Zeb-un-Nissa, daughter of Mughal emperor “
Aurangzeb” (known as Alamgeer), was born during the reign of
Shah Jahan. Her mother was Delras Banoo, daughter of Shahnawaz
Safavid.
Her father
Aurangzeb charged Mariam, one of the women of court, with the education of Zeb-un-Nissa. Through her efforts, Zeb-un-Nissa memorized the
Quran in three years. Then she learned the sciences of the time with Mohammad Saeed Ashraf Mazandarani. Zeb-un-Nissa learned
Philosophy,
Astronomy and
Literature, and knew
Persian,
Arabic and
Urdu. She had a good reputation in
calligraphy as well.
Zeb-un-Nissa started to narrate poems in
Persian from the age of 14, but as her father did not like poetry, she used to write secretly. Ustad Bayaz, one of her teachers, found her poems and then encouraged her to continue narrating poems. It is reported that in the court of
Aurangzeb, there used to be hidden literary and poetic parties among the great poets like Ghani Kashmiri, Naimatullah Khan and Aqil Khan Razi, and Zeb-un-Nissa participated secretly in these parties.
When
Aurangzeb became the emperor after
Shah Jahan, Zeb-un-Nissa was 21-years old.
Aurangzeb found out the talent and capacity of his daughter and discussed the political affairs of his Empire with her, and listened to her opinions. It has been mentioned in some books that
Aurangzeb sent all the royal princes for the reception of Zeb-un-Nissa each time she entered the court. Zeb-un-Nissa had four other sisters: Zeenat-un-Nissa, Badr-un-Nissa, Mehr-un-Nissa and Zebdat-un-Nissa. Among them, Zeenat-un-Nissa and Zebdat-un-Nissa wrote poems too.
Zeb-un-Nissa did not get married and remained single until her death, despite the fact she had many suitors. She spent all her life on literary works and poetry, as she herself says:
Oh Makhfi, it is the path of love and alone you must go -
No one suits your friendship even if Jesus be though
In some books it has been written that there were secret love relation between Zeb-un-Nissa and Aqil Khan Razi, a poet and the governor of
Lahore, but it is far from the truth. There are many stories reported about Zeb-un-Nissa and Aqil Khan Razi, but they seem to be far from the truth. Even in her poetic book (Diwan), we cannot find a single
Ghazal which supports this point. In fact, all her poems are based on the
Sufism concept of
Love of God.
Zeb-un-Nissa lived in a period when many great poets were at the peak of their reputation; e.g. Mawlana
Abdul Qader Bedil, Kalim Kashani, Saa’eb Tabrizi and Ghani Kashmiri. We notice the influence of
Hafez Sherazi’s style on the poetry of Zeb-un-Nissa. However, she is considered as one of the poets of Indian School of Poetry in
Persian.
Zeb-un-Nissa selected “
Makhfi” (which means
Hidden one in Persian) as her pen-name in her poetry. In addition to her poetic book or collection of poems, called
Diwan, which contains approximately 5,000 verses, she has also written the following books: “Monis-ul-Roh”, “Zeb-ul Monsha’at” and “Zeb-ul-Tafasir”. In Maghzan-ul Ghara’eb, the author writes that the poetic book of Zeb-un-Nissa contained 15,000 verses. Her poetic book was printed in
Delhi in 1929 and in
Tehran in 2001. Its manuscripts are in
National Library of Paris, Library of the
British Museum, Library of Tübingen University in
Germany and in the Mota Library in
India.
Zeb-un-Nissa died in 1701 in
Shahjahanabad (old
Delhi), while Aurangzeb was in trip to
Deccan. Her tomb was in the garden of "Thirty thousand trees", outside of the Kabuli Gate. But when the railway line was laid out at
Delhi, her tomb was shifted to
Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandara,
Agra.
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