Mughal Empire

Khanzadeh Begum – At the altar of sacrifice

Dawn, The Review, probably November 30-December 6, 2000 Khanzadeh Begum is one of the forgotten women of history. She played an important role in the careers of Babur and Humayun, and was a pillar of the Mughal dynasty in its formative phase. The early historians, including Babur himself, mention her, but the modern historians often

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Tamerlane

This article was published in Dawn, The Review, November 9-15, 2000. I stand corrected about my statement: ‘There is a less reliable tradition that in Damascus, Taimur held discourse with the famous historian and sociologist Ibn-i-Khaldun.’ In fact, it is the report of the meeting between Taimur and the poet Hafiz that has been questioned

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Nurjahan

Dawn, The Review, sometime in September 2000 Sharing a husband with seventeen other wives and several hundreds of slave girls is far from the romantic picture of an all-encompassing love that frames the portrait of Nurjahan in popular stories. However, the fact remains that she was indeed loved by her royal husband in ways unusual

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