Nour Mahal was a widow when, in 1611, she became the bride of Jehanghire, and it is said that she took for her second husband the murderer of her first. Her influence over the Emperor soon became paramount. They had many tastes in common, amongst others the passion for hunting; Nour Mahal was as fond of the chase as Zenobia. In company with Jehanghire she would slay tigers and other savage beasts of the jungle, charming her lord by the adroitness with which she handled the bow or the more unwieldy matchlock.
It was strange that a haughty, overbearing, courageous woman like Nour Mahal should never have taken command of an army. We read of only one battle in which she was personally engaged. Her policy was to choose able generals to conduct all her wars. However, one of these chieftains was near causing her ruin. This was Mohabat Khan, the most talented Indian warrior of his time. She had the folly to quarrel with this man, and he, seeing that his ruin was determined upon, took the initiative, and seized the emperor in his own camp. He soon saw that it would have been wiser to arrest the empress; but on returning to remedy this fault, he found she had fled to the camp of her brother, on the other bank of the river—the Chenab.
Next morning the empress led a party across the river to rescue Jehanghire. She was armed with a bow and two quivers of arrows, and sat in a howdah on the back of an elephant. In fording the stream, hundreds were swept away by the force of the current. Those who escaped drowning were weighed down by their armour and their wet clothes, and had their powder spoilt. In this disastrous condition they were obliged to fight hand to hand with the rebels before a landing could be effected. Nour Mahal, with her brother and a handful of the bravest chiefs, was amongst the first who reached the shore; but this little band could make no impression on the ranks of Mohabat Khan, whose soldiers poured volley after volley, shot, arrows, and rockets, upon the men struggling in the water. The ford was soon choked up with men, horses, and elephants, dead or dying.
The contest raged fiercest round the elephant of Nour Mahal, who never quailed before the infuriated rebels who sought her life. Her gallant defenders fell one after another, fighting manfully to the last; but she herself appeared to bear a charmed life amidst the perfect hail of bullets and winged shafts, though her infant granddaughter, who sat close beside her, was wounded, the driver of her elephant was shot, and the beast himself received a cut across the trunk. Half-maddened with pain, the animal plunged into the river, and was carried away by the stream. When at length the elephant struggled up the bank, Nour Mahal was discovered calmly extracting an arrow from the wound of her grandchild, as cool and collected as though she had been a spectator at a review in place of the leading actor in a fierce encounter. The howdah was saturated with blood.
The failure of this rash, though gallant attempt, proved that Mohabat was too strong to be subdued by open force; Nour Mahal therefore resolved to lull his suspicions, and trust to chance for some expedient to crush him. Next day she went to his camp and surrendered herself a prisoner. For a time Mohabat Khan ruled paramount throughout the empire; but in a few months Nour Mahal, partly by cunning, partly by appealing to the loyalty of the omrahs, rescued her husband from the clutches of this man, whose power thenceforth ceased for ever.
Jehanghire died on the 28th of October, 1627.
Although Nour Mahal survived him for twenty-four years, she held aloof from politics. She was buried in a splendid tomb at Lahore, close by the monument of Jehanghire.
Spontini has chosen the story of Nour Mahal as the subject for one of his best operas.
In 1688 the Mogul army, commanded by Azim Shah (son of Aurengzebe) was engaged in the siege of Bijapur. The troops were much distressed for want of provisions, as their supplies had been cut off by the enemy. Aurengzebe, hearing of this, ordered one of his generals to take twenty thousand bullock-loads of grain to the camp of Azim Shah. The enemy made a desperate attempt to seize this convoy on its road; but after a fierce encounter with the Moguls, they were driven off. During the action, the Princess Janee Begum, who was proceeding with the convoy to join her husband, Azim Shah, rode on the back of an elephant into the midst of the fight, and encouraged the soldiers by her presence.