Mumtaz Mahal: A Rare Jewel
Mumtaz Mahal was the most beloved wife of Shah Jahan, the emperor of the opulent Mughal Empire, but their royal fairy tale left destruction in its wake. From Mumtaz’s palace feuds, to her untimely death, to her utterly bloody legacy, the Taj Mahal—her sublime and tragic mausoleum—is just the beginning of her dark history.
1. She Was An Aristocrat
Born in 1593 in Agra as Arjumand Banu Begum, Mumtaz Mahal already had a leg-up in life. Her father was high-ranking in the Mughal Empire, and her mother came from a Persian noble family. But it wasn’t just her parents who propelled her. Her aunt, Nur Jahan, was the chief consort to the current Shah Jahangir, and she all but ran the realm.
It didn’t take long for the royal family to start getting ideas about Mumtaz.
2. She Stunned Men
Mumtaz was extremely attractive and cultured, with a beguiling mix of modesty and honesty, and men began courting her even when she was still in her early teens. Her reputation soon made its way into the Mughal palace, with Shah Jahangir suggesting Mumtaz as a bride for his third son, the future Shah Jahan, and Jahan readily accepting.
Only, things were never going to be so easy for the pair.
3. She Had A Long Engagement
In 1607, Mumtaz and Jahan officially became betrothed, when she was just 14 years old and he was 15. It hit a snag early on. Perhaps because court astrologers were waiting for the most auspicious date for a marriage to come along, the prince and Mumtaz had a five-year engagement, an extremely long wait for the time.
In between, Prince Jahan hardly saved himself for his wife.
4. Another Woman Beat Her To The Punch
The Mughal court did not always—did not even usually—operate by primogeniture, with the eldest son taking over. Instead, all the Shah’s sons were constantly vying for power through military campaigns and any other advantage they could get.
So when, in 1610, three years after his engagement to Mumtaz, the Shah took a princess, Kandahari Begum, as his first wife, it wasn’t what it looked like.
5. He Had A Baby Without Her
Kandahari Begum brought a political alliance with her to the Mughal Empire, which was the main, and in fact only, reason Prince Jahan married her. He reportedly had no romantic feelings for her, and actually had to be coaxed or even forced into the marriage. Still, doing his duty, the pair had a daughter together just a year after their union.
Even so, all he could think about was Mumtaz.
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6. She Was The One
A year after the birth of his first child, Prince Jahan finally got his wish and married the now 19-year-old Mumtaz when he was 20. The difference in the palace was immediate. Utterly taken with Mumtaz, Jahan now barely, if at all, exercised his marital rights with his first wife, and they would only ever have the one daughter together.
The same can’t be said for Jahan and Mumtaz.
7. She Was The Jewel Of The Court
Over the next years, Mumtaz and Jahan had a blissfully happy union, with Mumtaz fulfilling every dream the prince ever had of her. It was Jahan who renamed her “Mumtaz Mahal,” or “The Exalted one of the Palace,” and he clearly meant it: Over the next years, Mumtaz was almost continually pregnant. Yet it wasn’t always joyous news.
8. She Watched Her Children Die
Mumtaz’s first child was a little girl they named Hur-ul-Nisa, but at three years old, the toddler caught a bout of smallpox and perished. Smallpox would take another of Mumtaz’s children, a son, in 1621, and four other babies perished in infancy or very early childhood of other diseases or ailments. Nonetheless, the pair kept trying.
9. She Gave Him Heirs
Mumtaz would eventually give birth to no fewer than 14 children, even if only 7 of them survived into adulthood. Her eldest daughter, Jahanara, took after her mother and was her father’s favorite, while her sons Dara, Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad jockeyed, as most Mughal princes did, for their father’s respect.
Eventually, it would turn tragic and bloody—but for now, their biggest competition was their mother.
10. She Was Fiercely Loyal
In her role as Prince Jahan’s wife, Mumtaz’s grace and beauty kept growing, and poets wrote about her in sublime language even while she was alive. She also didn’t let her many pregnancies keep her from her husband; ensuring her primacy, she would often travel with him as he went on various military campaigns. Then again, she’d been taught by the best.
11. She Had A Devious Mentor
Throughout these years, Mumtaz had an uneasy but beneficial alliance with her aunt Nur, who knew the ins and outs of the palace and who, thanks to the power she wielded, had to be given the utmost respect. Mumtaz and Prince Jahan even gave Nur the guardianship of three of their sons as a symbol of their loyalty.
But Mumtaz’s aunt couldn’t protect her from outside rivals.
