<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Mar 12 2007, 10:30 PM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Mar 12 2007, 10:30 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Meanwhile
The Capture of Maryam-uz-Zamani's Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders
[...]
Who was Marayam Uz Zamani the Queen of Akbar? She is the mother of Jehangir. Is she the one called Jodh Bai?
[right][snapback]65539[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Ramana, here you go. With some extra information just before the relevant section, which I thought was interesting enough to add here.
Following excerpts from
<b>The Capture of Maryam-uz-ZamAni's Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders</b>, Ellison B. Findly, <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, Vol. 108, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1988), pp. 227-238.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The capture of the Rahimi was not unusual, then, in that it revealed the involvement of Indians in overseas commerce. Despite the prohibition against Hindus taking to the seas,8 they appear from various sources to have signed on in good numbers for the journeys required by foreign trade.
Nor was the event unusual because the ship belonged to Mughal nobility. It is true that trade and commerce of the Mughal period were generally conducted by the business community, especially by the traditional merchant classes of Muslims along the coast, the Hindu banias of Gujarat,9 and the Hindu chettis of the Coromandel coast. There were, however, a number of instances of royal family members and nobles of the state who took a strong interest in commerce,10 and who even eagerly oversaw their own commercial ventures.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Associated footnote 8:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->8. Sea voyage (samudrasamyAna, samudrayAtrA) is an example of a kalivarjya, a practice which was once allowed but is now forbidden in the Kali age, owing to the current spiritual decline of man. See NAradIya-mahApurAna XXIV. 13-16; BaudhAyana-dharmasUtra I. 1.22, 11.1.51; Manusmrti 111.158; and Aushanasasmrti IV, pp. 525-26.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Now this bit answers your question (blue) above, discusses Jodh Bai aspect too:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Instead, the conspicuousness of the event lies in the fact that the owner of the ship was a woman, a Hindu princess from Amber who had married the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) in 1562 as part of a political alliance between her father RAja BihAri Mall Kachhwiiha and her new husband." Maryam-uz-ZamAni (d. 1623), the "Maryam of Eternity," was now mother of the current emperor Jahangir,13 and the capture of her ship was a major insult to the reigning Mughal family.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Associated footnote 13:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->13. Although the background of Maryam-uz-ZamAni is controversial, many agree on the following: that Jahangir's mother was a Hindu by birth, that she was the elder daughter of RAja BihAri Mall of Amber (Jaipur), and that her name has been suppressed by Muslim historians out of prejudice. By and large, the "general native belief" that she was a "Jodh BAi," a lady from Jodhpur, as suggested by Tod above, is not fully substantiated. (Jahangir himself, however, married a Jodh BAi and named her Jagat GosAIn. She was mother to the future Shah Jahan and died in 1619.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And this bit near the end also seems a little related:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The liberal courts of Akbar and Jahangir provided a supportive context for apostasy on the part of their pilgrims. Although we do not have any clear evidence of the specific views on apostasy at Jahangir court at the time of the Rahimi's capture, we do know that at his court, like his father's, Sunni and Shiite religious officials mixed freely and that Jahangir, though himself nominally a Sunni, encouraged, at least by policy if not by his own religious persuasion, an atmosphere of religious leniency, pluralism, and even syncretism. Despite the suspension of the obligation of hajj by more orthodox Sunni scholars, the lenient attitude of the emperors themselves, along with the enticing opportunities for trade with pilgrimage, served to encourage large numbers to make the trip. That pilgrimage was a regular part of court life, then, only exacerbated the outrage at the Rahimi's capture. Maryam-uz-Zamani herself, however, remained untouched by the apostasy issue. There is no record of any question being raised about her position as a ship's owner under the Portuguese pass; neither her religious status as a wife then mother of a Muslim emperor nor the Hindu tradition of her birth 100 seem to have been jeopardized by her involvement in sea trade in Christian waters. Rather, her position as a sequestered financier allowed her both the adventure of foreign trade and the protection from the religious restrictions such an enterprise might entail.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->100. Akbar's principle of universal tolerance provided the contextual foundation for his many marriages to non-Muslim women as well as his encouragement to them to practice their own religion in the women's palaces. See A?in-i Akbari, I, 214-17, and the discussion in Beveridge's introduction to Gulbadan's Humayun-nama,pp. 67-69. Marriage between Muslim rulers and Hindu women was not an Akbari innovation, however, for such had been common ever since the arrival of the Arabs in India; his allowing them to practice their own religion, however, was. Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 176. That Jahangir maintained his father's tolerant attitude toward religious practice in the women's palace is evident from a painting in the Chester Beatty Library depicting Jahangir celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi with the women of his harem (Minto Album, fol. 4). Both Hindu and Muslim women appear to be participating in the festival. Some scholars maintain, however, that it was impossible for a Hindu woman to remain a Hindu after having married into a Muslim environment. See ShyAmal DAs, p. 7311.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Something else that caught my eye:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally, and most troubling, the Portuguese used their trading activities as a vehicle to carry out an extensive missionary front amongst both Hindu and Muslim Indians. The real reason for their presence was, at least ideologically, a zeal for Christian converts, and their proselytizing vigor was nowhere more obvious than in a 1594 papal bull commanding the forcible conversion of all Hindus. This missionary agenda was, in fact, set forth by Albuquerque himself upon his arrival in India in 1509 when he called for, among other things, the expulsion of Islam from India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Capture of Maryam-uz-Zamani's Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders
[...]
