218. Creator of The Taj Mahal: Shah Jahan’s Rise to Power (Ep 1)

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0:29Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnon. And me, William Terumpel. I'm not even going to berate you for the pause because I think actually I would allow you to have a lie down in between St. William and Dalrymple today because you are a man up against it, are you not? You're right, Anita. This is the first week of January and I have now two and a half weeks till the largest literary festival in the world opens in Jaipur and everything is sort of tottering. Remember that nice picture of Jahangir we were describing in the last episode, where he's sort of standing on a globe that's resting on an ox and shooting at an Abyssinian head representing Malik Umber.

1:09My life at the moment is a bit like that. Your example was much, much better before we came on. You said, someone paint this. There are very talented people on the Discord. Make this real for us. He said, Anita, it is like standing on a feather that is balanced on a snowflake, which is riding a surfboard in a Force 9 gale. So look, if you can make that into an image, we'd like to see it. But listen, you're doing very well. Just stay with it. The festival is a bit like organising a wedding every year. Yeah, but it always turns out beautifully. Everything nearly goes on, but it's always right in the end.

1:41Listen, exciting. We've had a surge in Empire Club joiners. There are reasons. Because you get all the extras and you get sort of our series. When we do series of things, you get them all in a big blip so you don't have to wait and hang around every week. We can do a Netflix-style binge. Oh, God. And don't we all love a binge? The other thing, though, excitingly, I'm going to tell him. William, I'm going to do a Dalrymple. I'm going to tell him. Are you letting cats out of bags? Persian cats? All sorts of cats. Every type of cat imaginable. we've got live shows coming up this year ladies and gentlemen live shows we'll be touring empire not going to say where partly because i can't remember but there are a few venues no i mean i actually really legitimately haven't asked permission to do this so let's just say no one will notice at gold hangar we're going to do a tour and with our empire live shows we have noticed that it sells out at light speed i mean my goodness the barbican which i personally never thought anyone would come to our birthday party, but you all came and it sold out within 24 hours and we do that.

2:41So if you are a member of the club, you get priority tickets. So if there was ever a reason to do something in January that might transform your lives, this is it. And you also get bonus episodes where we wang on about things that we don't wang on about in the podcast and you get to know us better. Anyway, enough of that because we're getting up close and personal with the man who would be Shah Jahal and the man who will ultimately be remembered as the architect, the builder of the Taj Mahal, a place where any of you who've probably done that golden triangle visit to India, it will stick out in your mind.

3:18It's odd though, thinking about him, because so often when we think about Shah Jahan, it is the buildings we think of. We think of the Taj, But we also think of the Red Fort, Shah Jahanabad, and all his amazing gardens and building schemes, which are dotted across North India and indeed right up to Kabul. But he himself, and I was just thinking this morning prior to doing this show, what a sort of reserved man he is and how much more inscrutable he is than his others. Almost all the other moguls that we've dealt with now, like Babur with his amazing diary and his incredible descriptions of the world he's passing through.

3:58Humayun, the hippy-dippy. Akbar with his extraordinary… Library camels. Yeah, the library camels. And Shah Jahan is, in a sense, almost only his buildings and his sort of ceremonial. He tightly controlled his public image. Not only are the artists given total detailed inscriptions of how he wants to be depicted in every picture, but even his court histories get written and rewritten and written a third time in different drafts at his instruction. He was kind of slightly obsessive. He's a handsome guy. We know his face very well because he had himself painted over and over again with this sort of sculpted dark beard, this slightly dark complexion because he's now three quarters Rajput.

4:47Every one of his parents and grandparents were either Rajputs or married to Rajputs. But he's a sort of oddly inscrutable, non-emotional man personally. And like the Medici's, we used this image with Johan Gia last time, but it's the same. He's both extremely sensitive to some things and capable of cold-blooded brutality. And he has both of those features in his character. Now, I wonder if one of the reasons that he is so controlling of his own narrative is because he's able to be, because he comes from a long line of heavy drinkers and drug takers, and he is not. He sort of stands apart because he doesn't indulge like his father, Jahangir, did.

