Zeb-un-Nissa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Zeb-un-Nissa Makhfi (Persian: زیب النساء مخفی) (Zebunnisa, Zebunnissa, Zebunisa, Zeb-un-Nisa, Zeb-ul-Nissa) (Zeb means beauty or ornament in Persian and Nissa means women in Arabic, Zebunnisa means most beautiful of all women) (1637 - 1702) was the eldest daughter of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir. Princess Zeb-un-Nissa is fondly remembered as a Sufi and a poet.
[edit] Detailed Biography
Zeb-un-Nissa, daughter of Mughal emperor “Aurangzeb” (known as Alamgeer), was born in 1638 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 Dari or Persian, Arabic and Hindi. She had a good reputation in calligraphy.
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 hide her poems. However, Ustad Bayaz, one of her teachers, found her poems and then encouraged her to continue narrating poems. It is said that in the court of Aurangzeb, there used to be hidden literary and poetric parties by 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 had found out the talent and capacity of her daughter and discussed the political and military affairs of his Empire with her, and always 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 about Zeb-un-Nissa and Aqil Khan Razi, but they are all untrue and we cannot rely on them. Even in her poetic book (Diwan), we cannot find any single Ghazal which supports this report. In fact, all her poems refer to the Love of God, a Sufism poetry.
Zeb-un-Nissa lived in a period during which many great poets were at the peak of their reputation; e.g. Mawlana Abdul Qader Bedil, Kalim Kashani, Sa’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 great poets of Indian School of Poetry in Persian.
From her poems, we notice that Zeb-un-Nissa loved very much Khorasan (the old Afghanistan). In her Diwan, she has mentioned several times her love of this territory.
Zeb-un-Nissa had selected “Makhfi” (which means Hidden in Persian) as her pen-name for her poetry, and has written the following books: “Monis-ul-Roh”, “Zeb-ul Monsha’at” and “Zeb-ul-Tafasir”, in addition to her poetic book or collection of poems, Diwan, which contains approximately 5,000 verses. 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 2001 in Tehran. 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.
