By the time Shah Jahan lay dying on that cold January day in 1666, he would have known that he had been forsaken by all the men in his family. ‘I can indeed barely repress my indignation,’ spluttered French physician Francois Bernier, ‘when I reflect that there was not a single movement, nor even a voice heard, on behalf of the aged and injured Monarch.’

And yet Shah Jahan was not bereft during his years confined in Agra Fort. On the last day of the first month of 1666, it was a woman who bent over the frail Shah Jahan and whispered verses from the Quran. And it was to this same woman, his eldest daughter Jahanara Begum, that Shah Jahan confided his most pressing request – to provide for the other women weeping in the room: his ‘beloved consort’ Akbarabadi Mahal; the daughter from his fir

See Full Page