The Emperor Who Never Was

by Supriya Gandhi

  We might speculate, as at least one eighteenth-century British historian has, that Shuja, hankering to make his mark, pressed Mahabat Khan to write the emperor.81 There is some merit in this conjecture. The khan’s armies desperately needed a fresh infusion of support. Though Mahabat Khan had recently captured the Daulatabad Fort in Ahmadnagar, he could not seize the kingdom until Shahji Bhonsle, a Maratha chieftain, was removed from the equation. But Shuja had no military experience. He would be useful not for his prowess at fighting but for the renewed attention that the Deccan campaigns would attract. Both parties, Shuja and Mahabat Khan, would thus benefit.

  In preparation for his departure, Shuja received an official rank before his elder brother did. He was given a mansab sufficient to support ten thousand men and five thousand horses, two magnificently ornamented horses, and a chariot.82 A few months later, on the fifth of October 1633, also the emperor’s birthday, Dara Shukoh received his first rank. His mansab supported twelve thousand men and six thousand horses.83 Instead of leaving to head a military campaign, Dara remained at the court with his wife, who was now expecting their first child.

  * * *

  NADIRA HAD CONCEIVED A FEW MONTHS after her marriage. A daughter was born on the twenty-ninth of January 1634.84 To commemorate his first grandchild, Shah Jahan made a special visit to his son’s house, just as he had after Dara’s wedding. The prince arranged a sumptuous reception for his father and the many important nobles in his retinue. Shortly afterward, the imperial household, including the new mother and her baby, set forth from Agra toward Lahore.

  Before they arrived, the two-month-old infant died. The timing made the tragedy seem even bleaker. It was Eid-ul-Fitr, when they should have been celebrating the end of the Ramazan fast. Dara Shukoh was inconsolable and his grief took the form of a severe illness.85 We do not hear anything, though, about the condition of Nadira, who had just lost her first baby and now had to contend with an ailing husband. The prince’s fever soared and the court physicians could do little to cure him. Shah Jahan grew concerned and ordered that Dara Shukoh’s tent be pitched beside his own, so that Jahanara, who had taken over Mumtaz’s role in looking after the emperor, could better tend to her brother. The emperor also summoned from Lahore his trusted aide Wazir Khan, a physician of note who had often treated him and his sons. The khan managed to reverse the mistakes that the previous doctors had made, and Dara’s health finally improved. A relieved Shah Jahan ordered a celebratory feast and gave generous alms to the poor. At least this is what Lahori tells us in the Badshah-nama.86 For the imperial chronicler, the story ends here, on a cheerful note.

  But what if Wazir Khan never actually cured the prince? Eight years later, in 1642, Dara Shukoh picks up the thread of this story in a book he wrote—his second—called the Sakinat ul-auliya (The Tranquility of Saints). It does not contradict the version of Shah Jahan’s chroniclers but offers a completely different memory of what happened during the spring of 1634. An illness does feature in this, but it is not what Lahori recounts. And the death of his daughter for whom he grieved so deeply finds no mention whatsoever. Instead, Dara Shukoh describes an encounter and a miraculous healing, which, he believes, radically transformed the course of his life.

  It was the seventh of April 1634. Dara Shukoh had been unwell for about four months now, and doctors had been of no help.87 Perhaps the depression that Lahori mentioned never lifted, or Wazir Khan’s ministrations provided only a temporary respite. But in either case, then, the chronology does not match; Dara’s illness, which surfaced in January, must have preceded his daughter’s death. Could the tragedy have simply worsened a condition the prince already had? We will never know for sure. For Dara Shukoh, writing in 1642, the particulars of his ailment are less important than the details of its cure and aftermath.

  Lahori and Dara Shukoh agree on one point: that when the imperial party arrived in Lahore, the emperor made a visit to a Sufi ascetic who lived nearby.88 He was known merely as Miyan Mir, a hybrid Hindi-Persian title meaning “respected chief,” or by the more intimate Hindi appellation Miyan Jio, meaning “respected sir.” Unlike many religious leaders close to the court, he did not boast of grand Arab, Persian, or Central Asian ancestry. In portraits of him made during Shah Jahan’s reign, his dark, grayish brown skin stands out strongly, contrasting with the paler complexions of most other Muslim elites in Mughal paintings. As much as these depictions might reflect Miyan Mir’s true appearance, they also hint at a conscious differentiation between Indian-born and immigrant Muslims. Miyan Mir’s grandfather Qazi Qadan was one of the first mystics to compose Sufi poetry in Sindhi, the vernacular tongue of the region that stretches southward from the Punjab and comprises the Thar Desert as well as the Indus River’s southern stretches and delta. Miyan Mir was not particularly eager to seek out imperial patronage. He was content to remain in Sindh where he lived for years before moving north to Lahore.

