The Hidden One

Compiled from History and Folklore let's explore the life of a Mughal/Timurid Princess...

Born in the year 1638 in the fort of Daulatabad, to Emperor Aurangzeb's first consort Dilras Banu Begum, Princess Zeb Un Nisa was the youngest among her sisters. She spend her days reading poetry and learning literature and her early life was spent in the harem at the Red Fort under the influence of her Sufi uncle Dara and aunt Jahanara. She held a council for the greatest poets of the kingdom. She was enchanted with her verses. She talked of Love. Her name means ornament of womankind. She was also a poet, under the pseudonym of Makhfi. The concealed one.

Her father was the most powerful man. He was strict with his religion. And his people. But the daughter of his beloved queen, he loved more than his kingdom. But perhaps a little less than his ego. He could bring her anything she wanted. Except for Love. Aurangzeb knew that to a king, his ego was his ornament. And he wore it well.
Once the emperor was travelling with his daughter to the land of one of his chiefs. The poets and bards accompanied the princess. The city, Lahore, was a mystic one to her eyes. She spends her days in the gardens and palaces built by her forefathers.

The chief of Lahore was Aqil Khan. Tall, well-built and brave, he was one of her father's strongest warriors. And also a poet himself. The warrior lost his heart to the one who talked of Love. At first sight, she enchanted him like an angel from heaven.

Aurangzeb moved back to Delhi in the next two years. But Zeb Un Nisa stayed back in her beloved Lahore. Aqil Khan tried to persuade her, sometimes with poetry and sometimes in disguise. " No force nor gold can win her," Makhfi wrote once in her verses.

It was in no time that the exchange of verses reached Aurangzeb and he decided to stop the affair. For a princess in the Mughal harem, marriage and love were forbidden. Zeb Un Nisa was not someone to give in to. She continued her enchanted poetry as an ode to her love.

Her father decided to marry her off to stop this rebellion of love. But she was adamant. Finally, he gave in after being persuaded by Padshah Begum Jahanara.

But the jealous prospective grooms were meant to play their part. They wrote to Aqil that the angry emperor was going to give him the "fruit of his love". Scared the general did not reach Delhi. Shattered, Makhfi called her lover a coward in disguise as a warrior. The poetry between them stopped.

It was only years later that Aqil realized he was duped. The same people repeatedly proposed marriage to Zeb Un Nisa who declined them.
He made his way to Delhi where the lovers reunited at the poets' council and talked away their misunderstanding. It was then that Aurangzeb felt humiliated at the chief's lack of response to his proposal and audacity to contact his daughter instead.

Zeb Un Nisa stood in horror as her father's men killed the love of her life. He was remorseless. Zeb Un Nisa sought revenge by providing aid to her rebellious brother Akbar. She was caught and imprisoned at Salimgarh. Her property and wealth were taken away.

Taking to the path of Sufism much like her aunt, Zeb Un Nisa lived and died in Salimgarh. For twenty years she didn't see the open sky or enjoy any luxuries. She wrote poetry. She concealed her pain in her words. She mourned the lover who died for her. The love that died for ego.
Today, even though her tomb is lost in time, some claim her tomb to be at Sikandra in Agra, while others at Lahore, Pakistan. She lived till the age of 64, dying in 1702. She stays in the verses of literature hidden, just like her name, Makhfi. The Sufi poet that she was. Not a princess anymore.

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