Bakshi Banu Begum
| Bakshi Banu Begum | |
|---|---|
| Shahzadi of the Mughal Empire | |
| Born |
September 1540 Lahore, Pakistan |
| Died | 1596 (aged 55–56) |
| Spouse |
Ibrahim Mirza (m. 1550–1560) Mirza Sharif-ud-din Hussain (m. 1560) |
| House | Timurid |
| Father | Humayun |
| Mother | Gunwar Bibi |
| Religion | Islam |
Bakshi Banu Begum (1540 – 1596) was a Mughal princess and was the second daughter of Emperor Humayun from his wife Gunwar Bibi.[1] Bakshi Banu was thus the older half-sister of the Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Biography
Bakshi Banu Begum was born in September 1540 in Lahore to the second Mughal emperor Humayun, and his wife Gunwar Bibi. In 1543, she was part of the large group of Humayun loyalists who fell into the hands of Askari Mirza, Humayun's half-brother; her infant half-brother Akbar (born in 1542) was also part of the party.[2] In the depth of the winter of 1545, she was sent with Akbar from Qandahar to Kabul by the orders of her uncle, Askari Mirza; the two children were escorted by their attendants and foster mothers.
In 1550, at the age of ten, she was given in marriage by her father to Ibrahim Mirza, eldest son of Sulaiman Shah Mirza, Governor of Badakshan, by his wife Haram Begum, who came from a family which claimed descent from Alexander the Great. Ibrahim Mirza, who was six years older than Bakshi Banu, was killed in 1560, leaving her a widow at the age of twenty.
In the same year as the death of her first husband (1560), she was given in marriage by Akbar to Mirza Sharif-ud-din Hussain Ahrari, the Viceroy of Ajmer and Nagaur.