Nur Jahan’s Political Influence: Power Behind the Mughal Throne
Nur Jahan, born Mehr-un-Nissa, was the most powerful woman in the history of the Mughal empire, and her political influence during the reign of her husband, the emperor Jahangir, was unprecedented in the dynasty. Nur Jahan was, in form, only the empress consort, and the formal offices of the empire remained in the hands of the wazir, the mir bakhshi, and the qazi-ul-quzat, but the effective direction of the imperial policy, particularly in the years 1611 to 1627, was substantially in her hands. The present page treats her early life, her marriage to Jahangir, her role in court, her political influence in jagir assignments, appointments, and foreign policy, the role of her brother Asaf Khan, the marriage of her niece Mumtaz Mahal to Prince Khurram, her later years, and the historical assessment. The broader administrative framework is surveyed in the Mughal administration overview, and the court and ceremonial context is treated in the Mughal court and nobility page and the court ceremonial page.
The Early Life of Mehr-un-Nissa
Mehr-un-Nissa was born in 1577, the daughter of Mirza Ghias Beg, a Persian nobleman of the Irani faction who had entered Mughal service in the reign of Akbar. The family was of modest standing, and Mirza Ghias Beg’s career, although distinguished, did not at first place the family among the great families of the empire. Mehr-un-Nissa’s marriage in 1594 to Sher Afghan, a qurchi or household cavalry officer in the service of the subahdar of Bengal, was a respectable match in keeping with the family’s standing.
The marriage to Sher Afghan brought Mehr-un-Nissa into the orbit of the Mughal court, and the early years of her marriage were spent in Bengal. Sher Afghan served with distinction in the Mughal conquest of Orissa and elsewhere, and Mehr-un-Nissa acquired a reputation for intelligence, beauty, and administrative capacity. The marriage was cut short in 1607 by the death of Sher Afghan, who was killed in a manner that has been variously reported. The farman of Akbar granted Mehr-un-Nissa a jagir in her own right, a remarkable provision, and the jagir provided her with the financial independence that would support her subsequent career.
The Marriage to Jahangir
In 1611, four years after the death of Sher Afghan, Mehr-un-Nissa married Prince Salim, the emperor Jahangir. The marriage was an event of state, and the emperor’s bride, who received the title Nur Jahan, or Light of the World, became the most prominent woman in the empire. The marriage was, in part, a love match: Jahangir was attracted to Nur Jahan and elevated her to a position of unusual prominence. The marriage was also a political event: the elevation of Mirza Ghias Beg, who received the title Itimad-ud-Daulah, and Asaf Khan, who received a series of high appointments, consolidated the family’s position.
The marriage was controversial within the imperial family. The previous emperor, Akbar, had died in 1605, and the late emperor’s principal wife, Salima Begum, and her family had been prominent at the court. The elevation of Nur Jahan was seen by some as a setback for the older families, and the disputes over precedence that followed the marriage were a recurrent feature of the early years of Jahangir’s reign. The principal rivals of Nur Jahan were Mahabat Khan, the mir bakhshi, and Prince Khurram, the emperor’s son, and the political struggles of the reign were, in large part, the struggles of Nur Jahan’s faction against the rivals.
The Role in Court
Nur Jahan’s role in the court was unprecedented. The empress was present at the durbar, both at the diwan-i-aam and at the diwan-i-khas, and the empress sat in a position of honour at the emperor’s side. The empress received petitions, heard grievances, issued orders, and was consulted on appointments, on jagir assignments, on the conduct of campaigns, and on the major political questions. The emperor, who suffered increasingly from ill health in the later years of his reign, delegated substantial business to the empress.
The empress was also the principal patron of the arts and the architecture of the period. Nur Jahan was responsible for the construction of several major buildings, including the Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah in Agra, the bagh of Nishat Bagh in Kashmir, and the bagh of Verinag. Nur Jahan was also a patron of the Mughal school of painting.
