The Moghul
Page 74
For those curious how much of the foregoing tale is "true," perhaps itmay be helpful to unmask the original inspiration for several of thecharacters. The Great Moghul Akman, his son Arangbar, and Arangbar'sprimary consort, Queen Janahara, had real-life counterparts in theGreat Moghul Akbar, his successor Jahangir, and Jahangir's resourcefulPersian queen, Nur Jahan. Nadir Sharif, for all his duplicity, hadnothing on Jahangir's devious prime minister, Asaf Khan, the brother ofQueen Nur Jahan. Similarly, Prince Jadar was no more ingenious, and noless wronged, than Asaf Khan's son-in-law, the subsequent Moghul andbuilder of the Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan. Prince Jadar's strategies andintrigues, first with and then against Queen Janahara, resemble in manyways those of Shah Jahan as he struggled to thwart the ambitions of NurJahan. The Shahbandar and the opium-sotted governor of Surat also hadcounterparts in real individuals, as did Jadar's beloved Mumtaz, hisyounger brother Prince Allaudin, Princess Layla, Malik Ambar, andInayat Latif. The Sufi mystic Samad was re-created from the real-lifepoet Sarmad, who was admired by Shah Jahan and who was executed by alater Moghul for precisely the reasons given in the story. Of thePortuguese, Father Alvarez Sarmento was drawn in some part from thelearned Father Jerome Xavier. It should be noted that the unofficialactions of the early Jesuits in India are remembered today primarilythrough the perceptions of English travelers, all of whom were allstaunchly anti-Catholic. The role of Portuguese Jesuits in thepreceding story was faithful in spirit to the English reports, althoughtoday these may seem mildly paranoid in their fear and suspicion.