Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal (1628-1658)

Part oneJahangir and Nur Jahan

Akbar's son Salim took the throne in 1605 as Jahangir, "seizer of the world". He loved art, gardens and nature, and his painters made some of the finest Mughal miniatures. He also drank heavily and took opium.

In 1611 he married a widow of thirty-four, Mihr al-Nisa, and gave her the name Nur Jahan, "light of the world". She was able, intelligent and strong-willed. She was a fine shot, said to have once killed four tigers with six shots. Within a few years she was issuing orders and coins in her own name, and with her father and brother she ran much of the government as Jahangir's health failed. Her niece, Arjumand Banu, married Jahangir's son Prince Khurram. History knows her as Mumtaz Mahal.

Khurram was an able general. For his victories in the Deccan his father gave him the title Shah Jahan, "king of the world". In Jahangir's last years Nur Jahan turned against him, and he was driven into revolt. When Jahangir died in 1627, Shah Jahan's father-in-law secured the throne for him, and he was crowned in 1628.

Part twoThe Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal had been married for nineteen years and had fourteen children. She went with him on campaign. In June 1631, while he was fighting in the Deccan, she died giving birth to their last child. Accounts from the time say he shut himself away for days in grief and that his beard turned grey.

Beside the river Yamuna at Agra he built her tomb. Work began in about 1632 and took around eleven years for the main buildings, with thousands of builders, stonecutters and craftsmen. The tomb is faced with white marble and inlaid with precious stones in patterns of flowers. Verses of the Quran run around its gates and arches in black stone, and the letters grow larger as they rise so that they look the same size from the ground. A garden in four parts, divided by channels of water, leads up to it, in the old Persian idea of a garden of paradise.

From the Quran

يَـٰٓأَيَّتُهَا ٱلنَّفْسُ ٱلْمُطْمَئِنَّةُ ۝٢٧ ٱرْجِعِىٓ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكِ رَاضِيَةً مَّرْضِيَّةً ۝٢٨ فَٱدْخُلِى فِى عِبَـٰدِى ۝٢٩ وَٱدْخُلِى جَنَّتِى ۝٣٠

²⁷˹Allah will say to the righteous,˺ “O tranquil soul! ²⁸Return to your Lord, well pleased ˹with Him˺ and well pleasing ˹to Him˺. ²⁹So join My servants, ³⁰and enter My Paradise.”

Part threeThe height of the empire

The empire was very rich. It held more people than all of Europe, and its revenue was many times that of the greatest European kings. Shah Jahan spent freely on building. He rebuilt parts of the forts at Agra and Lahore in white marble. Between 1639 and 1648 he built a new capital at Delhi, Shahjahanabad, now Old Delhi, with the Red Fort at its centre and, nearby, the great Friday mosque, the Jama Masjid. In the Red Fort stood the Peacock Throne, covered in jewels, which was said to have cost twice as much as the Taj Mahal.

The cost was heavy. Wars against the Uzbeks and the Safavids for Qandahar brought little, and taxes on the peasants rose. In 1657 Shah Jahan fell ill, and his four sons went to war for the throne. Aurangzeb won. He kept his father confined in the fort at Agra, where Shah Jahan lived for eight more years, cared for by his daughter Jahanara. From his rooms he could see the Taj Mahal across the river. He died in 1666 and was buried beside Mumtaz Mahal.

From his rooms in the fort, the old emperor could see the tomb he had built, but never visit it again.

WatchThe lecture for this chapter

Lecture Al MuqaddimahShah Jahan, the King of the World (opens on YouTube)

The mapWhere it happened

• Lahore
• Delhi (Red Fort, Jama Masjid)
• Agra (Taj Mahal, Agra Fort)
• Burhanpur
• Qandahar

This map is a simple sketch to help you picture where events took place. Positions, distances and borders are approximate, so please use it for reference only, not as an accurate map.

SourcesSources for this chapter