BOOK TWO of the Taj Mahal Trilogy
BOOK ONE: The Twentieth Wife BOOK THREE: Shadow Princess
- The novels of the Taj Trilogy are more or less self-contained; you can read out of order, but preferably, read in order.
Synopsis
ON THE 25th of MAY, 1611, Mehrunnisa married Emperor Jahangir and came into the imperial harem as his twentieth—and last—wife. Soon after, Jahangir bestowed upon her a royal title, Nur Mahal, ‘Light of the Palace.’ And a few years later, he called her Nur Jahan, ‘Light of the World.’ For Mehrunnisa, the only woman Emperor Jahangir married for love, was his entire world. Almost from the beginning, she began pushing at the boundaries of what a royal wife in 17th Century Mughal India was allowed to do.
Still veiled, she petitioned her husband to allow her to stand next to him at the early morning audiences, called the jharoka, raising the hackles of the other, still powerful women in the harem, and, the ministers at court.
The enemies piled up, one after another, eager to pour poison into the Emperor’s ear, terrified of the hold this thirty-four year old, previously-married woman had on him. History records that Jahangir and Empress Nur Jahan did not have any children—certainly not a son, that most essential heir—which was the only way women held any authority in the harem and at court. And yet, from the day she was married to him, until Jahangir’s death in 1627, she held sway over the mighty Mughal Empire.
Mehrunnisa signed on imperial orders, had her own seal, the imprint of which came to be as important Jahangir’s, and even—unusually for a non-crowned queen—had gold coins minted in her name.
Towards the end of Emperor Jahangir’s life, she was involved in the battle for succession, fighting to put on the throne the prince to whom she had married her daughter.
The Feast of Roses is a step back into a time when Empress Nur Jahan was writing her name into history’s pages. No other woman in the Mughal Empire was as powerful or as authoritative as her, none other influenced politics and policy as she did, openly, defying the norms.
