February 7, 2019 -
“Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but the proud passions of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.”
- Sir Edwin Arnold
Her name was Arjumand Banu. She was the Emperor Shah Jahan’s first wife. He would marry other wives for political reasons but he loved Arjumand and called her “Mumtaz Muhal” - ‘Exalted one of the palace’. They were betrothed as teenagers and virtually inseparable since that time.
For a woman of that era and culture she had extraordinary influence. She was the Emperor’s closest advisor and carried the royal seal. If that wasn’t enough, she had also been almost perpetually pregnant her entire marriage.
On Sunday, June 16, 1631 she was with her husband at Berthanpur, a town almost 515 miles from Agra her home. She was heavy with her 14th pregnancy. She went into labor and historians described it as difficult. Thirty hours later she gave birth to a girl.
A very short time later she started to bleed heavily. When you have a history of multiple pregnancies and prolonged labor you are at risk for a condition called uterine atony where the uterus will not stop bleeding after birth. She was hemorrhaging.
Her husband was by her side and when it became clear that she was not going to live he promised to build her a monument that would glorify the love they shared. She died a short time later. She was 38 years old.
Shah Jahan was inconsolable. In less than a year he started on the tomb as a monument to her. After 22 years and the efforts of 20,000 laborers and artists it was finished. It remains today one of the man made wonders of the world. This is the Taj Mahal.
The Emperor would live 35 more years. When he died his son chose to bury him there beside Arjumand. His coffin disturbed the perfect symmetry of the interior chamber.
But that is all right. They were together again.
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