During the Mughal era were the women only used as sexters? Explain?
Answers
Explanation:
During the Mughal era were the women only used as sexters? Explain?
Answer:
Ira Mukhoty’s book Daughters of the Sun couldn’t have come at a better time. For, among other things, it puts to rest the scandalous claims that the Mughals saw India as a place of plunder. Today, it is fast becoming a regularity to hear reports of the governments in BJP-ruled states trying to fiddle with history text books, even to the extent of altering the course of historical battles in the favour of Hindu rulers and portraying Mughal rulers as marauders and mass murderers, perhaps in a bid to alienate the Muslim population living in the country. But, Mukhoty’s well-researched book proves to be a real eye-opener.
For her book, Mukhoty chooses to look beyond the European sources as her main material, often relying on the under-utilised Persian texts such as the accounts of Babur’s daughter Gulbadan, or Akbar’s out-of-favour biographer Badauni, or the writings of Shahjahan’s beloved daughter and Aurangzeb’s respectable elder sister Jahanara. When these texts are interpreted along with the popular European texts as well as the official accounts of biographers like Abul Fazal, it allows for a far more comprehensive understanding of the state of affairs during the Mughal period. Also, Mukhoty often uses the accounts of women like Gulbadan, Jahanara, and Mrs Meer Hasan Ali, a nineteenth century Englishwoman married to an Indian man, which allows her to present a feminist take on Mughal history, furthering the great progress made by Professor Ruby Lal’s pioneering work Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World.
So, when Mukhoty talks about the Mughal zenana she is able to break free of the European fascination for the “Oriental harem”, which Mukhoty describes as “a lurid and sometimes fantastical mix of bazaar gossip, stray gleanings of fact and sexual fantasy.” Mukhoty explains, “Most of the women of the Mughal harem were, in fact, not wives at all; they were mothers, like Hamida Banu and Harkha Bai, unmarried sisters, like Zeb-un-Nisa and Zeenat-un-Nisa, aunts like Gulbadan, distant relatives like Salima Sultan, elderly dependents, etc. They were not sexually available women at all. And yet, they all had a role to play, a duty to perform, and they were respected, and paid, for these crucial jobs.”