12. She Got More Competition
In 1617, Shah Jahan took another wife, Izz-un-Nissa, crowding the palace just a little more. But once again, Mumtaz came out on top: Just as with his first wife, Jahan had married for political reasons, and did his duty only enough to sire a single child, this time a son, with his third wife. Mumtaz’s final sister-wife, however, was more mysterious.
13. There May Have Been A Third Rival
Although the details are scarce, Jahan also appears to have taken another wife, Leelavati Deiji. Her appearance was a twist. While Jahan’s other two wives were high-ranking women and presented political advantages, Leelavati was the daughter of a low-caste concubine, though her father was the half-brother of a Raja.
The jury is still out on whether she truly caught the Shah’s eye, but it would take more than this to knock Mumtaz off her perch.
14. She Saw Him Through Grief
During this time, Mumtaz offered Jahan more than just beauty, but also emotional guidance and stability—and her role often made it seem like she, not the prince, was in charge of the relationship. When Jahan’s mother passed in 1619, the prince was inconsolable, and mourned for 21 days without attending any public meetings. It was Mumtaz who rose to the occasion.
15. She Took Charge
During Jahan’s period of mourning, Mumtaz Mahal stepped up to the plate. She oversaw the distribution of food to the realm’s poor during this period, led the recitation of the Quran—the Mughal Empire being a Muslim Empire—and generally kept everything running smoothly in her husband’s absence.
In their private rooms, her work grew even more important.
16. She Taught Him An Important Lesson
It was Mumtaz who also helped Jahan step out of his grief, partly through the lengthy and devoted spiritual advice she gave him while he was in mourning. She begged him to let go of his grief and return to ruling, and talked with him endlessly on life and death before he felt ready to take up his royal mantle again.
At this point, Mumtaz Mahal’s power over Prince Jahan became uncomfortably obvious.
17. She Was Queen Bee
One court chronicler noted that Jahan’s relationship with his other wives was “nothing more than the status of marriage,” and another historian agreed that “his whole delight was centered on [Mumtaz]...to such an extent that he did not feel toward the others one-thousandth part of the affection that he did for her”. It wasn’t just that the other wives were lesser, they were practically invisible in comparison to Mumtaz.
Soon, Jahan climbed all the way to the top, with Mumtaz at his side.
18. There Were Tensions In Her Palace
Underneath its opulent exterior, the Mughal Empire was evidently roiling with tensions—both within and beyond the royal bedrooms. As Mumtaz’s marriage went on, her husband’s relationship with his aunt deteriorated, particularly as Jahan thought Nur held too much power over his father. Its breaking point was bloody.
19. She And Her Husband Rebelled
In 1622, Mumtaz and her husband had enough. Despite Aunt Nur’s power at court and the woman’s control over their own children, Shah Jahan—supported wholly by his wife, who again joined him on campaign—began a rebellion against his father’s government.
The pair were young and brave, and they were about to learn a cruel lesson.
20. She Suffered Bloody Losses
The young Mumtaz and her fiery husband gravely underestimated the Shah’s experience, and in 1623, only about a year after they started their rebellion, Jahan was defeated roundly at Bilochpur. Even so, they didn’t give up yet, and spent long years seeking safety with other royals as they made further attacks and attempts to bring down his father.
Eventually, though, they had to give up the ghost.
21. They Begged Forgiveness
In 1626, four long years after first starting the rebellion, Mumtaz and Jahan finally had to admit defeat and beg for his father’s forgiveness. Now an ailing man approaching the end of his 50s, the Shah took his wayward son and daughter-in-law back, and they went back into the fold of their family with their tails between their legs.
It only took months for everything to unravel again.
22. The Succession Was Blown Wide Open
After heading back home chastened, Mumtaz and her husband experienced a change of fortune: The Shah passed in 1627, suddenly throwing the succession up for grabs again. Tensions between Mumtaz’s husband and her Aunt Nur, who wanted another son to take over, grew and grew once more—until they reached another boiling point.
23. She Accomplished A Coup
With his father gone, Jahan was never going to accept Aunt Nur as an influence ever again. So he and Mumtaz launched a brutal coup. No less than Mumtaz’s father Asaf Khan rose up and acted against his sister Nur, delaying her plans to put her own choice on the throne and wresting back Mumtaz’s three sons who were under Nur’s care.
It was the epitome of a family feud, and Mumtaz and Jahan came out on top.
24. She Was The First Lady
In 1628, Mumtaz’s whole world changed. After a successful series of palace intrigues, Prince Jahan became Shah Jahan, and Mumtaz was now Empress of the Mughal Empire. Not only that but chief Empress; Jahan gave her the title “Padshah Begum” or “First Lady” to honor her position in his court. But it wasn’t all accolades: there were scores to settle.
