Relations With Family
There is record of disagreements between Jahanara and her younger brother Aurangzeb whom she had referred to as the "white serpent" (presumably due to Aurangzeb's fair complexion) also referring to him as a tiger and panther. There also seemed to be some sort of tension with her younger sister, Roshanara Begum, three years her junior who seemingly, resented her elder sister's position as First Lady of the Empire. Jahanara took the side of Dara Shikoh in the struggle for the throne (Whilst Roshanara sided with Aurangzeb). Dara had promised her to lift the ban on marriage for Mughal princesses, which Akbar had introduced. Had he triumphed, her power would likely have continued. On Aurangzeb's ascent to the throne, Jahanara joined her father in imprisonment at the Agra Fort, where she devoted herself to his care until his death.
After the death of their father, Jahanara and Aurangzeb were reconciled. He gave her the title, Empress of Princesses and she replaced Roshanara as First Lady.
Jahanara was soon secure enough in her position to occasionally argue with Aurangzeb and have certain special privileges which other women did not possess. She argued against Aurangzeb's strict regulation of public life in accordance with his conservative religious beliefs and his decision in 1679 to restore the poll tax on non-Muslims, which she said would alienate his Hindu subjects.
Read more about this topic: Jahanara Begum Sahib
Famous quotes containing the words relations with, relations and/or family:
“I know all those people. I have friendly, social, and criminal relations with the whole lot of them.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market.
He has no time to be anything but a machine.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Because it’s not only that a child is inseparable from the family in which he lives, but that the lives of families are determined by the community in which they live and the cultural tradition from which they come.”
—Bernice Weissbourd (20th century)