From the letter of the nazir accompanying Prince Bidar Bakht Bahadur, the Emperor learnt, “The prince had always before this shown the greatest affection and favour to Shams-un-nisa, the daughter of Mukhtar Khan. But now, contrary to his usual manner, he often treats her with displeasure, so that one day he had said, ‘The daughter of a rascal (paji) ought not to show such pride to princes.’ At this Shams-un-nisa replied, ‘If you like you may slay me, but I shall not speak to you again.’ So from that day she had given up speaking to him.”

Across the sheet of the letter the Emperor wrote; (Verse)

“At dawn the bird of the garden [nightingale] said to the newly blossomed rose,
‘Don't give yourself airs so much, because in this garden many like you had budded [before.]’
The rose laughed [saying], ‘I am not sorry to hear the truth, but
No lover ever spoke a bitter word to his beloved.’ (Hafiz)

Be it clear to this light of my eye [i.e., grandson] that in the season of youth, which in the vile phraseo­logy of his boon companions is styled ‘mad youth,’ I, too, had this relation with a person [wife] who had extreme imperiousness, but to the end of her life I continued to love her and never once did I wound her feelings. Then, again, to apply the term paji to Sayyids is simply to act like a paji. If a Sayyid is called a paji, it will not certainly make her a paji. If I do not learn from the letters of the mahaldar and the nazir that you have made it up with this Sayyid girl, you will meet with rebuke, nay more, with punishment. [God shall give them] recompense for that which they were doing.”

Text.–MS. N. 23b 1–24a 5.

Notes.–Bidar Bakht, the son of Azam, and the favourite grandson of Aurangzib, was married to the daughter of Mukhtar Khan, surnamed Puti Begam, on 21st Nov., 1686 (M. A. 284). A son, named Firuz Bakht was born to them on 23rd Aug., 1695 (Ibid. 374), Bidar Bakht's father-in-law was Qamr-ud-din, the son of Shams-ud-din, the son of Sayyid Muhammad, all three of them being successively entitled Mukhtar Khan (M. U. iii. 656). This family, the Ben-i-Mukhtar, enjoyed the greatest respect among the Muslims, and traced its descent from the Prophet, through Abul Mukhtar, the naqib of Ali's Mashhad and Amir-ul-haj. One of its members migrated from Najaf to Sabzawar in Khurasan, hence their title of Sabzawari. (M. U. iii. 409).

Aurangzib is referring to his own married life. His wife Dilras Banu, the daughter of Shah Nawaz Khan Safawi, (married 8th May, 1637, d. 8 October, 1657), must have been a very proud woman, if we can judge her character from that of her son, Muhammad Azam, who was incredibly vain and haughty.