Khanzada Begum: The first lady.
Monday, April 19, 2021.
I’d like to take a small detour (one of the many) from the Gurkani men to talk of a woman I mentioned last week. Meet Khanzada Begum, born 5 years before Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, Khanzada is a Timurid princess who goes on to lead an extraordinary life, that is a perfect prototype of the Gurkani lady. She keeps Babur company throughout his conquests. This kind of co-travelling even in military expeditions, is something we see throughout Gurkani history, even in Hindustan, in later years.
But when Babur at 18, loses Samarkand a second time, to his Uzbek nemesis, Muhammad Shaybani Khan, Babur is forced to leave Khanzada to his rival as war ransom. And so, Khanzada is married off to an Uzbek warlord at twenty-three. But this is going to be only the first of the three total marriages in her life. Shaybani gets her remarried to a lowly nobleman in his court. Both these men die in battle in 1510.
Things take a fortunate turn for Khanzada as the Persian Safavid army sweeps the kingdoms of Central Asia. Shah Ismail I defeats the Uzbeks and he finds Khanzada among the defeated. On learning that she is none other than the sister of Babur, his friend and ally, Shah Ismail I returns her to Babur at Kunduz. She is reunited with her brother at the age of thirty-three. Already twice widowed and childless.
Babur has lost his mother and younger sister by this time and he cherishes Khanzada even more as she represents, for him, his golden Timurid lineage. She is married to a friend and courtier of Babur, Mahdi Khwaja. Though they never have children, Khanzada adopts Mahdi’s two-year-old sister, Sultanum and raises her as her own daughter, eventually marrying her to Babur’s son Hindal Mirza.
When Babur sends for his zenana after conquering Hindustan, he dies before the zenana ever reaches him. Before his death, he proclaims Khanzada begum as the Padshah Begum. Khanzada plays a central role in preventing fratricide to occur in the Gurkani clan, almost three generations too early. Of course, three generations later, fratricide becomes commonplace in the Gurkani dynasty (when Khurram sets the ball rolling with the poisoning of his elder brother, Khusrau). Khanzada prevent s this from happening between Humayun and his brother Kamran. To broker peace as a representative of the Emperor (Humayun), she undertakes the long journey through motherless terrain, essentially alone without any male relatives accompanying her from Kandahar to Kabul, at the incredible age of sixty-five.
The respect that Khanzada commands is proven by the success of her expedition. Kamran Mirza relents and a bloody war between brothers is avoided. Khanzada Begum perfectly highlights the grit and pure strength that the women of the Gurkani clan possessed. And it would’ve been negligent to go further in the story without giving her the attention she is worth.