5:26In fact, he didn't like drinking at all. There was a really interesting thing I found that Jahangir himself writes about, that the first time his son even tastes wine is on his 24th birthday when his father practically pours it down his throat. and this is what Cihangir writes about this. It was only after a great deal of trouble that he could be persuaded to take a little wine and so he drank a little bit, mostly when his father is forcing him to have a drink at ceremonial events. But after 1602, he gives up booze altogether because it is a lack of control and you get this impression. The portraits give you so much, but certainly from the writing and the difference of perception between his own court writers and those from outside his role, and we'll talk about that maybe a little bit later, He wants to control the narrative.

6:09Also, psychologically, I think, you know, obviously if you're brought up with an alcoholic father who is killing himself, that does affect you. To begin with, Jahangir notes very carefully how much he's drinking and how much he's taking of opium. But by the end, he's more or less incapacitated by it. Any self-control has gone. And Shah Jahang grows up with that daily reality. and the result is to make him this sort of controlling, austere and self-controlled, reserved figure, which is why I think it's interesting that when he finally falls in love, and this is the central story that we'll be dealing with in this episode and the next, he has this extraordinary marriage.

6:54His relationship with Mumtaz Mahal, which is the story that every tourist guide tells tourists as they come around Agra and that Taj is a symbol of love and all that sort of hokum that actually is based on a fascinating reality. And it goes so strongly against the stereotype that everyone in the West is brought up to, the Mughals or the Ottomans, these Muslim rulers are sort of massive harem guys with women on every side. Shah Jahan only has one love of his life. Well, he has one true love, but he does have a great big harem. He does have a great big harem, but one true love. Yes, but again, I understand that's for diplomatic reasons.

7:30There's no indication at all that he is sexually profligate, certainly in the course of his wife's lifetime. And it's very interesting how far... That's true for all the Mughals. I mean, many of them. If you think of Akbar, which Friar Manrique says that he's strongly disapproved of libertine behavior. Jahangir has Nur Jahan, who he's devoted to. It's a family with three generations of very strong marriages. And that's unusual and interesting. And we're sort of putting the cart before the horse. So let's just talk about little Shah Jahan, who wasn't called Shah Jahan at all. So if you're following our Mughal series, you'll know that there are titles that we will come to know people by which they may not have been born with.

8:10So actually, Shah Jahan, he was born with the name Kuram. And Kuram itself means joyous. And he was born in Lahore. He was born on January the 5th, 1592. And he was Jahangir's ninth child and his third oldest son. So the art of succession should not have been troubling him so much. Although, as we know from Mughal history, people leapfrog the succession line. But actually, just numerically, he shouldn't have had any business in thinking that he would one day rule. And his mum is from the great Rajpur kingdom of Jodhpur. Previously, a lot of the princes had come from Jaipur wives. And Jahangir's mother is the woman known in myth as Jodhbhai.

8:51Jodhabai, yes. I mean, in all the Bollywood films. Exactly. That has very little historic basis as a title, but she was from Jodhpur. And you can see that in his features. He's the first of the Mughals that really does look entirely Indian. He could pass in a room full of Rajasthanis today. There's nothing Central Asian at all in his features. There is a rather glorious little factoid that I want to throw in at this point, because yes, he will marry a Rajput princess, as you say, and these things were diplomatic alliances largely. But his father used to refer to Kuram, soon to be Shah Jahan's father-in-law, as Murtaraja, the fat king.

9:31So I think if you've spent Christmas with in-laws, you'll know how this goes. But this is kind of a moniker that's stuck with the Rajput king, who has given over his daughter for this alliance. Murtaraja is Uday Singh Rattor, more formal title. Well, yes, to his friends. Anyway, Kuram is born at a really important moment, astrology. We've talked about how important astrology is, particularly to people like Himayu, for example, who has astrology tense even when he has nothing else to his name. Tell me what this astrological moment that Qur 'am, soon to be Shah Jahar, is born under and why it's significant.

10:07He's known as the millennial sovereign, not in the sense of smashed avocados and that sort of millennial activity, but because he's born in the year 1000 of the Islamic calendar. And it's very important to remember, I think, that everyone in India, Hindu and Muslim, but also beyond into the wider world, believed at this period of history that the stars determine everything about your fate and about your life. And therefore, to study the stars is very important, and that astrology and astronomy are one science called in India, Juttisa, and that if you are born under this conjunction that Prince Karim is, then that is a very significant indicator of how your life is going to be.