The Political Influence: Jagirs, Appointments, and Foreign Policy
Nur Jahan’s political influence extended to the three principal instruments of Mughal administration: the jagir assignments, the appointments, and the foreign policy. The empress held a substantial jagir in her own right, a provision that was extremely unusual for a consort, and the jagir gave her a financial independence that was the basis of her patronage.
The empress was consulted on the appointment of the wazir, the mir bakhshi, the qazi-ul-quzat, the sadr-us-sudur, the subahdars of the great provinces, the faujdars of the important sarkars, and the mansabdars of the higher ranks. The empress’s brother Asaf Khan served as wazir-i-kul from 1611 to 1621.
The empress was consulted on the conduct of the campaigns against Mewar, against the Deccan, and against the Portuguese. The empress’s most consequential foreign-policy initiative was the encouragement of the campaign against the Portuguese at Hooghly in 1632, a campaign that culminated in the defeat of the Portuguese and the temporary closure of the Hooghly factory, treated in connection with the European trade companies page.
Asaf Khan and the Family
Nur Jahan’s brother, Asaf Khan, was the principal beneficiary of the empress’s political influence. Asaf Khan was appointed to a series of high offices, culminating in the wazir-i-kul or chief minister from 1611 to 1621, and the Asaf Khan family became the dominant faction at the court. Asaf Khan’s daughter, Arjumand Banu Begum, married Prince Khurram in 1612, becoming the Mumtaz Mahal of the Taj Mahal. The marriage was the basis of the subsequent accession of Khurram to the throne as the emperor Shah Jahan in 1628.
The principal conflict of the later Jahangir period, the conflict between Prince Khurram and Nur Jahan, was, in part, a conflict between two branches of the same family. Nur Jahan attempted to influence the succession in favour of Prince Shahryar, the emperor’s youngest son by another consort, and against the claims of Prince Khurram.
The Marriage of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan
The marriage of Arjumand Banu Begum to Prince Khurram in 1612 was a major event of the reign. The marriage was celebrated with great ceremony, and the emperor’s bride received the title Mumtaz Mahal. The marriage was followed, in 1628, by the accession of Prince Khurram as the emperor Shah Jahan, and Mumtaz Mahal became, in Shah Jahan’s reign, the principal consort. The death of Mumtaz Mahal in 1631, in childbirth, was the occasion for the construction of the Taj Mahal, the most famous monument of the Mughal architecture. The relationship is treated in the Shah Jahan page.
The Later Years and the Historical Assessment
Nur Jahan’s political influence declined sharply in the later years of Jahangir’s reign. The emperor’s health deteriorated, the emperor’s addiction to alcohol increased, and the emperor’s dependence on the empress was increasingly resented by the great nobles. The most dramatic event was Mahabat Khan’s seizure of the emperor at the jharokha-i-darshan in 1626, in which Mahabat Khan, the mir bakhshi, took the emperor into custody. Nur Jahan attempted to free the emperor, raised a small force, clashed briefly with Mahabat Khan, and was defeated. The emperor was eventually released, but the episode marked the effective end of Nur Jahan’s political influence.
Nur Jahan survived Jahangir, who died in 1627, by several years, and the empress spent the rest of her life in retirement in Lahore. Nur Jahan died in 1645, at the age of sixty-eight, and the empress was buried in a substantial tomb at Shahdara, near the tomb of Jahangir.
The historical assessment of Nur Jahan has been substantially revised in the modern period. The traditional view, derived from the chronicles of the period, was that Nur Jahan was a powerful but ultimately disruptive figure. The modern view is more nuanced. Nur Jahan was, by the standards of the period, a remarkably capable administrator and politician, and her political influence, while extraordinary, was exercised in a manner that was consistent with the imperial tradition. Nur Jahan was a major patron of the arts, the architecture, and the literature of the period, and her tomb at Shahdara, the Tomb of Itimad-ud-Daulah in Agra, and several other monuments are substantial works of the Mughal tradition.
Sources
- Ruby Lal, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan (W. W. Norton, 2018).
- Ellison Banks Findly, Nur Jahan: Empress of Mughal India (Oxford University Press, 1993).