The Emperor Who Never Was
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91. For an account of the mosque’s architectural features and inscriptions, see Afshan Bokhari, “The ‘Light’ of the Timuria: Jahan Ara Begam’s Patronage, Piety, and Poetry in 17th-Century Mughal India,” Marg 60.1 (2008): 52–61.
92. Tawakkul Beg, Nuskha, fol. 60b.
93. Mulla Shah, Masnawiyat-i Mulla Shahi, British Library, MS India Office Islamic, 578. Attached to the frontispiece is a tinted drawing (nim qalam) signed by the artist Miskin Muhammad, depicting the pir Mulla Shah in dialogue with his master, Miyan Mir. This was probably added later. It is quite possible that this manuscript was in Dara Shukoh’s possession. As for his familiarity with Mulla Shah’s poetry, it is evident in his quotations of excerpts from it in Dara Shukoh, Sakina, 195–204.
94. “Ay tu Shah Jahan o tu Dara! / way tu Dara o tu Jahanara! // ba-tu Shah Jahani-yi qaim / ba-tu Daray-i jahan daim // hama Shah-i Jahaniyat, Dara / ba-tu Daray-i har Jahanara,” Mulla Shah, Masnawiyat, fol. 226b.
95. This painting is reproduced in Linda Leach, Mughal and Other Indian Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library (London: Scorpion, 1995), 447, fig. 3.58.
96. Tawakkul Beg, Nuskha, fol. 61b.
97. Tawakkul Beg, Nuskha, fol. 62a.
98. See Munshi Shaikh Abu-l-Fath Qabil Khan (d. 1662), “Correspondence with Jahanara Begam,” Adab-i Alamgiri, ed. Abd-ul-Ghafur Chaudhari, 2 vols. (Lahore: Idara-i Tahqiqat-i Pakistan, 1971), 2: 800–832, 813–814, §11. On the quality of this edition, see Vincent Flynn, An English Translation of the Ādāb-i-ʿĀlamgīrī. The Period before the War of Succession (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1974), xvi–xviii.
99. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 2: 817–818, §17; also 824, §22.
100. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 2: 815–817, §16.
101. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 2: 818, §17. I use the first person in the quote from Aurangzeb’s letter, though out of convention he uses the third person.
102. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 2: 811–812, §9.
103. “Az sang sakht Begam Sahib imarati / farzand-i nek-i Shah Jahan-i din panah,” Mulla Shah, Kulliyat-i Mulla Shah, Khuda Bakhsh Library, MS HL 688, fol. 129a.
104. “Tarikh-i khanqah-i mara Khanqah-i Shah,” Mulla Shah, Kulliyat, fol. 129b. This chronogram actually corresponds to 1062 AH (1652 / 3), so either the mosque complex was finished after Shah Jahan’s visit, or, which is not unlikely, the chronogram’s date is imprecise.
105. Firdos Anwar, Nobility Under the Mughals, 1628–58 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2001), 61–62.
106. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 536; translation, 459.
107. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 539–540; translation, 463.
108. For the gifts, see Qabil Khan, “Correspondence with Shah Jahan,” Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 21–253, §§10, 14, and 15; for Aurangzeb’s efforts in procuring fruits, see §§5 and 22.
109. Qabil Khan, “Correspondence with Shah Jahan,” Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 21–25, 36–37, §10; Flynn, An English Translation, 34bis–35, §12. In many cases, I have modified Flynn’s partial translation in my quotations.
110. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 37, §10; translation, 35, §12.
111. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 39, §16; translation, 50, §16.
112. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 65, §25; translation, 78, §25.
113. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 86, §31; translation, 118, §31.
114. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 90, §33; translation, 124, §33.
115. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 96, §36; translation, 134–136, §36.
116. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 98, §37; translation, 140–141, §37. For the proverb, see Inayatullah Shahrani, Zarb-ul-masalha-yi Dari-yi Afghanistan (Stockholm: Afghanistan Cultural Association, 2001), §5091.