10:53And as you say, this prince who is not, by any sense, automatically destined to inherit, and the fact that he actually does, proves to a lot of people that, despite being the ninth child, the fact that it's this man who will succeed, and in the eyes of many, open up the great golden age of the Mughals, is something that in a sense proves the validity of this way of thinking. He's heaven ordained in the eyes of many people. And it's because he's born at a time, and this is interesting, when Saturn and Jupiter are aligned. And in the Persian world, certainly, that is meant to be an ushering in of a new era of justice, peace, and prosperity.

11:31So he grows up with that on his shoulders. He may be the ninth child, he may be the third son, but the heavens have touched him on the shoulder. Until he's 15, this is, again, an interesting thing. He's not raised by his mother. He's raised by his grandfather's wife, Rukia Sultan Begum, and he's raised in Akbar's imperial harem. That's not unusual at the time. Why does this happen? I mean, because we've talked about it before that children are given over to other members of the household. And I've always been curious because after an emperor dies, There's such a bloodbath of killing as people want to put their own children and progeny forward.

12:09Why trust your child or why have your child given over to some other woman? Well, the woman in question, Rukia Sultan, who's the grandmother, is typical of these very powerful Mughal matriarchs. And the counterbalance to the young men sort of snarling at each other every succession crisis is this harem full of elderly, respected women who are often sent as peacemakers. And this is true very much of the period of Shah Jahan, that there are a succession of women, both elderly and younger. Prince Karim's future daughter, Jahanara, will play the role of United Nations peacekeeper in all the successions, the battles that will come.

12:49And we'll hear a lot more about her. But Rukhia Sultan is one of these women. And these are powerful women at the back who are pulling the bell ropes of state with enormous influence. There's a woman based in Atlanta called Ruby Lal, who's the great professor who's studied this. And she wrote her first book, which was based on her PhD, all about the Mughal harems. And up to this point, there'd been a lot written, both by sort of Orientalist Brits and by terrible sort of pop historians after independence, painting the Mughal Harim as this sort of pawn palace. And Ruby's work shows that it's actually full of these sort of incredibly wonderful old grannies who are keeping the whole ship of state afloat, who are peacemakers, who are holding forts in every sense, quite literally, while the men often run amok and go off the rails.

13:38And this woman seems to have provided all the love that young Prince Karim not only needed, but received a thousand times more he was loved than if it had been her own son. And you know what? That seems really significant that he does grow up very secure and very, very loved. So Akbar clearly marks him out as his favorite. Jahangir, Karim's father, says, my father frequently told me there was no comparison between him and my other children. and that love is reciprocated. This little boy grows up adoring Akbar, his grandfather. And when Akbar does eventually die, it is this little prince that sits by his bedside.

14:15Even though, you know what, normally when an emperor dies and families are reshuffling and shuffling for power, people are spirited away and hidden away. But he sits by his grandfather's side and holds his hand. He's also very lucky. I mean, this whole thing about sort of star ordained, when he's seven, he's hit by smallpox. And smallpox is a ravager of children in this era. If you don't die, you're often so badly pockmarked as a result of this. But somehow, he's lucky. I mean, he not only survives, but he remains un-pockmarked. I remember when I first went to India that lots of people were very badly scarred by pocks.

14:50You just don't see it anymore. But I remember it was something that rather shocked me in my first visits in the 1980s. And they were the lucky ones. So look, right from the get-go, this is a loved, blessed little boy. And then he becomes, in a way, even more blessed because of his naughty older brother. So tell us about Khosrow. We kind of mentioned him a little bit in the Johan Gheir episode. We did talk about Khosrow. Khosrow is that character who you were very exercised. I was saying this was normal princely behavior for the 17th century. But you were very put out by the fact that Jahangir blinded his own son who raised against him.

15:29Yes. Oddly enough, I was a little bit put out and perturbed by that behavior. Things are different in different periods of history. In the 17th century, in Europe and in here, there's much, much more violence within families and without. And Khosrow, who rises against Jahangir, has all his friends impaled and then is blinded. Then I I think there's an intervention from one of these grandmothers in the harem and Jahangir is persuaded to send medicine. I think send even a European doctor to attend Karim and his eyes. Oh, well, I take it all back. He's lovely. Karim's eyes are partially saved. Oh, he sounds like a right pushover in that case.