Who was Marayam Uz Zamani the Queen of Akbar? She is the mother of Jehangir. Is she the one called Jodh Bai?
[right][snapback]65539[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Ramana, here you go. With some extra information just before the relevant section, which I thought was interesting enough to add here.
Following excerpts from
<b>The Capture of Maryam-uz-ZamAni's Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders</b>, Ellison B. Findly, <i>Journal of the American Oriental Society</i>, Vol. 108, No. 2. (Apr. - Jun., 1988), pp. 227-238.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The capture of the Rahimi was not unusual, then, in that it revealed the involvement of Indians in overseas commerce. Despite the prohibition against Hindus taking to the seas,8 they appear from various sources to have signed on in good numbers for the journeys required by foreign trade.
Nor was the event unusual because the ship belonged to Mughal nobility. It is true that trade and commerce of the Mughal period were generally conducted by the business community, especially by the traditional merchant classes of Muslims along the coast, the Hindu banias of Gujarat,9 and the Hindu chettis of the Coromandel coast. There were, however, a number of instances of royal family members and nobles of the state who took a strong interest in commerce,10 and who even eagerly oversaw their own commercial ventures.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Associated footnote 8:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->8. Sea voyage (samudrasamyAna, samudrayAtrA) is an example of a kalivarjya, a practice which was once allowed but is now forbidden in the Kali age, owing to the current spiritual decline of man. See NAradIya-mahApurAna XXIV. 13-16; BaudhAyana-dharmasUtra I. 1.22, 11.1.51; Manusmrti 111.158; and Aushanasasmrti IV, pp. 525-26.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>Now this bit answers your question (blue) above, discusses Jodh Bai aspect too:</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Instead, the conspicuousness of the event lies in the fact that the owner of the ship was a woman, a Hindu princess from Amber who had married the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605) in 1562 as part of a political alliance between her father RAja BihAri Mall Kachhwiiha and her new husband." Maryam-uz-ZamAni (d. 1623), the "Maryam of Eternity," was now mother of the current emperor Jahangir,13 and the capture of her ship was a major insult to the reigning Mughal family.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Associated footnote 13:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->13. Although the background of Maryam-uz-ZamAni is controversial, many agree on the following: that Jahangir's mother was a Hindu by birth, that she was the elder daughter of RAja BihAri Mall of Amber (Jaipur), and that her name has been suppressed by Muslim historians out of prejudice. By and large, the "general native belief" that she was a "Jodh BAi," a lady from Jodhpur, as suggested by Tod above, is not fully substantiated. (Jahangir himself, however, married a Jodh BAi and named her Jagat GosAIn. She was mother to the future Shah Jahan and died in 1619.)<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
And this bit near the end also seems a little related:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The liberal courts of Akbar and Jahangir provided a supportive context for apostasy on the part of their pilgrims. Although we do not have any clear evidence of the specific views on apostasy at Jahangir court at the time of the Rahimi's capture, we do know that at his court, like his father's, Sunni and Shiite religious officials mixed freely and that Jahangir, though himself nominally a Sunni, encouraged, at least by policy if not by his own religious persuasion, an atmosphere of religious leniency, pluralism, and even syncretism. Despite the suspension of the obligation of hajj by more orthodox Sunni scholars, the lenient attitude of the emperors themselves, along with the enticing opportunities for trade with pilgrimage, served to encourage large numbers to make the trip. That pilgrimage was a regular part of court life, then, only exacerbated the outrage at the Rahimi's capture. Maryam-uz-Zamani herself, however, remained untouched by the apostasy issue. There is no record of any question being raised about her position as a ship's owner under the Portuguese pass; neither her religious status as a wife then mother of a Muslim emperor nor the Hindu tradition of her birth 100 seem to have been jeopardized by her involvement in sea trade in Christian waters. Rather, her position as a sequestered financier allowed her both the adventure of foreign trade and the protection from the religious restrictions such an enterprise might entail.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd--><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->100. Akbar's principle of universal tolerance provided the contextual foundation for his many marriages to non-Muslim women as well as his encouragement to them to practice their own religion in the women's palaces. See A?in-i Akbari, I, 214-17, and the discussion in Beveridge's introduction to Gulbadan's Humayun-nama,pp. 67-69. Marriage between Muslim rulers and Hindu women was not an Akbari innovation, however, for such had been common ever since the arrival of the Arabs in India; his allowing them to practice their own religion, however, was. Aziz Ahmad, Studies in Islamic Culture in the Indian Environment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), p. 176. That Jahangir maintained his father's tolerant attitude toward religious practice in the women's palace is evident from a painting in the Chester Beatty Library depicting Jahangir celebrating the Hindu festival of Holi with the women of his harem (Minto Album, fol. 4). Both Hindu and Muslim women appear to be participating in the festival. Some scholars maintain, however, that it was impossible for a Hindu woman to remain a Hindu after having married into a Muslim environment. See ShyAmal DAs, p. 7311.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Something else that caught my eye:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Finally, and most troubling, the Portuguese used their trading activities as a vehicle to carry out an extensive missionary front amongst both Hindu and Muslim Indians. The real reason for their presence was, at least ideologically, a zeal for Christian converts, and their proselytizing vigor was nowhere more obvious than in a 1594 papal bull commanding the forcible conversion of all Hindus. This missionary agenda was, in fact, set forth by Albuquerque himself upon his arrival in India in 1509 when he called for, among other things, the expulsion of Islam from India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->