6. Mission, 1652–1654
1. Munshi Shaikh Abu-l-Fath Qabil Khan, “Correspondence with Shah Jahan,” Adab-i Alamgiri, ed. Abd-ul-Ghafur Chaudhari, 2 vols. (Lahore: Idara-i Tahqiqat-i Pakistan, 1971), 1: 100–101, §38. Flynn assumes that they met during this leg of the journey on the basis of Aurangzeb’s letter to Shah Jahan; Vincent Flynn, An English Translation of the Ādāb-i-ʿĀlamgīrī. The Period before the War of Succession (PhD thesis, Australian National University, 1974), 145: §38.
2. Qabil Khan, “Correspondence with Jahanara Begam,” Adab-i Alamgiri, 2: 813, §10.
3. Qabil Khan, “Correspondence with Shahjahan,” Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 108–111, §44; translation, 162–170, §44. In this letter, Aurangzeb also includes a glowing, detailed description of the building activity in the palace-fort complex and associated structures.
4. Aqil Khan Razi (d. 1696 / 7), Waqiat-i Alamgiri, ed. Zafar Hasan (Delhi: Mercantile Print, 1946), 14–15. Aqil Khan does not mention Jahanara’s role here though, simply mentioning that each brother played host to the other.
5. Qabil Khan, Adab-i Alamgiri, 1: 116, §47; translation, 181, §47.
6. Mirza Muhammad Tahir Inayat Khan (d. 1670), Mulakhkhas-i Shahjahan-nama, ed. Jamil-ur-Rahman (Delhi: Rayzani-i Farhangi-i Jumhuri-i Islami-i Iran, 2009), 548–549; translated as The Shah Jahan Nama of ‘Inayat Khan, trans. A. R. Fuller, eds. W. E. Begley and Z. A. Desai (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), 472–473.
7. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 553–554; translation, 477.
8. Muhammad Badi-uz-Zaman Rashid Khan, Lataif-ul-akhbar, British Library, MS Add. 8907, fols. 14a–14b.
9. Rashid Khan, Lataif, fol. 14a.
10. For the date of composition, see Diloram Yusupova, “History,” in The Treasury of Oriental Manuscripts: Abu Rayhan al-Biruni Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Science of the Republic of Uzbekistan (Taskhent: UNESCO, 2012), 17–26, 22 (no. 5400).
11. The date Rabi I 24, 1063 (February 22, 1653) is given in Rashid Khan, Lataif, fol. 7a; cf. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 554; translation, 478.
12. Rashid Khan, Lataif, fol. 15a.
13.A Descriptive List of Farmans, Manshurs, and Nishans Addressed by the Imperial Mughals to the Princes of Rajasthan, ed. and trans. Nathu Ram Khadgawat (Bikaner: Directorate of Archives, Rajasthan, 1962); translation, 82, §207, dated Jamadi I 11, 1063 (April 9, 1653).
14.A Descriptive List of Farmans, 82, §201, dated Shawwal 17, 1061 (October 3, 1651).
15. For instance, Dara Shukoh, Diwan, ed. Ahmad Nabi Khan (Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, 1969), 71–72, §41.
16. See James Wescoat, “Introduction: The Mughal Gardens Project in Lahore,” in The Mughal Garden: Interpretation, Conservation, and Implications, ed. Mahmood Hussain et al. (Rawalpindi: Ferozsons, 1996), 9–22; James Wescoat and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, “The Mughal Gardens of Lahore: History, Geography, and Conservation Issues,” Die Gartenkunst 6 (1994): 19–33.
17. Farid-ud-Din Attar, Tazkirat-ul-awliya, ed. Reynold Nicholson, 2 vols. (London: Luzac, 1905–1907) 2: 145–146.
18. “Guft an yar kaz u gasht sar-i dar buland / jurmash an bud kih asrar huwaida mi kard,” Shams-ud-Din Hafiz, Diwan, ed. Yahya Qarib (Tehran: Safi Ali Shah, 1978), 86.
