Kandahari Begum

Kandahari Begum (also spelled Qandahari Begum; 1593 - ?; also Known as Kandahari Mahal; Arabic, Urdu: قندهاری‌ بیگم‌‎; Hindi: कन्दाहरी बेग़म; meaning "Lady from Kandahar") was Empress of the Mughal Empire as the first wife of Emperor Shah Jahan.

She was born a Safavid princess (Shahzadi) and was the youngest daughter of Safavid prince Sultan Muzaffar Husain Mirza Safawi, who was the son of Sultan Husain Mirza, the son of Bahram Mirza, the son of Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty.

Early life

Kandahari Begum was born a princess of the prominent, Safavid dynasty, the ruling dynasty of Iran (Persia) and one of its most significant ruling dynasties. She was the daughter of decreased Persian dignity from the northern mountains at Kandahar, Sultan Muzaffar Husain Mirza Safawi, of the royal house of Persia, who was the son of Sultan Husain Mirza, the son of Bahram Mirza, the son of Shah Ismail I, founder of the Safavid dynasty.^[1] He was the ancestor of Shah Abbas I and also cousin to the Persian ruler.^[2]

Mirza Muzzaffar having some problems with the Safavid ruling authorities and perceiving the Uzbek pressure to capture Kandahar was forced to capitulate on terms to surrender it to the Mughals. Therefore, as Akbar who was keenly waiting for any chance to capture Kandahar, immediately sent Shah Beg Khan Arghun, Governor of Bangash, to take prompt possession of Kandahar, and though, as in all his undertakings, Muzaffar wavered at the last moment and had recourse to trickery, he was obliged by the firm and prudent behavior of Shah Beg Khan. In this way Kandahari Begum had to leave her native place to visit India in the company of her father and came to India during Akbar’s reign near about in the end of 1595 when her father and her four brothers, Bahram Mirza, Haider Mirza, Alqas Mirza and Tahmasp Mirza and 1000 qazilbash soldiers arrived in India. Muzaffar Khan received from Akbar the title of Farzand (son), and was made a Commander of five thousand, and received Sambhal as Jagir (property), “which is worth more than all Kandahar.”

Mirza Muzaffar Husain had exchanged the lordship of Kandahar for a high rank and splendid salary in the service of Akbar. His younger brother Mirza Rustam, also immigrated to India in Akbar’s reign and rose to eminence under Jahangir. The Mughal Emperors made the most of this opportunity of ennobling their blood by alliance with the royal family of Persia even through a younger branch. Muzaffar found everything in India bad, and sometimes resolved to go to Persia, and sometimes to Makkah. From grief and disappointment, and a bodily hurt, he died in 1603.

Marriage

When Jahangir to reconsider the Persian question at the end of 1609, pragmatism as always came to the fore. It would be madness to antagonize such a powerful personality, not least because a declaration of open hostilities between Agra and Isfahan would likely prompt Shah Abbas to send arms, men and money to his Shiite allies in the three Deccan kingdoms. That would doom the campaign led by Pervez. Persia's duplicity over Kandahar, then, had to be set aside and relations smoothed. As always, a politically expedient marriage would provide the answer, and with Khusraw in prison and Pervez already bound for Burhanpur and the southern front, Khurram was the logical choice. The decision to shape this purely strategic alliance came as mixed news to the young man. On the one hand, he had been denied the consummation of his long standing betrothal to the Lady Arjumand; set against that was the renewal of his central position on his father's attentions and in the politics of the moment.^[2]

And so it was that that eighteen-year-old Khurram was compelled to make his first marriage to a young Persian maiden. Subsequent Mughal court recorders and biographers, however, merely accord the princess the blandly descriptive label Kandahari Begum, a clear indication of her lesser status at the court. The process of arranging the marriage appears to have taken some time. The Emperor Jahangir recorded two related entries in his memoirs, nearly a year apart. The first appeared as just one item of business in a typically humdrum account of the day's court transactions, regional promotions, salary checks and other miscellaneous imperial housekeeping chores. On Sunday, 12 December 1609, Jahangir sent fifty thousand rupees as a wedding pledge to Kandahari Begum's house. Jahangir writes in his Tuzuk that “previously to this I had the daughter of Mirza Muzaffar Husain, son of Sultan Husain Mirza Safawi, ruler of Qandahar, betrothed to my son Sultan Khurram, and on this the marriage meeting had been arranged, I went to the house of Baba Khurram and passed the night there.”

