Empress by Ruby Lal

Author:Ruby Lal
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2018-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Jahangir’s father had built a sturdy stone palace-fort in Srinagar on a hill called the Hari Parbat, overlooking the lovely Dal Lake, approximately four miles long and three miles wide, fed by a channel that brought water from the mountains. In the spring of 1620, the royal party settled into the Hari Parbat palace.

Kashmiris traditionally planted tulip bulbs on the roofs of buildings, including garden pavilions. The palace garden was dilapidated, “out of order and ruinous,” but tulips flowered luxuriantly on the roofs of its buildings. Mu’tamad immediately began repairs. In a short while, a new charm engulfed Hari Parbat. A lofty three-level platform in the middle of the garden was redecorated. Mughal master painters adorned the buildings with works that “would make the painters of China jealous.”18 Jahangir announced that the restored grounds would be called the Nurafza bagh, the Light-Enhancing Garden.

To Jahangir, light was more than a metaphor. The loftiest ambition of a Mughal king was to be seen as the ruler of two worlds: the imperial and the sacred, the visible and the spiritual. Order and harmony, a reflection of divinity—a force of light—resided in the king. When Jahangir gave himself the imperial name Nur ad-Din, the Light of Faith, and when he renamed his new wife, Mihr un-Nisa, the Light of the Palace, then Light of the World, he was participating in this tradition.

The Mughals had long associated themselves with the “great light” of the sun. Jahangir was also drawn to the famous Verse of Light in the Quran cited by many Sufis and Neo-Platonist philosophers, declaring that “God has seven and seventy veils of light. Were these to be stripped from His face, the majesty of His countenance would consume all that He beheld.”19 Even the chosen ones, including sovereigns, were only intermediaries—receiving a touch of the grace of light.

Nur and Jahangir entered into this open philosophical ground, creating a realm of light, even in the names they gave to the gold, silver, and copper coins of various sizes that they struck: Light of Sovereignty, Light of Kingship, Light of the Court, Light of the Sun, Light of the World.20 The Light-Enhancing Garden of Srinagar became another emblem of the emperor’s connection to Nur, a way for Jahangir to honor their common name and joint rule. And the trend would continue. Already Nur was contemplating the design of another garden in Agra, which she would name the Light-Scattering Garden.

A visit from someone connected to Nur’s past continued this link with light. Twenty-four years earlier, Haidar Malik had served Nur Jahan in the immediate aftermath of her first husband’s murder: She had spent the forty obligatory days of mourning in his house before proceeding to Agra. Now living in Kashmir, Malik came to renew his loyalty to the emperor and empress. The trio went partridge hunting among the flowing streams and lofty trees near the village of Chahardara, Malik’s home, ten miles south of Srinagar. The imperial couple was very pleased with the place. Seized by

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