  What Dara Shukoh mentions, and what Lahori’s account omits, is that the emperor took Dara along, as well, to meet the saint, and that the main purpose of the emperor’s visit was to find a remedy for his firstborn son’s illness. Shah Jahan made a humble entrance into Miyan Mir’s dwelling, writes the prince, by now a committed disciple of the Sufi teacher. The emperor took Dara Shukoh in by the hand and beseeched, “Revered Presence, Miyan Jio! This eldest son of mine has great affection for you. Physicians have been unable to treat him. Please look after him.”89

  Miyan Mir grasped the prince’s hand and, with the other hand, picked up a clay pot that he regularly used for drinking. After filling it with water, he breathed a prayer over it and recited the fatiha. He then instructed Dara Shukoh to drink the water and said that the prince would be cured within a week. A week passed, and Dara Shukoh, who was completely healed of all afflictions, decided to send one of his aides to the holy man for treatment. The man was cured within four days, at the precise moment that Miyan Mir had also predicted.

  Shortly after this encounter, Dara Shukoh joined his father on their annual trip to Kashmir, but upon their return at the end of the year, they visited the Sufi recluse again.90 This time, the emperor and Miyan Mir conversed at some length. As far as the official court historians are concerned, these meetings were nothing but a harmonious communion of elevated souls. According to Lahori, the emperor often observed that “amongst the ascetics of India, there are two who have ascended to the level of perfection—Miyan Mir and Shaikh Muhammad Fazl Ullah, who made his abode in Burhanpur.”91

  But, as Dara Shukoh later reports, Miyan Mir did not let the emperor’s esteem for him inhibit his own unsparing frankness. Dara recalls that when he visited the Sufi’s dwelling again, along with his father, the emperor confessed that his heart had become cold to the world, meaning that his royal duties wearied him and that he was looking for some spiritual succor. Miyan Mir, unsympathetic, retorted, “You ought to do a righteous act that would gladden the heart of any Muslim. On that occasion, then offer a prayer asking for nothing but God.” He then quoted a verse by the thirteenth-century mystic poet Jalaluddin Rumi to drive in his point: “You wish for God as well as the material world / This is mere fancy, impossible, insanity.”92

  Later during that meeting, the emperor gifted the saint a turban and a string of prayer beads, made from humble date seeds, not gemstones. According to Dara, Miyan Mir declined the turban but accepted the prayer beads, which he then gave to the young prince. The saint’s bold independence contrasted with the manner in which many Sufis eagerly received imperial patronage. On the two trips to Lahore during which Shah Jahan met with Miyan Mir, he also visited another Qadiri, Shah Bilawal, each time giving the latter a generous financial gift, which the Sufi distributed among the members of his lodge.93

  Why would the eldest prince diminish his father, the emperor, by relating this anecdote? Already, Shah Jahan had started to exercise tight control over the books and images that would portray him for posterity. Court historians, like Lahori, would certainly not dream of men
tioning Miyan Mir’s rebuff. Qazwini, who recorded an early, less sanitized history of Shah Jahan’s first decade of rule, does explain that the Miyan Mir did not generally appreciate gifts, which is why the emperor’s men only offered him a white turban and prayer beads. But he neither adds that the Sufi refused the turban nor discusses the further details of the conversation between the emperor and the recluse. Instead, he enthuses that their “felicitous meeting” was “the envy of all gatherings of sacred people and celebrations of spiritual folk.”94

  Eight years later, though, when Dara Shukoh wrote his Sakinat ul-auliya, he had become deeply immersed in Qadiri life. His description of the emperor’s encounter with Miyan Mir follows a familiar pattern in Sufi literature: the indifferent ascetic, unmoved by wealth and power, nevertheless manages to impress a ruler accustomed to obsequiousness. There is always a paradox in these cases: Miyan Mir’s charisma rested on his disinterest in the material world, yet he could not afford to completely reject connections with the imperial court, whose beneficence ensured the survival of his order. This account served the prince’s own purposes: by revealing a Sufi’s snub to an emperor, even his own father, he could thereby underscore his own spiritual precociousness. Perhaps Dara Shukoh’s book was meant for private circulation among an intimate group of friends and not for Shah Jahan’s eyes. Dara’s description of his own interaction with Miyan Mir provides a vivid contrast.

