Khwānd-amīr says that she married ‘Khwāja Māu-
Mems., 177, 181.
Ḥabību-s-siyār, 327 et seq..
XXXII. Bega Begam and Bībī.
The Emperor Jahāngīr, when in his Memoirs enumerating the gardens of Kābul, mentions one which belonged to Bega Begam, a widow of his father's grandfather, i.e., Bābar. Which of Bābar's wives is indicated by this title cannot be said with certainty.
Jauhar has a story of Kāmrān's want of consideration for ‘Bega Begam,’ in which the points useful here are that on the day in 1545 when Humāyūn took Kābul from Kāmrān, he asked for food from Bega Begam, and he said of her that she was the very person who had brought Bābar's bones and laid them in Kābul.
These two references of Jahāngīr and Jauhar are probably to the same lady. Of Bābar's wives, Bībī Mubārika (Afghānī āghācha) appears to me the most suitable to the time and task.
Bābar's body was still in its Āgra tomb in 1539. (Gul-badan, 34b.) Māham was then dead; Dil-dār's movements exclude her from consideration; Gul-rukh, if living, will have left Āgra with her son Kāmrān before the Tīmūrid exodus was enforced by defeat at Kanauj; Bībī Mubārika remains, the probable and appropriate agent for fulfilling Bābar's wish as to the final disposition of his body. She lived into Akbar's reign, and her character and respected position in the household add to the sum of probability that she would discharge this duty.
Bābar's body was not removed till after the firat, i.e., the Tīmūrid downfall and exodus. Bega Begam, or, as we may call her with Jauhar for the sake of clearness, the Bībī, must therefore have remained behind the rest of the royal family. This may have occurred in one of two natural ways. She might have stayed in Āgra under the protection of one of the religious families and safeguarded by pious duty to Bābar's tomb, until Shīr Khān gave permission to remove the body and a safe escort for her journey to his frontier; or she may even have been in Bengal and at Chausa with Humāyūn, and, like Bega (Ḥājī) Begam, have been made captive. It would harmonize with Shīr Khān's known actions if he had allowed Bābar's widow to remove his bones, and if he had aided her pious task.
Tūzūk-i-jahāngīrī, lith. ed., 51.
Humāyūn-nāma, Jauhar, Pers. text, s.a. 951H. (November,
1545).
B. & H., II. 325 n..
XXXIII. Bega Begam Mīrān-shāhī. (No. 15.)
This Bega was a daughter of Mīrzā Ulugh Beg Mīrān-shāhī who was king of Kābul and known as Kābulī. She was Bābar's first cousin, and may be that daughter of her father who married Muḥammād Ma'ṣūm Mīrzā Bāyqrā. Gul-badan styles her 'ama, paternal aunt, of Humāyūn; anglice, she and he were first cousins, once removed. She was at the Mystic Feast in December, 1531.
Gul-badan, 24b.
Mems., 180.
XXXIV. Bega Begam Mīrān-shāhī. (? No. 22. Bega Kilān Begam.)
Daughter of Sulān Maḥmūd Mīrzā and Khān-
In 901H. (1496) Sulān Ḥusain Bāyqrā was besieging
Ḥiṣār which was held for Bega's brother Mas'ūd,
and in which she was. Ḥusain became apprehensive
about the spring rains and patched up a peace, the
seal of which was Bega's marriage with his son
Ḥaidar, her first cousin through his mother, Pāyanda-
Ḥaidar died before his father; i.e., before 912H. (April, 1506).
Mems., 30, 38, 180.
Gul-badan, (?) 24b, No. 22.
XXXV. Bega (Ḥājī) Begam (?) Begchik Mughal. (? No. 50.)
She was a daughter of Uncle (aghāī) Yādgār Beg who was, I think, a brother of Sulān 'Alī Mīrzā, father of Kāmran's wife, Gul-rukh. Abū'l-faẓl calls Bega Begam dukhtar-i-aghāī-wālida-i-Jannat-āshyānī. Yādgār and 'Alī Begchik are both styled Mīrzā, but this elevation is due, it seems, to their alliances with the royal house. Ḥaidar calls their brothers mīrs.
Bega married Humāyūn, her first cousin, and she was the wife of his youth. It is out of harmony with the custom of his house that his chief wife should be of less than royal descent. So far as I have been able to trace the matter, he never made an equal marriage. Gul-barg Barlās, ‘Khalīfa's’ daughter, whose second husband he was, had best claim to high birth.
The first son, perhaps first child, of Bega and Humāyūn was Al-amān, born 934H. or 935H. (1528) when his father was about twenty-one and was in Badakhshān. Bābar has commemorated his birth both by mentioning it and by preserving his own congratulatory letter to the young father. Al-amān died in infancy.
Bega came to India after Bābar's death (December, 1530), and her second and last-mentioned child, 'Afīfa ('Aqīqa) was born in 1531.
In 1534 (circa) Gul-badan's story (29b, 30b) shows Bega as resenting neglect by Humāyūn who accepts invitations to his sisters' quarters in camp in preference to hers and Gul-barg's. Some impressions of this story make one question whether the Bega it tells of is Humāyūn's wife or another. But the circumstances that she is associated with a wife, Gul-barg; that Gul-badan does not speak of her as being other than the ‘Bega Begam’ of the home circle; Humāyūn's allusions to the elder kinswomen; and the absence of the deference customary to an elder woman, seem sufficient justification for identifying the complaining Bega with the wife. (Gul-badan, it may be observed, mentions one other Bega Begam—i.e., Mīrān-shāhī, daughter of Ulugh Beg Kābulī.)
Bega was with Humāyūn during the idleness of his decadence in Bengal, and with her was her sister, the wife of Zahīd Beg. Zahīd offended Humāyūn, and Bega tried in vain to obtain his forgiveness.
She was captured at Chausa by Shīr Khān, and
here she lost her little girl, 'Aqīqa. The historians
all call her Ḥājī Begam in recording her capture; it
is only Gul-badan who calls her Bega Begam. She
was returned in safety to Humāyūn under the escort of
Shīr Khān's best general, Khawāṣ Khān. How soon
she was returned I am not able to say. Support
is to be found for the view that she was sent to
Āgra directly after Humāyūn's arrival there, and also
for the view that she was not returned to him until
after a considerable time had elapsed. I do not know
whether she went to Sind with the exiles or was sent
later direct to Kābul. She was in Kābul with the
royal family after 1545. She remained there with the
other ladies when Humāyūn made his expedition to
recover Hindūstān, and she came with Ḥamīda, Gul-
Akbar is said to have been much attached to her, and she was to him like a second mother. She went to Makka in 972H. (1564-65), and returned three years later. One thing raises the question whether this was her first pilgrimage, viz., the fact that all the sources, except Gul-badan's, call her Ḥājī Begam. Why is she singled out to bear this title? It had been earned by many royal ladies before any one of the trio of great writers under Akbar had put pen to paper. The same unexplained distinction is conferred by the histories on a daughter of Kāmrān. In both these cases a renewed pilgrimage might serve as the explanation of the distinction.