Gulbadan Begum’s Haj: A Mughal woman’s quest for faith, freedom and how it defined the empire’s identity

The surviving accounts, often centred connected elite women, supply lone fragmented glimpses into their lives. Still, they uncover almighty stories of women’s enduring quest for state and faith.

Women’s journeys mostly overlooked

In her article Considering the Silences: Understanding Historical Narratives of Women’s Indian Ocean Hajj Mobility, Jacqueline H Fewkes critiques the portrayal of women successful lit surrounding the Indian Ocean arsenic static figures — producers of goods, wives near behind, oregon traders successful port-based businesses. These depictions, she argues, place the progressive roles women played successful this interconnected world.

One notable source, the 14th-century traveller Ibn Battuta, sheds airy connected women’s Haj journeys crossed the Indian Ocean. His writings picture women regularly undertaking pilgrimage and establishing spaces for their spiritual practices, specified arsenic ample tents designated for women’s prayers.

The journeys of Bega Begum, Gulbadan Begum, Khadija Sultana, and Nawab Sikander Begum basal retired arsenic examples of women who broke conventions, navigating seas successful pursuit of some piety and power.

Gulbadan Begum’s voyage 

A striking occurrence successful Mughal past is the 1575 pilgrimage to Mecca undertaken by Akbar’s aunt Gulbadan Banu Begum and a radical of royal women from his court. Gulbadan, the girl of Babur and half-sister of Humayun, had agelong vowed to sojourn the beatified sites but it had been delayed owed to unsafe question routes, peculiarly done Gujarat. Once conditions stabilised, she sought Akbar’s support and the second provided fiscal enactment and supplies on with support for the journey.

The caravan, described by tribunal historiographer Abul Fazl, acceptable retired connected October 8, 1575. Among the women were Salima Sultan Begum, Akbar’s woman and Babur’s granddaughter, arsenic good arsenic Akbar’s stepsisters, cousins, and elder household members. Historian Ruby Lal, in Servants of the Dynasty: Palace Women successful World History, notes that the lack of younger women reflects societal norms that prioritised their protection.

Under Islamic law, nary Muslim pistillate could question to the Holy Cities without a antheral comparative truthful respective men accompanied the group, including Babur’s relative Abdur Rahman Beg, Akbar’s foster member Baqi Khan and different imperial servants. Lal, in Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan, describes their caravan carrying gold-lined chests filled with valuables.

Perilous journey

Gulbadan, successful complaint of the arrangements, chose a oversea way done Surat, avoiding the unsafe overland way done Shi’a Iraq. Yet, the travel was fraught with challenges. From Fatehpur Sikri, the women travelled southwest toward Surat successful Gujarat. As they neared Udaipur, they received warnings that the Portuguese mightiness not honour their promised question pass, or cartaz, which was required for harmless passage.

By the aboriginal 16^th century, the Portuguese had seized cardinal ports successful the Indian Ocean, threatening cardinal cities on the Arabian Peninsula. Despite these hurdles, Gulbadan waited successful Surat for astir a twelvemonth to unafraid the indispensable pass, offering Bulsar (present-day Valsad) arsenic collateral for Portuguese protection.

On October 17, 1576, Gulbadan and her enactment acceptable sail aboard 2 Turkish vessels, Salimi and Ilahi, afloat alert that they mightiness ne'er return. According to writer Ira Mukhoty, in Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire, a assemblage gathered astatine the larboard to witnesser the royal women’s departure.

The radical sailed crossed the Arabian Sea for astir 4 weeks earlier reaching Jeddah. The voyage was perilous, with convulsive storms and the treacherous waters of the Sea of Berbera (now the Red Sea), infamous for its coral reefs. Despite the dangers, the women travelled successful comfort, with lavishly appointed abstracted quarters, acknowledgment to Akbar’s generosity. The storekeeper and cooks ensured the imperial ladies were well-fed.

From Jeddah, the roadworthy travel to Mecca took 2 to 3 much days. As they neared the beatified city, the women entered the authorities of Ihram, the archetypal ritual of the Haj, donning peculiar achromatic garments and adhering to strict codes of conduct. As Lal notes, “Now, she [Gulbadan] had the clip and had reached the spot wherever she could unravel the meaning of her journey. Her exploration had conscionable begun.”

After astir 4 years successful Mecca, Gulbadan and her radical were forced to depart owed to the expanding load they placed connected the city’s constricted resources. By mid-1580, they acceptable retired for Hindustan but were shipwrecked disconnected Aden (in present-day Yemen), wherever they were stranded for 7 months. They yet reached Khanwa, 37 miles westbound of Fatehpur Sikri, connected April 13, 1582.

Upon her return, Akbar greeted Gulbadan with large fanfare, covering the streets with silken shawls. Lal notes that Gulbadan was thereafter referred to as Nawab (ruler).

For Akbar, her pilgrimage was not lone the instrumentality of a beloved comparative but besides a reaffirmation of his rule, reinforcing his representation arsenic a defender of Islam. Lal, in Rereading The Black Legend: The Discourses of Religious and Racial Difference successful the Renaissance Empires, argues that to recognize the value of Gulbadan Begum’s Haj, it indispensable beryllium viewed wrong the broader discourse of the spiritual debates astatine Akbar’s Ibadat Khana, a forum for discussions among assorted religion representatives successful the 1570s. Amid increasing resentment toward Akbar’s engagement with aggregate religions, Gulbadan’s pilgrimage apt helped solidify the empire’s Islamic identity.

Forgotten footsteps of different pistillate pilgrims

Gulbadan Banu Begum’s Haj whitethorn not person been the archetypal pilgrimage by a Mughal princess to the beatified land, but it is 1 of the archetypal to beryllium recorded. Royal women had undertaken the Haj before, including Gulbadan’s sister-in-law Bega Begum, who earned the rubric ‘Haji Begum’ owed to her aggregate pilgrimages, arsenic Mukhoty suggests. However, her travel did not get arsenic overmuch attraction oregon elaborate documentation arsenic Gulbadan’s. Also, Gulbadan’s 1575 travel was the archetypal clip a royal enactment of women travelled to Mecca with specified grandeur.

Individual elite women continued to embark connected the Haj successful aboriginal centuries. In 1661, Khadija Sultana, besides known arsenic Badi Sahiba, made her pilgrimage. As the girl of the Sultan of Golkonda (in current-day Telangana) and widow of the ruler of Bijapur, Khadija initially faced obstacles upon accomplishment successful Mecca, including her widowhood, which barred her entry.

Legend has it that she symbolically joined a rooster she carried with her to asseverate her bureau against societal norms. Her entourage included 50-60 ladies-in-waiting and hundreds of servants, though their roles and whether they participated successful the Haj stay unknown.

In the 19th century, Nawab Sikander Begum of Bhopal besides undertook the Haj, offering a much documented perspective. Travelling with hundreds of women aboard a steamship, she chronicled her travel in A Pilgrimage to Mecca, providing uncommon insights into the evolving quality of Haj question and highlighting the changing dynamics of mobility and bureau among women successful South Asia.

Gulbadan’s pilgrimage, portion initially a spiritual endeavour, became a defining infinitesimal successful Mughal history, reinforcing the empire’s Islamic individuality and highlighting the bureau of women wrong imperial structures. Lal captures the value of Gulbadan’s thoughts connected returning to the harem: “That state was not absolute; it was ‘won and lost, again and again. It is simply a glimpse of possibility, an opening, a solicitation without immoderate warrant of duration.’”