16:11What dad of the year. I take it all back. Okay, but this kind of treachery from your older son, it does put your younger son, who's further down the line, in an even better light. So Jahangir has watched this boy love his father, adore his mother, and be loyal. In fact, there are some sources that suggest that he even is the one, the young Kuram who is going to be Shah Jahan, is the one who warns Jahangir that Khusro is planning against him and Khusro is plotting against him. So even then, if this is a game of chess, this is a man who is promoting from pawn to queen, although not queen in this case, but would be possible emperor candidate.

16:52And they also share a great love of the arts, which isn't a given because not all the princes have this. As we heard in the last episode when Sue Strong was talking so brilliantly about it, Jahangir's great love was painting, and he oversees this extraordinary growth of the atelier with Mansur and Abul Hassan and all these other extraordinary artists painting away. And this is something that young Karam is also obsessed with. It isn't just painting that Karim loves. He loves architecture. And when he's a teenager, he begins to redesign the imperial apartments in the palace in Kabul, commissioning gardens and hunting grounds around the palace.

17:32And this is a sort of incredibly nerdy 15-year-old comes up with these brilliant plans and shows an extraordinary interest in architecture, even at that age. But the thing that really makes him stand out to his father is his obsession with jewels. Oh, tell us that story again. We did it in the Kono episode about how he has eyes on the prize all the time. Tell us that story again, because I love that story. So we have this from Jahangir's own diaries, and he's amazed to see this little kid take such an interest in something that he loves, which is precious gems and jewels, and to have a real connoisseurship, even in his early teens.

18:11And Jahangir comments with pride on his son's eye for gems and tells a number of stories. He calls him the star in the forehead of accomplished desires and the brilliancy in the brow of prosperity. So he's very proud of this little boy. And he tells the story that on one occasion when Jahangir, the father, had been given an especially fine pearl and wanted to find a pair for it, young Prince Karam pops up and sends off the men looking after the jewels to look for the exact match, which he'd seen several years earlier, which lay in an old turban jewel and was of a weight and shape exactly equal to this pearl.

18:52and they produced the old turban jewel and it's trafficked into court with a great sort of fanfare. And, says Jahangir, it was indeed of exactly the same quality, weight, shape, luster and brilliance. One might say, wrote Jahangir, that they'd been shed from the same mould. Placing the two pearls alongside the ruby, I bound them onto my arms. But that's not the story I was talking about. The story I was talking about. Yes, the other story I was talking about. This is given to us by Edward Terry, Sir Thomas Rowe's chaplain. You remember we talked about Thomas Rowe, entirely neurotic first ambassador to the Mookle court who never has a good enough present for the emperor.

19:28But he tells this story that young Curran, soon to be Shah Jahan, was so fascinated by gems that there was this banquet that was thrown and Edward Terry is blessed to be there. And there are 12 dancing girls who are bedecked in jewels and not much else. We've talked about this in the Koh-I-Noor episodes as well, that it's quite often that rows and rows and rows of pearls and diamonds and spinels. And instead of looking at these lovely ladies, and by the way, I say that with a little bit of sick in my mouth, this young lad does not look up from the jewels. Yes, he's just been brought a tray of jewels and he just can't take his eyes off them.

20:07And, you know, it may be that Miss World is parading in front of him, but he couldn't care less. Could not care less. So anyway, that's the guy. But let's talk about love, shall we? Because We've now got a 14, 15-year-old who is showing himself to have qualities that his father, Jahangir, clearly admires, that his grandfather, Akbar, clearly loved. And it is time to marry. At the age of about 14 or 15, it is not unusual for royals to marry. In fact, anyone to marry at that time. We're talking about the 1600s. So there's this lovely story about a trip to Agra where his eye is caught by the beauty that is Arjuman Banu.

20:48Now, you don't know that name. She'll have a different name that you will know if you know anything about the Taj Mahal. Mumtaz Mahal is the name that she will be given. She's a girl from a noble Persian family. Not just a noble Persian family, the sort of grandest Persian family in the empire. Her father is Asif Khan. And actually, incidentally, he's the man who gives the jewels to Khurram, soon to be Shah Jahan, which he can't take his eyes off and his dancing girls be damned. but this young woman catches his eye and they are betrothed to each other in the year 1607 so yeah she's 14 he's 15 but unusually they don't marry for another five years when she's 19 he's 20 years old and she becomes not his first but his second wife now that's interesting because the poor old first wife in the shadow of the Taj Mahal is often completely lost in this story but There is a first wife.