19. Carl Ernst, Words of Ecstasy in Sufism (Kuala Lumpur: S. Abdul Majeed, 1994), 23–24.
20. Dara Shukoh, Hasanat-i arifin, ed. Makhdum Rahin (Tehran: Muassasa-i Visman, 1973), 2.
21. Dara Shukoh, Hasanat, 2–3. The infamous Abu Jahl (d. 624), uncle of the Prophet, is believed to be condemned to the fires of hell on the basis of Quran 96: 9–19.
22. On the role of Sufism in premodern Muslim societies see Nile Green, Sufism, A Global History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 126.
23. Ata Anzali, “Mysticism” in Iran: The Safavid Roots of a Modern Concept (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2017), esp. 24–68.
24. “Bihisht anja kih mullayi nabashad / zi mulla bahs o ghogayi nabashad / jahan khali shawad az shor-i mulla / zi fatwahash parwayi nabashad / … dar an shahri kih mulla khana darad / dar inja hech danayi nabashad / mabin ay qadiri tu ruy-i mulla! / maro anja kih shaidayi nabashad,” Dara Shukoh, Diwan, 104–105, §94.
25. Muhammad Sadiq Kashmiri Hamdani (fl. 1636), Tabaqat-i Sha
hjahani: Tabaqa-i Ashra (Delhi: Danishgah-i Dihli, 1990), 34–35. On Afzal Khan, see also Rajeev Kinra, “The Learned Ideal of the Mughal Wazīr: The Life and Intellectual World of Prime Minister Afzal Khan Shirazi (d. 1639),” in Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World, ed. Paul Dover (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 177–205.
26. Hamdani, Tabaqat, 37.
27. Tawakkul Beg Kulabi, Nuskha-i ahwal-i shahi, British Library, MS Or. 3203, fol. 64a.
28. For a portrait of Dilruba, see the single-leaf folio housed in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MS W. 696, which depicts six pirs: Shah Khayali, Miyan Abu-l-Maali, Mulla Shah, Miyan Shah Mir, Mulla Khwaja, and Shah Muhammad Dilruba. I am grateful to Murad Khan Mumtaz for discussing this painting with me.
29. Dara Shukoh, “Shah Dilruba,” Hasanat, 72–75.
30. Dara Shukoh to Shah Dilruba, Letter 1, Fayyaz-ul-qawanin, British Library, MS Or. 9617, fol. 40a.
31. “Bigana chira shudi tu az ma / ma o tu qadim ashnayim,” Dara Shukoh to Shah Dilruba, Letter 2, Fayyaz, fol. 41a.
32. Dara Shukoh to Shah Dilruba, Letter 3, Fayyaz, fol. 42a.
33. Dara Shukoh to Shah Dilruba, Letter 6, Fayyaz, fol. 45a.
34. Dara Shukoh to Shah Dilruba, Letter 4, Fayyaz, fol. 43a.
35. For an anachronistic treatment of the passage and its significance, see Iftikhar Ahmad Ghauri, War of Succession: Between Sons of Shahjan (1657–1658) (Lahore: Publishers United, 1964), 72–73.
36. Leonard Lewisohn, Beyond Faith and Infidelity: The Sufi Poetry and Teachings of Mahmud Shabistarî (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995), 279.
37. “Agar kafir zi islam-i majazi gasht bezar / kira kufr-i haqiqi shud padidar / darun-i har buti janast panhan / bazer-i kufr imanast panhan,” Mahmud Shabistari, Gulshan-i raz, ed. Kazim Dizfuliyan (Tehran: Talaya, 1382 / 2003–2004), 120. For an example of the extensive commentarial tradition on this poem, see, for instance, Sayin-ud-Din Ibn Turka (d. 1432), Sharh-i Gulshan-i raz, ed. Kazim Dizfuliyan (Tehran: Payk-i Iran, 1996), 212. For an earlier use of the dichotomy between islam-i majazi and kufr-i haqiqi, see Ain-i Quzat, Tahmidat, ed. Afif Usayran (Tehran: Chapkhana-i Danishgah, 1962), 349, and broadly, 205–254. The terms haqiqa and majaz have a long history in various Islamic hermeneutical discourses. On the origins of the categories in terms of literary criticism, see Wolfhart Heinrichs, “On the Genesis of the Ḥaqîqa-Majâz Dichotomy,” Studia Islamica 59 (1984): 111–140.
