1 ‘ NOR JAHAN. 153 °
2 gardens, Close to it hé built a dome to be used as his tomb, but it so
3 happened that he was not buried there, and the spot was used as the burial
4 place of Hakim Abul Fath Gildni and his brother Hakim Himam, by order
5 of my father.” ; : 8
6 The king then reached Amardi, described as a most extraordinarily
7 green plain. At this place there were seven or eight thousand horses of the
8 Khatars and Dilazaks, who were highway robbers and practised every kind
9 of oppression. ‘Ihe emperor gave orders to Zafar Khan, son of Zen Khan
10 Koka, to merch the whole of the Dilazaks to Léhore before the return of
11 the royal éamp from Kébul, and to seize the chiefs of the Khatars and keep
12 them in prison.* At Peshdwar the emperor put up in the garden of Sirdar
13 Khan and received the respects of the Eusafzai chiefs. The governorship of
14 Peshéwar was bestowed on Sher Khan, an Afghan. On his way to the
15 Khaibar Pass, his majesty encamped at Ali Masjid aud reached Kabul.
16 The siege of Kandahar was raised. The whole of the year 1606 the
17 emperor passed pleasantly in Kébul and Késhmir, returning to Agra in the
18 beginning of 1607,
19 THE HISTORY OF NUR JAHAN.
20 Jahdngir is the only Mahomedan sovereign whose reign was influenced
21 by a passion which, iu other countries, has so often decided the fate of
22 empires, operating more forcibly than even ambition or avarice. The object
23 of his love was Nur Mahal, a Persian lady, famed for her unrivalled beauty
24 and brilliant accomplishments. The life of this lady is full of romantic
25 interest. She obtained a complete ascendancy over the emperor’s mind,
26 and for sixteen years the history of Nur Jahdn is the history of Jahdugir
27 and of his empire. Her original name, from the parents’ side, was Mihr-ul-
28 risa, She was the daughter of Mirza Ghids Beg, son of Khwdja Muhammad
29 The emperor at
30 Peshuwar.
31 Ths return to Agra,
32 1607.
33 The mrentyge of
34 Nur Jahan.
35 Sharif, an Uzbek Tartar noble of Tehndn. The Khwaja was governor of °
36 Khorasan, during the reign of Muhammad Khan Tukld, and, on the latter's
37 death, was appointed wazir of Yazd by King Thamasp of Persia. When
38 Humayun sought refuge in Tehran, after his disastrous flight from India,
39 King Thamasp specially appointed Muhammad Sharif to look after the com-
40 fort of his royal guest. The Khwaja had two sons, Aga Tahir and Mirza
41 “Ghids Beg. Ghids Beg was married to the daughter of Mirza Ala-ud-dfu,
42 and the result of the union was two sons and two daughters, the younger of
43 these being Mihr- ul-nisa.
44 After the death of his father, Ghids Beg, being reduced to poverty,
45 travelled to Hindostdn with his wife, his two sons, and a daughter. The
46 family was in such distress that the Mirza’s wife, who was then in an ad-
47 vanced stage of pregnancy, was carried on a cow which followed a caravan,
48 the rest of the party walking on foot. On the way to the city of Kandahar
49 was born the future empress of the country to which the distressed parents
50 were journeying in search of a livelihood. She was born in a desert, where
51 the poverty of her parents, and their inability to maintain the mother, so as to
52 admit of her nourishing the infant, compelled them to leave her at the foot
53 of a tree to the chances of the road. The mother fainted with anguish as the
54 spot where the infant lay receded from her view. The father, returning,
55 found the infant encircled by a hideous serpent, which he forthwith killed.
56 “The distressed condition of the mother and child excited the compassion of
57 Malik Mastid, the chief merchant of a caravan which happened to be
58 * These orders appear to have been faithfully executed, for there are now no Dilazaks here.
59 Of the Khatary there are still several villages, and the fertile plain of Khatar is still called
60 Mirza Ghias Beg hier
61 father.
62 The extreme poverty
63 of the family. em
64 Her birth.
65 The merchant Malik
66 Afasud.
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