21:42Now, we should talk about her a little bit. And there will be subsequent ones. There are the third and fourth wives who are, again, married for diplomatic reasons. But this one is the one for Karam. Yes. And it's noted even at the time that this is something really extraordinary. And there's a court historian called Mohammed Amin Kazwini. And he writes a little bit later, The intimacy, deep affection, attention, and favor which His Majesty had for the Cradle of Excellence, which is another of the titles of Mumtaz, exceeded by a thousand times what he felt for any other. And always that lady of the age was the companion, close confidant, associate, and intimate friend of that successful ruler in hardship and comfort, joy and grief when traveling or in residence.

22:32The mutual affection and harmony between the two reached a degree rarely seen between a husband and wife, among sultans and rulers, or among the ordinary people. And this was not merely out of sexual passion. The excellent qualities, pleasing habits, outward and inward virtues, and physical and spiritual compatibility on both sides caused great love and affection, and extreme affinity and familiarity. Well, familiarity is right because this is a woman who will go on to bear 14 children to her husband. And bloody hell, you know, I did the maths on this. Do you know what this means? Do you know what this means in her lifespan?

23:10This is a child every 16 months, William. This woman must have been knackered with a capital K. But I'm just looking at sort of portraits of her and what it is that must have beguiled him and lots of miniatures at the time. I mean, she was loved, therefore she was painted. And they're actually remarkably consistent. You know, you don't always have this with ancient miniatures. Different artists put different spins and may not have any access. But she's got a very oval face, sort of broad forehead, very piercing eyes, but they're sort of quite far apart. Dark eyebrows, but very fair skin. She's Persian.

23:45She's not of Indian origin. She's a Persian. Asif Khan, as a young boy, came to India with his father, Itmad Udala, and his three sisters. Of whom I should say one married to Dhrimpal, but we won't go there again. Sorry, that's me banging my head. It's okay. Don't worry. You go ahead. Insert Dhrimpal here. James Dhrimpal in 1790 marries Muti Begum, who is Noor Jahan's great, great niece. That's nice. You'll be pleased to hear. Oh, yeah. Thrilled. Can't you hear it in my voice? I will take you one day to their grave in Hyderabad. Okay. No, that's a deal. I'd be up for that. So, look, his life is sort of all coming together.

24:23He's found love. He really has found love. He's got children coming, eight sons and six daughters in all. But in 1627, something monumental happens. And the great figure who has been on the dwindle with his alcohol and opium addiction, Jahangir, dies. Join us after the break and find out how all hell breaks loose.

24:50Welcome back. So, yes, we left you on a cliffhanger. Jahangir dies. Well, we all die. But his death is really very monumental. And we've talked about this. We've talked about him getting ill over time since the 1620s. I mean, there's age, sure. But opium and alcohol have ravaged the body and mind of this man. And he dies near Lahore. And at the time, notably, Khorram is not nearby. He's far away, isn't he? Where is he? Down in the Deccan. He's in the Deccan. miles away. And that is difficult because there is always a gallop to the throne, because who is going to claim it? And it is often the person who is nearby who has the head start, particularly if they're doing the leapfrog of succession.

25:35On the other hand, he has an army and he now has good military experience. And having fallen out with his dad various times and sort of done great sort of leaps around the country to avoid his father's army, chasing him. He is used to doing these dashes across India. Well, hang on a minute. Why has he fallen out with his dad? We're kind of leapfrogging that lovely fact. So, I mean, you know, this beloved child who's loved by Akbar, why does he piss Jahangir off? It's classic sort of succession issue that there's a whole range of fights between them. And at one point, famously, young Prince Karam hides on an island in the Pichula Lake in Udapur for a year.

26:16If you go to Udapur and stay in the Lake Palace, you can look onto the island where young Prince Karim hid from his father. Can I just make the observation that the love of a Mughal father swings like a metronome? So one moment adored and at another moment too big for your boots and therefore you annoy your father. And these things are actually life and death situations. It's not trivial at all. There's a wonderful Instagram site called Mad Moogle Memes, which I recommend to all listeners of Empire Pod. Go and look up Mad Moogle Memes. And they once put up a picture of two leather-bound books, one the kind of size of an enormous Bible and the other like kind of thin paperback.