The Humayun Nama: Reading Gulbadan Begum, the only Mughal royal woman to have written about the dynasty

In 1526, Bābar defeated Ibrāhīm Lodī and established the Mughal dynasty. A few years later, having settled in India, he summoned his womenfolk — wives, daughters, aunts, etc. — from Kabul. In response to the imperial summons, there came not just the grand ladies, the khanams (noblewomen) and aghachas (junior wives), but also a little girl: six-year-old Gulbadan Begum, Bābar’s favourite daughter.

Popular history has overlooked Gulbadan, but she was to grow up and become a vital member of Akbar’s zenana — a matriarch who led a group of royal women on hajj — and who wrote a fascinating memoir of life as a Mughal princess.