  “I considered his blessed house to be a sacred valley,” Dara writes, of his second visit to Miyan Mir, “so I went inside barefoot. His Presence, Miyan Jio, was chewing and spitting out cloves during his conversation with the emperor. Some of those present found this annoying to their sensibilities.” The Sufi, displaying his disdain for temporal power, had no qualms about behaving in a way that would ordinarily never be permissible before an emperor.

  What the prince did then must have astonished his onlookers. He gathered up these discarded, masticated cloves, and ate each one. As he swallowed them, he says, two simultaneous feelings arose in his heart: a sense of detachment from worldly matters and a knowledge of his intense belonging to Miyan Mir’s community. Once the emperor and his entourage took leave of the holy man and set off, Dara Shukoh lingered and went to Miyan Mir alone. For a while, he recalls, he rubbed his head upon the saint’s blessed feet. Miyan Mir, overjoyed, placed his hand on the prince’s head. Thereupon, Dara felt such sublime happiness that, he says, his head transcended the very throne of God. Later, a certain Hajji Muhammad Bunyani would tell Dara Shukoh that when the prince’s name came up in conversation, someone asked Miyan Mir, “Do you favor him?” The Sufi replied, “He is my soul and my eyesight.”95

  Dara Shukoh puts himself at the center of his account of the emperor’s meetings with Miyan Mir. But there is yet another dimension to the story of Shah Jahan’s visits to the Sufi recluse. This time we hear of it through an unofficial history written by a relatively ordinary man, at least, when compared to princes or the litterateurs of the imperial court. His name was Tawakkul Beg, and he was the son of a soldier from the Kulab highlands in Central Asia as well as a Qadiri devotee. In this work, which chronicles the life and times of Mulla Shah Badakhshi, Miyan Mir’s deputy, he exposes a scandal emanating from Kashmir, where Mulla Shah lived with a community of followers, including Tawakkul Beg.

  Mulla Shah was forty-seven when Shah Jahan ascended to the throne, and that same year, Tawakkul Beg tells us, the Sufi reached a singular level of spiritual realization, the full cognition of tauhid, or God’s oneness. In honor of the occasion, Mulla Shah composed a special quatrain, which speaks of the two “shahs” each sitting on his own throne: “He, Shah Jahan and I, the two, emperor and beggar / One day sat upon two thrones of guidance // He sat upon his world-ruling throne / I on the throne of understanding God’s essence.”96 The tone combines reverence with a hint of mockery. For a Sufi, it was clear which form of sovereignty was superior.

  Word of Mulla Shah’s spiritual attainments reached the ear of his pir, Miyan Mir, who heard that Mulla Shah could now witness the angelic realm with little effort, skipping the ascetic rigors and mortification that most Sufi adepts required. Students flocked to Mulla Shah in Kashmir. One of them, Mir Baqi from Turan, would lose control of himself when entering into a mystical state, uttering several statements that his fellow Qadiris found offensive.

  Miyan Mir denounced him strongly and expelled him from the order. Although he cautioned Mulla Shah, too, to guard his tongue during heightened spiritual experiences, the Badakhshani Sufi uttered the following couplet that seemingly denigrated the Prophet: “I am hand in hand with God / Why should I care about Mustafa?”97

  By the year 1634, the chatter about Mulla Shah’s ecstatic utterances and verses had become loud enough to gain the attention of some elite ulama attached to the court. They accused him of unbelief and drafted an edict calling for Mulla Shah to be put to death. Three of the highest ranking among them stamped their seals on it before the others could follow suit: Mulla Fazil, Shah Jahan’s household steward; Qazi Aslam, the chief jurisprudent of the empire under Shah Jahan who had officiated at Dara Shukoh’s marriage; and the qazi’s brother, Mirak Shaikh, who had been Dara Shukoh’s tutor.98

  Today we might think of the ulama and Sufis as two fiercely opposing camps, inhabiting separate worlds, but this was not the case in Mughal times. Though Tawakkul Beg does not say so, Qazi Aslam and Mirak Shaikh actually had strong Qadiri links. Qazi Aslam studied under the Qadiri Sufi Shaikh Bahlul of Lahore before entering court employment under Jahangir through his family connections.99 Another famous disciple of Shaikh Bahlul was the ecstatic mystic Shah Husain. Stories abound of his love for a Brahmin boy, Madho. Though Mirak Shaikh studied under Mulla Abd-us-Salam, the magistrate of Lahore, before entering Shah Jahan’s service, he also shared a teacher with Miyan Mir. Both were pupils of Maulana Nimatullah in Lahore, who in turn was a disciple of the Qadiri Sufi Sadullah, another of Shah Husain’s teachers.100 We might interpret the ulama’s strong objection to Mulla Shah’s verse as an attempt to bolster their own authority and quell Mulla Shah’s growing popularity in Kashmir.