25. She Imprisoned Her Own Aunt
One of Shah Jahan’s first acts was to execute his and Mumtaz’s various rivals, including many of his male relatives—his own brother among them—who were likely to present a threat to his legitimacy and rule. Nonetheless, Jahan only imprisoned his wife’s aunt rather than condemn Nur to death.
With their foes neutralized, Mumtaz and Jahan were finally on top. They acted like it.
26. She Lived The High Life
The new Shah made it clear that Mumtaz, and only Mumtaz, was to be addressed as “Hazrat,” meaning that she was the mother to his heir, whoever that might be. More than that, Jahan decorated her residence with gold and precious stones, finishing the interiors off with rose-water fountains—and again, it was only her residence. But the power just kept coming.
27. She Got Incredible Gifts
Mumtaz lived in the lap of luxury, but she also accrued more and more wealth through her husband. Each of his wives was given an allowance, per Mughal custom, but he gave one million rupees per year to Mumtaz, the highest allowance in Mughal history. If that weren’t enough, he also gifted her with many lands and properties.
As it happened, Mumtaz was worth every penny.
28. She Rose Even Higher
In the end, Mumtaz took after her Aunt Nur, and played an active role in politics. Instead of retiring into her beautiful rose-water fountains, she became Jahan’s most trusted advisor, and he would often run new ideas and plans by her to discuss the future of his Empire. Only, it went even deeper than that.
29. She Ran The Show
Just like her aunt, Mumtaz also sat next to the Mughal Emperor as he listened to cases in the Hall of Private Audience and the Hall of Public Audience. Her power here was terrifying. Although she was hidden behind a curtain as she listened, Mumtaz would simply place a hand on Jahan’s back to let him know she disagreed with something.
She also held life or death in these hands.
30. She Was Judge And Jury
After hearing these various cases, Mumtaz often could convince the emperor to either save someone's life—or else condemn it. Through her, Shah Jahan pardoned even his enemies, and likewise put many people to death who displeased his beloved wife for any reason. Then he made this power official.
31. She Got The Official Seal Of Approval
Within a short time of ascending to the throne of the Mughal Empire, Mumtaz Mahal had proven her worth so undeniably that Shah Jahan gave her his imperial seal, Mehr Uzaz—the highest honor in the land, which let her review nearly finalized documents, and one many of his male trusted advisors would have given an arm and a leg to get.
Yet this wasn’t Mumtaz’s greatest feat; that was much subtler.
32. She Was Cunning
Although Mumtaz’s Aunt Nur had ruled her own paramour’s court, she’d done so very obviously and had become extremely unpopular as a result. Mumtaz didn’t make the same mistake. Mumtaz somehow managed to put forward a serene, passive image even as she wielded all this power, tricking others into seeing her as non-threatening. It was a brilliant political move that didn’t even look like one.
Who knows what heights Mumtaz might have risen to—if tragedy didn’t come first.
33. She Had A Bad Decade
The 1620s and early 1630s had been horrific for Mumtaz. Although she had lost her first child to smallpox, her next five children were born healthy and stayed heathy—but all that changed starting in 1621, when she lost six children in a row; two of them perished in the year 1628 alone.
Indeed, she only managed to have one healthy child, her son Murad, in all this time. So when she found she was pregnant again around 1630, she was overjoyed. She shouldn’t have been.
34. She Was A Soldier Queen
In the summer of 1631, Mumtaz was heavily pregnant, but had decided to accompany Shah Jahan, as she usually did, on one of his campaigns anyway. This time, he was fighting in the Deccan Plateau, and she posted up in the city of Burhanpur to await the birth of her 14th child.
She must have prayed it would be different this time…and it was. It was worse.
35. She Had A Difficult Birth
In mid-June, Mumtaz went into labor. Her nightmare then began. The birth this time was extremely difficult, even for one as experienced as the Empress, and she ended up toiling for about 30 hours before finally giving birth to a daughter, Guahaur, on June 17. The little girl was breathing, at the very least, and Mumtaz too. For now.
36. Something Went Very Wrong
Very shortly after giving birth to the little girl, Mumtaz was struck with a postpartum hemorrhage, which is characterized by intense bleeding that can easily be fatal, and which is still the most common cause of maternal death worldwide. But Mumtaz was only 38, and she had survived 13 childbirths before this—so her family tried to save her anyway they could.
37. Her Daughter Made A Desperate Move
At the time, Mumtaz’s eldest child, Princess Jahanara, was 17 years old and all too aware of the danger her mother was facing. She was reportedly so distressed at Mumtaz's issues during the labor that she began giving out precious royal gems to the poor in hopes of divine intervention. None would come.