38. For the topic of Akbar’s religious reforms, see the still relevant survey by Makhanlal Roychoudhury, The Din-i-Ilahi or the Religion of Akbar, 2nd ed. (Calcutta: Das Gupta, 1952).
39. “Az din-i islam-i majazi wa taqlidi kih az pidaran dida wa shanida,” is part of the oath taken for Akbar’s din-i-ilahi, as reported by Abd-ul-Qadir Badauni, Muntakhab-ul-tavarikh, ed. Sahib Ahmad Ali, 3 vols. (Tehran: Anjuman-i Asar, 2000), 2: 212. The date of 1580 / 1 for the enactment of the oath under Akbar is given in Roychoudhury, Din-i-Ilahi, 221, 240–241.
40. Reference later dialogues with Baba Lal.
41. See for instance, Muhammad Waris, Badshah-nama, British Library, MS I.O. Islamic 324, fols. 126b, 147a, 149a, and 154a. See also Muhammad Waris, Badshahnamah of Muhammad Waris, trans. Ishrat Husain Ansari and Hamid Afaq Qureshi (Delhi: Idara-i Adabiyat-i Dehli, 2017). 143, 151, 153, 162, 179, 182.
42. For the abridgment of the Shah-nama, see Tawakkul Beg, Tarikh-i Dilgusha-yi Shamsher Khani, ed. Tahira Parvin Akram (Islamabad: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i Farsi-i Iran wa Pakistan, 2005).
43. For a discussion of the work and an enumeration of the many manuscripts see Charles Melville, “The Shāhnāma in India: The Tārīkh-i Dilgushā-yi Shamshīr Khānī,” in The Layered Heart. Essays on Persian Poetry. A Celebration in Honor of Dick Davis, ed. A. A. Seyed-Ghorab, Washington, DC: Mage, 2019), 411–41. I would like to thank the author for sharing this article with me prior to its publication. See also Pasha Khan, “Marvellous Histories: Reading the Shāhnāmah in India,” Indian Economic Social History Review 49.4 (2012): 527–556; and Brittany Payeur, “The Lilly Shamshir-Khani in a Franco-Sikh Context: A Non-Islamic ‘Islamic’ Manuscript,” in The Islamic Manuscript Tradition: Ten Centuries of Book Arts in Indiana University Collections, ed. Christiane Gruber (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 221–250.
44. Augustus Le Messurier (d. 1916), Kandahar in 1879: The Diary of Major Le Messurier (London: W. H. Allen, 1880), 130–131. Quoted in Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 5 vols. (Calcutta: Sarkar and Sons, 1912–1924), 1: 142.
45. I have based my description of Qandahar on Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (d. 1689), Les Six Voyages (Paris: Gervais Clouzier, 1676), 516, 693–698 (bk. 5, ch. 1, 24); see, particularly, “Plan de la ville et de la forteresse de Candahar,” translated as The Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier, trans. J. Phillips (London: M. P., 1678), 198, 257–258; Le Messurier, Kandahar, 69–72; T. J. Arne, “A Plan of Qandahar,” Imago Mundi 4.1 (1947): 73; see also Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 1: 126–169.
46. See, for instance, Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 1: 166.
47. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 561; translation, 484.
48. Inayat Khan, Mulakhkhas, 562–563; translation, 486.
49. Henry G. Raverty, Notes on Afghanistan and Part of Baluchistan (London: G.E. Eyre & W. Spottiswoode, 1880), 25–26 (account based on Rashid Khan’s Lataif).
50. Rashid Khan, Lataif, fol. 13a.
51. Rashid Khan, Lataif, fols. 61a–62a.
52. Rashid Khan, Lataif, fols. 65a, 66a.
53. Muhammad Salih Kamboh, Amal-i Salih, ed. Ghulam Yazdani, 3 vols. (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi-i Adab, 1958–1960), 3: 124–125. Note that in the sources, the term for subjugating (taskhir) the citadel and subjugating demons in the service of that goal is the same, suggesting a further conceptual tie between the military and occult endeavors.