  These religious scholars brought the edict to Shah Jahan, arguing that killing Mulla Shah would lead to rewards for the emperor in the next life. The emperor was reluctant to act without sending someone to Kashmir to verify matters. Just then, Dara Shukoh stepped in. He persuaded the emperor that, because Mulla Shah was a disciple of Miyan Mir, it would be inappropriate to act hastily. Shah Jahan praised Dara’s insight and promised to put a hold on the decree.

  It was an age before swift lines of communication, and more and more people heard news of the fatwa, but not the emperor’s order to halt it. The news drifted from Lahore to Kashmir, and Mulla Shah eventually heard that an imperial decree had ordered his death. He rejoiced, saying that he would now witness the countenance of the divine. His disciples, fearful, pressed him to escape to Tibet, insisting, “the scholars have all belted the waist of enmity.” Mulla Shah retorted that living and dying were the same to him, as he was not a mere imitator of authority.101

  Apparently, according to Tawakkul Beg, Shah Jahan had brought up the matter at his first visit to Miyan Mir. Upon hearing about the death sentence prepared for his disciple, the Sufi put the tip of his finger to his mouth in astonishment. “Mulla Shah is a master of mystical experience,” he explained. “When the spiritual state overtakes him, words just come out.” As the emperor and son took leave of Miyan Mir, Shah Jahan turned to Dara Shukoh and commended him for opposing the ulama’s edict.102 Soon father and son, together with the rest of the imperial household, left for Kashmir.

  4

  DISCIPLESHIP

  1634–1642

  IN THE SUMMER OF 1634, Dara Shukoh’s father waited until the heat had fully set in before he left Lahore for Kashmir. As usual, he took with him his family, the enormous staff of his household, and his army. There were four possible routes to the remote valley tucked within several ranges of high mountains. The imperial part
y had to choose their itinerary carefully to avoid dangerous landslides caused by the melting snow. By May, much of the snow would have already disappeared. They decided to approach the dense Pir Panjal mountain range from the Kashmir Valley’s southeast, by way of Bhimbar, a town now in the part of Kashmir administered by Pakistan.1

  At the beginning of June they arrived at the foot of the Pir Panjals. The mountain roads were exceedingly narrow. Dara Shukoh was one of the few permitted to ride along with some of the emperor’s personal attendants, the hunt officials, and the imperial kitchen staff; the rest of Shah Jahan’s massive entourage would walk. From Jahanara’s own later accounts of the return journey from Kashmir, we gather that the imperial women sometimes traveled on elephants, seated in curtained howdahs. But in this case, when the trails were narrow, they would have used palanquins.

  Mirza Amin Qazwini, the Iranian man of letters and court chronicler who later wrote his firsthand account of the trip, traveled with Asaf Khan. The lines of the emperor’s men, as they trudged up and down the difficult terrain, must have stretched for miles. Before beginning the ascent, Shah Jahan had arranged a qamargha, a special type of hunt that was the emperor’s prerogative alone. Fifty thousand men made themselves into a human barrier enclosing a large area, Qazwini tells us. Within it, the emperor shot some musk deer that were trapped inside.2 One can only imagine how many more men and women the imperial retinue must have included.

  They would have had to cross about seventy miles of rocky, mountainous terrain before reaching the Kashmir Valley, a long, slim oblong plateau about six thousand feet high. There were some particularly treacherous patches along the way. The poet Muhammad Jan Qudsi, who was also in Shah Jahan’s entourage, writes that some of the mountain passes were so narrow, the sky above seemed like just a strand of hair. His narrative poem describing this journey includes the following verses about the Pir Panjal range: “The east breeze struts gracefully at its skirt / Because it cannot climb to its top … A bird cannot fly on the route / It must slice a path with its wing’s shears.”3 Though there must have been some truth to Qudsi’s descriptions, he was also invoking stock images of the tortuous road to Kashmir, tropes that earlier Persian poets had popularized.4