of many pious persons buried in the desirable soil of Arabia. In 1579 Khwāja Yahyā was mīr haj, a friend of Badāyūnī, and the charitable man to whom Husain the Butcher (tukriya) was indebted for decent burial. He was commissioned to escort the ladies home, and also to bring back curiosities and Arab servants, who may perhaps have been wanted for the Arab sarāī, established near the mausoleum of Humāyūn, outside Dihlī.
5.4.6
The return journey was both adventurous and perilous. They were shipwrecked off Aden, and had to stay, some say seven, others twelve, months in that desolate spot, far less habitable then than now, with condensed water, a tide from the Suez Canal, occasional rain, and the British rāj. The governor did not behave well, and quitted the path of good manners, misconduct for which he was punished by his master, Sultan Murād of Turkey. One pleasant incident broke the gloom of the long delay. On a day of April, 1580, the rock-bound travellers saw a ship coming up from the south with the wind, and, wishing to know whose it was, sent a boat out to make inquiry. By a pleasant chance Bāyazīd Biyāt with his wife and children were on board, and he shortened sail, though the wind was favourable, and gave and took news. Bāyazīd says that the persons who sent out the boat to him were Gul-badan Begam, Gul-'izār Begam, and Khwāja Yahyā. Perhaps the Emperor would refuse nothing to the Father,’ and the family was carried off to freedom.
5.4.7
The next thing known of our princess is that she wrote her Humāyūn-nāma. The book is its sole witness, for no one speaks of it. It is not literature, but a simple setting down of what she knew or had heard, for the help of the Akbar-nāma. This was not her only composition, for she followed the fashion of her day and wrote verses. Mīr Mahdī Shīrāzī has preserved in his Tazkiratu’l-khawātīn two lines of hers, in which her thought seems to be, ‘No love, no fruit of life’: “Har yārī ki ū bā ‘āshiq khud yār nīst, Tu yaqīn mīdān ki hech az ‘umr bar khur dār nīst.” Nine copies were made of Bāyazīd’s Humāyūn-nāma, which was written in obedience to the royal command obeyed by Gul-badan Begam and also by Jauhar the Ewer-bearer. Of these two went to the Emperor’s library; three to the princes Salīm, Murād, and Dānyāl; one to our begam; two to Abu’l-fazl; and one perhaps was kept by the author. This allotment brings out the little point that Gul-badan collected books. Badāyūnī has a curious passage about himself which also discloses something ‘bookish’ of Salīma: ‘On account of the book Khirad-afzā, which had disappeared from the library, and concerning Salīma Sultān Begam’s study of which the Emperor reminded me, an order was issued that my allowance should be stopped, and that they should demand the book of me.’ He adds that Abu’l-fazl did not lay his refutation before the Emperor, and he does not clear up the awkward doubt as to what he had done with Salīma’s desired book.
5.4.8
The remaining records of Gul-badan Begam’s life are few and scanty. When she was seventy, her name is mentioned with that of Muhammad-yār, a son of her daughter, who left the court in disgrace; again, she and Salīma join in intercession to Akbar for Prince Salīm; again, with Hamīda, she receives royal gifts of money and jewels. Her charities were large, and it is said of her that she added day unto day in the endeavour to please God, and this by succouring the poor and needy. When she was eighty years old, and in February, 1603, her departure was heralded by a few days of fever. Hamida was with her to the end, and it may be that Ruqaiya, Hindal's daughter, would also watch her last hours. As she lay with closed eyes, Hamida-banu spoke to her by the long-used name of affection, ‘Jiji’ (older sister). There was no response. Then, ‘Gulbadan!’ The dying woman unclosed her eyes, quoted the verse, ‘I die, — may you live!’ and passed away. Akbar helped to carry her bier some distance, and for her soul's repose made lavish gifts and did good works. He will have joined in the silent prayer for her soul before committal of her body to the earth, and if no son were there, he, as a near kinsman, may have answered the Imam's injunction to resignation: ‘It is the will of God.’
5.4.9
So ends the long life of a good and clever woman, affectionate and dutiful in her home life, and brought so near us by her sincerity of speech and by her truth of feeling that she becomes a friend even across the bars of time and creed and death.