In 1606, a 15-year-old prince named Khurram returned in the city of Lahore. He did not know that this visit would become a major turning point in his life. For amid the colour and festivities of the Meena Bazaar during Nowruz, Khurram crossed paths with a young girl who would change the fate of the entire Mughal Empire. Her name was Arjumand Banu Begum, and she would one day inspire one of the most famous buildings ever created. This story unfolds within the Mughal Empire (1526-1857), a vast terrestrial empire that ruled large parts of the Indian subcontinent. At its height, it stretched from the southern tip of India to the mountains of Afghanistan and controlled an astonishing share of the world’s wealth— nearly aquarter of global GDP in the 17th century. Khurram was the son of Emperor Jahangir, and would later be known as Shah Jahan, meaning “King of the World”. In 1606, he was engaged to his future Empress, Arjumand. Hailing from a distinguished Persian noble family, she would become known as Mumtaz Mahal, or “the Exalted One of the Palace”. Their marriage was anything but ordinary. In a time when most royal unions were political alliances, Mumtaz Mahal became Shah Jahan’s closest advisor, friend, and confidant. She travelled with him on military campaigns, sat beside him in court, and held a unique place in her husband’s life despite norms of polygamy in the imperial household. Together, they would have 14 children, and court historians often detailed their relationship with unusual intimacy. However, their story soon took a devastating turn. In June 1631, Mumtaz Mahal died shortly after giving birth to her 14th child at the age of 38. Imperial records detail an emperor who was overcome with grief. Following Mumtaz Mahal’s death, he did not show himself for a week, reportedly breaking into tears for years after her death. Shah Jahan even commissioned a jade pendant inscribed with Qur’anic verses in the hope they would soothe his heart palpitations caused by his grief. In the face of this great personal loss, Shah Jahan endeavoured to create something that would endure. What he envisioned was a tomb unlike anything built by his predecessors: a symbol of not only his eternal love for Mumtaz Mahal, but a statement of Mughal power. Over the next 22 years, that vision took shape as the Taj Mahal. Built on the banks of the Yamuna River and set within a grand Mughal garden, the tomb is widely regarded as the finest example of Indo-Islamic architecture. Its near-perfect symmetry, white marble, and intricate inlay of precious and semi-precious stones reveal incredible detail the closer one draws to the structure. The building’s surface is embellished with 241 verses from the Qur’an alongside intricate marble detailing by the greatest artisans from across the empire. The Taj Mahal was completed in 1648. But it wasn’t long before another calamity would strike Shah Jahan. In 1657, following a brutal war of succession, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son Aurangzeb at the Agra Fort. Held captive in an octagonal marble tower, the ageing Shah Jahan would spend the rest of his life under house arrest, cared for only by his daughter Jahanara. However, despite having lost almost everything, Shah Jahan’s prison had a full view of the Taj Mahal in the distance. It was in this backdrop that he passed away in the winter of 1666. Today, the Taj Mahal is one of the most visited monuments in India. However, despite its grandeur, the building stands for something more fundamentally human. It is a monument born from grief, shaped by devotion, and built to outlast time itself
