Person · Mughal empress consort of Jahangir · India
Nur Jahan
Also known as Mehr-un-Nissa, Mehrunnisa, Noor Jahan
Mehr-un-Nissa (c.1577-18 December 1645), given the title Nur Jahan (“Light of the World”) by Jahangir in 1616, was the twentieth and most powerful wife of the fourth Mughal emperor and effectively co-sovereign of the empire from the mid-1610s until Jahangir’s death in 1627. Coinage was struck in her name, imperial farmans were issued under her seal, and she led her own armed hunting expeditions. She was the daughter of Mirza Ghiyas Beg (Itimad-ud-Daulah) and sister of Asaf Khan (father of Mumtaz Mahal). After Jahangir’s death and Shah Jahan’s accession she retired to Lahore and designed both her father’s tomb and her own, laying the stylistic ground for the Taj Mahal. She is also the patron of the Serai Nurmahal in Punjab, the largest surviving Mughal caravanserai in the subcontinent.
- Date
- 1577–1645
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Mughal
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Connections (2)
- BuiltSerai Nurmahal
Serai Nurmahal was commissioned by Empress Nur Jahan in 1618-20 as a rest-stop for imperial caravans on the Lahore-Delhi highway and named for herself. The quadrangular caravanserai has 140 cells, a mosque, a hammam and a monumental southern gateway inscribed with her name. It is the largest surviving Mughal sarai in the subcontinent and one of very few sarais commissioned by a Mughal woman.
- PatronageNakodar Tombs, Nakodar (Jalandhar)
The two octagonal domed tombs at Nakodar — for the Mughal courtier Muhammad Momin Khan Husaini (1612) and his son (1657) — were raised in Jahangir’s and Shah Jahan’s reigns during Nur Jahan’s effective co-sovereignty, and share the Multani-blue kashi tile dado and carved sandstone chhajjas of her other Punjab projects. The master mason Miyan Hasan named on the inscriptions worked across her imperial-sarai programme on the Lahore-Delhi highway.
Sources
Standard biography.
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