54. The honorific derives from a feted ancestor, the high-ranking leader Mirza Yar Ahmad Najm-i Sani (d. 1512), a commander-in-chief of the Safavid armies for the Persian Emperor Shah Ismail. On Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, see Nawab Shahnawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-umara, ed. Maulvi Abd-ur-Rahim, 3 vols. (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1888), 1: 180, 408–412. See also Gordon Mackenzie, A Manual of the Kista District in the Presidency of Madras (Madras: Lawrence Asylum Press, 1883), 293. See also Syed Hasan Askari, “Mirzā Muḥammad Bāqir Najm-i-Thānī, Author of the Mau’iza-i Jahāngīrī,” in ‘Arshi Presentation Volume, ed. Malik Ram and M. D. Ahmad (Delhi: Majlis-i Nazr-i ‘Arshi, 1965), 103–122.
55. See Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, Mauiza-i Jahangiri, edited and translated as Advice on the Art of Governance: An Indo-Islamic Mirror for Princes, ed. and trans. Sajida Sultana Alvi (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), fols. 56a–56b; see also, in particular, Alvi, “Introduction,” 1–31.
56. For a treatise on physics and astronomy, see Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, Hayat, Tehran Majlis Library, MS 10.7483, fols. 11a–48b.
57. For his grimoire, inspired in part by Fakhr-ud-Din Razi’s Sirr-ul-maktum, see Muhammad Baqir, Kashf-ul-asrar, Bodleian Library, MS Ouseley Add. 14.
58. For instance, Muhammad Baqir’s Persian translation of the Arabic talismanic collection ascribed to Aristotle, the so-called Zakhira-i Iskandarani, MS Whinfield 57, fols. 1b–77b. For more manuscripts of this particular text, see Raza Library, Rampur, P. 1581 and P. 1582, and the references given in Barbara Schmitz and Ziyaud-Din Desai, Mughal and Persian Paintings and Illustrated Manuscripts in the Raza Library, Rampur (Delhi: Aryan Books International, 2006), 130–132, plates 209–210.
59. As recorded in Muhammad Baqir Najm-i Sani, Siraj-ul-manahij, Majlis-i Shura-i Islami, Tehran, MS 3797, 4–5. For more manuscripts, see Fihrist-i nuskha-i khatti-i farsi kitabkhana-i Raza Rampur, 3 vols. (Delhi: Diamond Printers, 1996), 3: 88–89.
60. For instance, the spectacular, illuminated Persian fragment of Fakhr-ud-Din Razi, Sirr-ul-maktum, originally produced in Akbar’s court, Raza Library Rampur, Album 2, in Schmitz and Din Desai, Mughal and Persian Paintings, 20–27, plates 13–
19; Yael Rice, “Cosmic Sympathies and Painting at Akbar’s Court,” Marg 68.2 (2016): 88–99. Also see the so-called Delhi collection, taken from the Mughal imperial, archives in 1858 during the British occupation of India, now housed in the British Library. The collection serves as a rough index for materials commonly held in the Mughal court. The holdings in the occult sciences are fairly rich. See, for instance, Sakkaki, Ash-Shamil fi l-bahr-il-kamil, which opens with an early Arabic redaction of the Picatrix, the famed book of spells (Delhi Arabic 1915). Collections of talismans are to be found (e.g., Delhi Arabic 361), among many others; see also Muhammad Sabzwari, Tuhfat-ul-gharaib, Delhi Persian 1183, dated 1095 AH (1684).
61. See Abu-l-Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, ed. Heinrich Blochmann, 2 vols. (Calcutta: Calcutta Baptist Mission Press, 1872–1877), 2: 57–58, 129; translated as The Āʾīn-i Akbarī, trans. Heinrich Blochmann, ed. Douglas Craven Phillott, 3 vols. (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1927–1949), 3: 239.