The History of Humāyūn (Gulbadan Begam) 5.3
The History of Humāyūn (A. S. Beveridge) 5.3
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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.