Everywhere around us are echoes of the past. Those echoes define the boundaries of states and countries, how we pray and how we fight. They determine what money we spend and how we earn it at work, what language we speak and how we raise our children. From Wondery, host Patrick Wyman, PhD (“Fall Of Rome”) helps us understand our world and how it got to be the way it is. Listen to Tides of History on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to bonus episodes available ...
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The Silk Road Travel Adventures of a 16th Century Mughal Princess and Her Massive Royal Retinue
MP3•Episode home
Manage episode 421133561 series 2421086
Content provided by Scott Rank, PhD and Scott Rank. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Scott Rank, PhD and Scott Rank or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
To most Westerners, the Mughal Empire is a forgotten stepchild of world history. Even though it produced the Taj Mahal and controlled nearly all modern-day India, the Mughal Dynasty’s accomplishments are crowded out by those of the Romans, Chinese, and British. Nevertheless, it was a great Asian power from the 16th-19th centuries, comparable to the Ming Dynasty in wealth, population, and military strength, dwarfing its European contemporaries. And one of the greatest figures in that empire was Princess Gulbadan (1523-1603), a daughter of the first Mughal Emperor who wrote the empire’s first history.
Gulbadan was a dynamic and influential figure and a trusted advisor to the Empire. She was part of the peripatetic royal household. The Mughals had moved often across long distances, living for extended periods in the open country in royal tents pitched in gardens, and in citadels. But when Gulbadan was in her 50s, her nephew Akbar the Great established a walled harem in his capital Fatehpur-Sikri near Agra — an effort to showcase his regal authority as Emperor. From behind these walls, Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she’d long known.
With Akbar’s blessing, Gulbadan led a remarkable and unprecedented four-year pilgrimage of Mughal women to the distant Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond. Amid increasing political tensions, the women were expelled for their “un-Islamic” behavior, a thinly veiled effort to curb Mughal influence in the Holy cities, controlled at the time by the Ottoman Sultans of Turkey. Their travels home included a dramatic shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.
After her return to India, Akbar asked Gulbadan to record her memories of the Mughal Dynasty to serve as a source for the first official history of the Empire. What she wrote was unparalleled in both form and content. She captured the gritty and fabulous daily lives of ambitious men, subversive women, brilliant eunuchs, devoted nurses, gentle and perceptive guards, captive women, and children who died in war zones.
To explore Gulbadan’s life is today’s guest, Ruby Lal, author of “Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan.”
…
continue reading
Gulbadan was a dynamic and influential figure and a trusted advisor to the Empire. She was part of the peripatetic royal household. The Mughals had moved often across long distances, living for extended periods in the open country in royal tents pitched in gardens, and in citadels. But when Gulbadan was in her 50s, her nephew Akbar the Great established a walled harem in his capital Fatehpur-Sikri near Agra — an effort to showcase his regal authority as Emperor. From behind these walls, Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she’d long known.
With Akbar’s blessing, Gulbadan led a remarkable and unprecedented four-year pilgrimage of Mughal women to the distant Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond. Amid increasing political tensions, the women were expelled for their “un-Islamic” behavior, a thinly veiled effort to curb Mughal influence in the Holy cities, controlled at the time by the Ottoman Sultans of Turkey. Their travels home included a dramatic shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.
After her return to India, Akbar asked Gulbadan to record her memories of the Mughal Dynasty to serve as a source for the first official history of the Empire. What she wrote was unparalleled in both form and content. She captured the gritty and fabulous daily lives of ambitious men, subversive women, brilliant eunuchs, devoted nurses, gentle and perceptive guards, captive women, and children who died in war zones.
To explore Gulbadan’s life is today’s guest, Ruby Lal, author of “Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan.”
921 episodes
MP3•Episode home
Manage episode 421133561 series 2421086
Content provided by Scott Rank, PhD and Scott Rank. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Scott Rank, PhD and Scott Rank or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
To most Westerners, the Mughal Empire is a forgotten stepchild of world history. Even though it produced the Taj Mahal and controlled nearly all modern-day India, the Mughal Dynasty’s accomplishments are crowded out by those of the Romans, Chinese, and British. Nevertheless, it was a great Asian power from the 16th-19th centuries, comparable to the Ming Dynasty in wealth, population, and military strength, dwarfing its European contemporaries. And one of the greatest figures in that empire was Princess Gulbadan (1523-1603), a daughter of the first Mughal Emperor who wrote the empire’s first history.
Gulbadan was a dynamic and influential figure and a trusted advisor to the Empire. She was part of the peripatetic royal household. The Mughals had moved often across long distances, living for extended periods in the open country in royal tents pitched in gardens, and in citadels. But when Gulbadan was in her 50s, her nephew Akbar the Great established a walled harem in his capital Fatehpur-Sikri near Agra — an effort to showcase his regal authority as Emperor. From behind these walls, Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she’d long known.
With Akbar’s blessing, Gulbadan led a remarkable and unprecedented four-year pilgrimage of Mughal women to the distant Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond. Amid increasing political tensions, the women were expelled for their “un-Islamic” behavior, a thinly veiled effort to curb Mughal influence in the Holy cities, controlled at the time by the Ottoman Sultans of Turkey. Their travels home included a dramatic shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.
After her return to India, Akbar asked Gulbadan to record her memories of the Mughal Dynasty to serve as a source for the first official history of the Empire. What she wrote was unparalleled in both form and content. She captured the gritty and fabulous daily lives of ambitious men, subversive women, brilliant eunuchs, devoted nurses, gentle and perceptive guards, captive women, and children who died in war zones.
To explore Gulbadan’s life is today’s guest, Ruby Lal, author of “Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan.”
…
continue reading
Gulbadan was a dynamic and influential figure and a trusted advisor to the Empire. She was part of the peripatetic royal household. The Mughals had moved often across long distances, living for extended periods in the open country in royal tents pitched in gardens, and in citadels. But when Gulbadan was in her 50s, her nephew Akbar the Great established a walled harem in his capital Fatehpur-Sikri near Agra — an effort to showcase his regal authority as Emperor. From behind these walls, Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she’d long known.
With Akbar’s blessing, Gulbadan led a remarkable and unprecedented four-year pilgrimage of Mughal women to the distant Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina and beyond. Amid increasing political tensions, the women were expelled for their “un-Islamic” behavior, a thinly veiled effort to curb Mughal influence in the Holy cities, controlled at the time by the Ottoman Sultans of Turkey. Their travels home included a dramatic shipwreck in the Gulf of Aden.
After her return to India, Akbar asked Gulbadan to record her memories of the Mughal Dynasty to serve as a source for the first official history of the Empire. What she wrote was unparalleled in both form and content. She captured the gritty and fabulous daily lives of ambitious men, subversive women, brilliant eunuchs, devoted nurses, gentle and perceptive guards, captive women, and children who died in war zones.
To explore Gulbadan’s life is today’s guest, Ruby Lal, author of “Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan.”
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