On 9 October 1610, Kandahari Begum married Shah Khurram at Agra . Khurram's official biographer, Muhammad Amin Qazvini, was far more eloquent in his description of the marriage. Indeed, effusive compliments were the order of the day and his delirious account left no superlative unexplored. The festive assemble was arranged in a beautifully appointed mansion that was traditionally assigned to the widow mother of the ruling emperor and located inside the thick walls of Agra Fort adjacent to the palatial State House. The astrologers duly consulted the marriage at an auspicious hour.^[3]

A daughter, Purnuhar Benu Begum, was born to Kandahari Begum on 21 August 1611 and effortlessly swallowed up in the harem. The infant was entrusted to the care of the governess known only as Akbarabadi Mahal, the wife or sister of one of the emperor's closest companions and a lady whose positions as a wet nurse to the royal line afforded her wealth and status within the royal household.^[4]

Her three brothers remained in India i.e. Bahram Mirza, Hayder Mirza and Ismail Mirza who rose to dignity under Shah Jahan. The Ma’asir Alamgiri mentions her other two brothers, Alqas Mirza and Tahmas Mirza. The Mughal Emperor made the most of this opportunity ennobling their blood by alliance with the royal family of Persia even through a younger branch. Therefore, two daughters of Mirza Rustam, Iffat Jahan Banu Begum and Bilqis Begum, were also married to the Princes Parviz and Shuja respectively. Rustam’s son had become a high grandee with the title of Shahnawaz Khan. One daughter of Shahnawaz named Dilras Banu Begum was married to Aurangzeb in 1637 and next year another daughter, Sakina Banu Begum was married to Murad Baksh.

Burial place

She lies buried at Agra, in the center of the expansive garden at Agra founder by her (c. 1628 - 50), called Kandahari Bagh. She also had a mosque built, which was three arched, single dome mosque on the western side of the Kandahari Bagh at Agra. It served a quarry of bricks for constructing modern day buildings in the complex, and is no longer extant. The building over her tomb was largely destroyed during the period of anarchy which followed Aurangzeb's death in 1707. The building, which is in the vault is converted into a dwelling place. Her tomb does not exist any more, just the compound it was situated in does, along with one of the entrance gates, a portion of the wall and a couple of the wall’s corner cupolas. The British East India Company sold it to the Raja of Bharatpur who raised some modern buildings in it. The compound became property of the Bharatpur rulers at some point in the colonial era, and a mansion was built in place of the central tomb. Thence it became famous as "Bharatpur House". A gate and a few corner chhatris of the original garden have survived.

In popular culture

• Empress Kandahari is a character in Sonja Chandrachud's historical novel, Trouble at the Taj.^[5]
• Kandahari is a main character in a 2005 film Taj Mahal: An Eternal Love Story. The character is portrayed by Negar Khan.
• Kandahari is a main character in Ben Kingsley's historical film Taj. The character is portrayed by Daniela Lavender.

References

Bibliography

• Nicoll, Fergus (2009). Shah Jahan: The Rise and Fall of the Mughal Emperor. Penguin Books India. ISBN 978-0-670-08303-9. 
• Thomas William Beale (1881). The Oriental Biographical Dictionary. Asiatic Society. 
• Indica, Volume 40. Heras Institute of Indian History and Culture, St. Xavier's College. 2003. 
• Nagendra Kr Singh (2001). Encyclopaedia of Muslim Biography: Muh-R. A.P.H. Pub. Corp. ISBN 978-8-176-48234-9. 
• Syad Muhammad Latif (1896). Agra, Historical & Descriptive: With an Account of Akbar and His Court and of the Modern City of Agra. 
• Ernest Binfield Havell (1904). A Handbook to Agra and the Taj: Sikandra, Fatehpur-Sikri and the Neighbourhood. Longmans, Green, and Company. 
• Peter Mundy (1967). The Travels of Peter Mundy, in Europe and Asia, 1608-1667 ... Hakluyt society. 
• Abū al-Faz̤l ibn Mubārak (1873). The Ain i Akbari, Volume 1. Rouse.