“I Will Shoot the Lions”: Nur Jahan and Mughal Women

Whenever we choose how to teach a course (e.g., World History) or a topic (e.g., the Mughals), we also choose how to frame the historical content. We typically focus on what material we know well or what we think will most help students. What we often don’t think about is how our choices limit us. Choosing to open one door usually means we’re also shutting another door.

In March and April 2023, I wrote a series of posts about using Mughal art and official histories to understand how the Mughals saw themselves as rulers. I had just visited the excellent Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and appreciated their Mughal miniature paintings collection. Their paintings inspired me to develop a framework for teaching Mughal history, but my approach left little room for integrating elite Mughal women. In this post, I discuss how we can use the case of Nur Jahan (Jahangir’s wife) to understand Mughal women’s influence.

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