38. She Didn’t Make It
In the end, whether it was divine will or not, the Empress didn’t stand a chance. Her bleeding was seemingly endless, and Mumtaz quickly expired before attendants could even grasp what was happening. She passed on the same very day that she gave birth to her baby daughter, who did survive.
Now, everyone was left with the shocking aftermath.
39. She Broke Her Husband
When Shah Jahan heard the news of Mumtaz’s end, his response was heartbreaking. According to reports, whatever grief his mother’s passing had inflicted on him paled in comparison to that of his beloved wife’s. The Shah was nearly paralyzed by Mumtaz’s loss, and prone to weeping fits in its wake. But he couldn’t stay that way for long.
40. She Was Buried Hastily
The first issue was what to do with Mumtaz’s body. She had perished far from the center of Mughal power, and Shah Jahan at first came up with an ad hoc, if extravagant solution: He had her temporarily buried at Burhanpur in a magnificent pleasure garden that his uncle had built. Yet even this wasn’t good enough for her.
41. He Wanted More For Her
After Mumtaz’s end, Shah Jahan forced himself back into the campaign he had been on, but all the while he was coming up with plans for a more appropriate mausoleum and funerary garden for the love of his life. It was here that he first began dreaming up what would become the Taj Mahal in Agra. Then he took the first step to making this a reality.
42. They Dug Up Her Body
In December of 1631, six months after she had first been buried, the Shah had Mumtaz’s body disinterred, and then transported it in a golden casket carried by one of her sons, her head lady-in-waiting, and a prominent court Wazir back to Agra.
But once this task—and his military campaign—was done, the Shah collapsed.
43. He Went Into Hiding
While Shah Jahan had spent 21 days mourning his mother, he now took a full year to grieve Mumtaz Mahal. True to his outsized feelings, he did so in almost total seclusion. Very few people, even in his inner circle, communicated with the ruler at this time.
Eventually, his eldest daughter Jahanara coaxed him back out into court—but this was no comforting homecoming.
44. Her Death Changed Him
When Shah Jahan met his public, his appearance made his courtiers blood run cold. His grief was all over his body; according to reports, although he was barely 40, his hair had turned white, his back was hunched over, and his face was lined.
Yet despite his decrepit appearance, the Shah was ablaze with one obsession.
45. She Inspired A Masterpiece
Shah Jahan spent the next 22 years designing, constructing, and completing the breath-taking Taj Mahal as a mausoleum for Mumtaz Mahal. The masterpiece of a structure cost hundreds of millions of dollars in today’s money, and its intricate, sweeping architecture soon turned it into a “jewel of Islamic art”.
It immediately sent out one message.
46. His Love Is Everywhere
Those who pay a visit to the Taj Mahal are often struck by the agony and ecstasy of the Shah’s love for Mumtaz, which seeps through every stone. As the English poet Edwin Arnold described the structure, it’s "Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passion of an emperor's love wrought in living stones”.
Yet as we’ll see, for all its luxury up top, its most heartbreaking secret is in the basement.
47. He Could Barely Live Without Her
Shah Jahan lived for many years after Mumtaz Mahal’s passing, with his daughter Jahanara taking her mother’s place and becoming one of the only bright lights of his court. But just because he was alive doesn’t mean he was thriving: Almost as soon as the Taj Mahal was finished in 1653, he fell seriously ill around 1658. Then his family pounced.
48. Her Family Ripped Itself Apart
Mumtaz Mahal had given her life to give just one more child to Shah Jahan, but this didn’t stop her royal sons from tearing each other to pieces. After Shah Jahan’s illness, his own sons deposed him and then fell to fighting with each other.
When the dust settled, Mumtaz’s middle son Aurangzeb had brutally executed two of her other sons and gained the title of Shah once and for all. By then, her husband wasn’t long for this world either.
49. He Never Let Her Go
In 1666, after witnessing the end of his reign and the violent end of two of his sons, Shah Jahan passed at the age of 74. However, he could now finally be with his beloved Mumtaz—literally. Jahan is buried right next to her in the Taj Mahal, his coffin just slightly off to the side of her central position in the monument. But this coffin isn’t where you think.
50. She’s Hidden In Plain Sight
Muslim tradition dictates that mourners should eschew elaborate decoration graves, which means the Taj Mahal is two-faced: On its extravagant upper levels, there are false and adorned sarcophagi of both Mumtaz and Shah Jahan…but these are empty.
It’s only in the sparse, simple basement that you can witness the Emperor and Empress, side by side in their final resting places, facing toward Mecca.
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