The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c15.161

v4.c15.161

Akbar, though well provided with wives, had no children. Twin sons who had been born to him had died very shortly after their birth, and he had long been used to pray at the shrine of Shaikh Mu'īn-ud-dīn Chishtī at Ajmer and at those of saints at Delhi for the blessing of a son. There lived at Sīkrī, 23 miles to the west of Āgra, another Chishtī, Shaikh Salīm, to whom Akbar had had recourse, and who had promised him that his prayers would be answered. Shaikh Salīm, though described by Father Monserrate as “being stained with all the wickedness and disgraceful conduct of the Muslims”—a phrase of sinister import—had a great reputation for sanctity among his co-religionists, and when Akbar learnt, early in 1569, that his earliest Hindu consort, the daughter of Rājā Bihārī Mal of Amber, was with child she was sent to the Shaikh’s hospice at Sīkrī, where, on 30 August, was born the prince who afterwards, under the title of Jahāngīr, succeeded his father. He received the name Salīm in honour of the saint. In November a daughter, Khānum Sultān, known as Shāhzāda Khānum, was born to Akbar, and on 7 July of the following year Salīma Begam gave birth to Sultān Murād. A third son, Dāniyāl, was born at Ajmer on 10 September, 1572, in the house of Shaikh Dāniyāl, one of the holy men whose prayers Akbar had sought. Two other children, both daughters, were born after Dāniyāl, Shukr-un-Nisa Begam, who was married to Shāhrukh Mīrzā, her fourth cousin, and Ārām Bānu Begam.