Born: 31 May 1577, Afghanistan
Died: 18 December 1645
Country most active: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, India
Also known as: Mehr-un-Nissa
This biography, written by Johanna Strong, is shared with permission from Team Queens, an educational history blog run by a collective of historical scholars. All rights reserved; this material may not be republished without the author’s consent.
Born in 1577 near the present-day Kandahar, Afghanistan, Nur Jahan’s parents Ghiyas Beg and Asmat Begum originally named her Mehrunnissa, meaning Sun of Women. In 1594, she married Persian adventurer Ali Quli Khan Istajlu, with whom she had one daughter, Ladli. After Istajlu’s execution, Mehrunnissa and Ladli were brought to Mughal Emperor Jahangir’s court in 1607.
Shortly after, on 25 May 1611, Mehrunnissa married Jahangir and was given the title Nur Mahal, meaning Light of the Palace, later becoming Nur Jahan, Light of the World. She was his favourite of his twenty wives. She was fluent in many languages, wrote poetry and prose, and played a variety of musical instruments. She declined to observe parda, the practice of veiling and physically separating the harem from the outside world.
Soon after their marriage, Nur Jahan became co-sovereign with Jahangir over the Mughal Empire (almost all of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and large parts of northern and central India) before gaining all authority when Jahangir abdicated in 1622. In 1627, after Jahangir’s death, Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan took power, at which point Nur Jahan retired from public life and lived in seclusion at Lahore, Pakistan, until her death in 1645. She is buried with Jahangir.
Nur Jahan helped spread Persian influence in the Mughal Empire and introduced new clothing materials and styles. She created the Gardens of Nishat and Shalimar with Jahangir and designed Nur Mahal Sarai at Jalandhar, the Moghul Gardens of Kashmir and Agra, and her father’s tomb at Agra, largely seen as the inspiration for the Taj Mahal. Though she was never crowned, she is the only queen whose name was struck on a coin next to the emperor’s and was the first queen to have her signature on the royal seal.
Recommended Reading
Muhammad Zia-ud-Din, “Role of Nur Jahan: The Mughal Empress of India,” Pakistan Perspectives 17.1 (2012): 184-195
Ruby Lal, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan (London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2018).
The following is excerpted from “Female Warriors: Memorials of Female Valour and Heroism, from the Mythological Ages to the Present Era,” by Ellen C. Clayton (Mrs. Needham), published in 1879 and shared online by Project Gutenberg.
Mher-Ul-Nissa, or Nour Mahal, the “Light of the Harem,” sometimes styled Nour Jehan, the “Light of the World,” was the favourite Sultana of Jehanghire, the “World-subduing Emperor” of Hindostan. A romantic story is told of her strange birth, her desertion by her parents, and how, like Moses, she was entrusted to the care of her own mother by her kind preserver, and how, by the benevolence of the latter, the family rose from poverty and obscurity to the government of the greatest empire in Asia. The beauty of Nour Mahal was famous throughout the East; Moore, in his “Feast of Roses,” has painted her portrait most exquisitely. Her personal charms were rivalled by her mental powers; and her political talents were speedily seen by the numerous reforms and improvements effected throughout the empire.
Nour Mahal was a widow when, in 1611, she became the bride of Jehanghire, and it is said that she took for her second husband the murderer of her first. Her influence over the Emperor soon became paramount. They had many tastes in common, amongst others the passion for hunting; Nour Mahal was as fond of the chase as Zenobia. In company with Jehanghire she would slay tigers and other savage beasts of the jungle, charming her lord by the adroitness with which she handled the bow or the more unwieldy matchlock.
It was strange that a haughty, overbearing, courageous woman like Nour Mahal should never have taken command of an army. We read of only one battle in which she was personally engaged. Her policy was to choose able generals to conduct all her wars. However, one of these chieftains was near causing her ruin. This was Mohabat Khan, the most talented Indian warrior of his time. She had the folly to quarrel with this man, and he, seeing that his ruin was determined upon, took the initiative, and seized the emperor in his own camp. He soon saw that it would have been wiser to arrest the empress; but on returning to remedy this fault, he found she had fled to the camp of her brother, on the other bank of the river—the Chenab.
Next morning the empress led a party across the river to rescue Jehanghire. She was armed with a bow and two quivers of arrows, and sat in a howdah on the back of an elephant. In fording the stream, hundreds were swept away by the force of the current. Those who escaped drowning were weighed down by their armour and their wet clothes, and had their powder spoilt. In this disastrous condition they were obliged to fight hand to hand with the rebels before a landing could be effected. Nour Mahal, with her brother and a handful of the bravest chiefs, was amongst the first who reached the shore; but this little band could make no impression on the ranks of Mohabat Khan, whose soldiers poured volley after volley, shot, arrows, and rockets, upon the men struggling in the water. The ford was soon choked up with men, horses, and elephants, dead or dying.
The contest raged fiercest round the elephant of Nour Mahal, who never quailed before the infuriated rebels who sought her life. Her gallant defenders fell one after another, fighting manfully to the last; but she herself appeared to bear a charmed life amidst the perfect hail of bullets and winged shafts, though her infant granddaughter, who sat close beside her, was wounded, the driver of her elephant was shot, and the beast himself received a cut across the trunk. Half-maddened with pain, the animal plunged into the river, and was carried away by the stream. When at length the elephant struggled up the bank, Nour Mahal was discovered calmly extracting an arrow from the wound of her grandchild, as cool and collected as though she had been a spectator at a review in place of the leading actor in a fierce encounter. The howdah was saturated with blood.
The failure of this rash, though gallant attempt, proved that Mohabat was too strong to be subdued by open force; Nour Mahal therefore resolved to lull his suspicions, and trust to chance for some expedient to crush him. Next day she went to his camp and surrendered herself a prisoner. For a[158] time Mohabat Khan ruled paramount throughout the empire; but in a few months Nour Mahal, partly by cunning, partly by appealing to the loyalty of the omrahs, rescued her husband from the clutches of this man, whose power thenceforth ceased for ever.
Jehanghire died on the 28th of October, 1627.
Although Nour Mahal survived him for twenty-four years, she held aloof from politics. She was buried in a splendid tomb at Lahore, close by the monument of Jehanghire.
Spontini has chosen the story of Nour Mahal as the subject for one of his best operas.