This book uncovers Chand Bibi’s life and battles in the Deccan against the Mughal Empire

In 1558, word travelled quickly in Ahmadnagar. Sultan Hussain Nizam Shah I had returned victorious from a military campaign against a formidable alliance: the Adil Shahi army of Bijapur and Vijayanagar’s imperial forces. News of the sultan’s triumph echoed from the proclamations at the fort and coursed along the Sena River, carried down champa-lined streets, shaded by groves of jamun, mango and khurni trees. To mark the victory, colourful flags were tied to the branches and fluttered in the breeze.

Khabar-rasān (messengers) descended into the main city centre. They spread the word to paper makers, cloth dyers, silver flatteners, tailors, potters, bakers, butchers and confectioners frying fresh sweetmeats. Artisans picked up news from the gossip of soldiers and pilgrims. They also received official word from the political elites who ruled them.

Hussain’s success was due in part to the treachery of General Saif ‘Ainul Mulk. Having betrayed the Nizam Shahis some years earlier, he now turned against Bijapur. Going rogue and roaming freely, he plundered the autumn crops and forced Bijapur’s peasants to feed his rebel troops. Cornered by the rebels on one side and confronted with the Nizam Shahi assault on the other, Bijapur’s ageing sultan appealed to Vijayanagar for help. Soon, King Aliya Rama Raja’s brother, Venkatadri, dispatched reinforcements.

Yet even this coalition failed to defeat Hussain Nizam Shah. Ahmadnagar’s sultan had strengthened ties with his neighbour Berar by marrying Darya Imad Shah’s daughter, forming a strong military alliance. The Nizam Shahi ruler then aligned with the Qutb Shahis of Golconda, and together they marched victorious to Sholapur – a fortress that was a constant source of contention between the sultans. Years later, Sholapur fortress would be included in Chand Bibi’s marriage dowry, pausing its disputed status for a time.

For now, in the late 1550s, as the winds of war swirled about her, eight-year-old Chand Bibi was acquiring an education befitting a princess. The maktab in the palace’s inner courtyard was filled with the thick fragrance of flowers. Children of the Nizam Shahi elite sat cross-legged on woven mats, clutching reed pens, their heads bent studiously as they wrote out the Persian verse their teacher had just recited.

Chand Bibi absorbed the world around her.

Was it here, during her Ahmadnagar childhood, when Chand Bibi first became acquainted with Muhammad Qasim Hindu Shah Firishta – the major historian of Hindustan? Chand Bibi and Firishta surely crossed paths many times in their lives, for Firishta served in both the Ahmadnagar and Bijapur courts. It was under the patronage of Chand Bibi’s nephew, Sultan Ibrahim Adil Shah II of Bijapur, when Firishta first composed his magnum opus in the early decades of the 17th century: Tarikh-e Firishta o Shahnama (Firishta’s History and Book of Kings). It is, as one historian has argued, “the most comprehensive and substantive rendering of the concept of Hindustan” – a precolonial vision of a land that was home to peoples of all faiths – an idea that was later expunged by British colonial historical frameworks. Firishta himself was likely born in Ahmadnagar and he began his career at the Nizam Shahi court as the captain of the palace guard.

Were Chand Bibi and Firishta about the same age? Did they study Persian together? Firishta’s father, Ghulam Ali Astarabadi, was a royal preceptor of the Nizam Shahi court. Was Firishta already a young palace guard by this point? What did the future queen and the budding historian discuss? Did they speak of palace intrigue? Share criticisms of monarchs? What life was like outside the fort walls? The relentless warfare that consumed the Deccan? The military exploits of her father? We cannot know the content of their conversations, and yet it is from Firishta’s writing that so much of Chand Bibi’s world comes into view.

Despite persistent military conflict, Ahmadnagar was a major centre of learning. Like Bijapur and Golconda, Ahmadnagar attracted Persian scholars to its lands. Waves of Persian peoples arrived in the Deccan in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Some men of learning sought refuge from persecution, such as Shah Tahrir al-Husayni who established educational institutions in Ahmadnagar in the 1530s. As historian Mana Kia writes, “to be Persian was to be embedded in a set of connections with people we today consider members of different groups … Being Persian provided a way to live with, affiliate with, and even understand kinship with differing people.”

Chand Bibi studied Persian under the finest teachers. Along with Qur’an recitation, she learned reading, writing, calligraphy and poetry. She learned the adab expected of a princess.

Universal schooling for women did not exist at the time. Formal education was restricted largely to elite families. Qabas Nama – a manual on ethical behaviour –circulated widely in courtly culture and warned explicitly against teaching girls to read and write:

If you have a daughter, entrust her to kindly nurses and give her good nature. When she goes up, entrust her to a preceptor [to] learn the sacred law and essential religious duties. But do not teach her to read and write; that is a great calamity. Once she is grown up, do your utmost to give her in marriage; it were best for the girl not to come in existence, but being born, she had better be married or be buried … daughters are captives of their parents … helpless and incapable of finding employment. Make provisions for her… fasten her about someone’s neck so as to escape from anxiety for her.

Yet Chand Bibi learned to read and write, defying such prescriptions intended to confine girls’ intellectual lives.

In fact, several elite Muslim women were educated and built centres of learning. Sufi biographical dictionaries regularly listed the names of female scholars and saints. The practice of acknowledging Sufi women dates to the first century of Islam and one of the earliest mystics was Rabia al-Adawiyah (d. 801) of Basra. She was a poet, a saint and a teacher to many learned men. Women who were Sufi scholars, mystics and saints were respected for their intelligence, knowledge and spiritual devotion all over the Islamic world. The tradition continued well into the eighteenth century. The Afghan Empire’s archsaint was Bibi Saheba Kalan (d. 1804), who came from a prominent Sufi family. Highly educated, she taught men and women alike. Sufi women flourished as scholars and spiritual authorities across South Asia.

Chand Bibi’s own contemporaries included Pari Khan Khanum (1548-1578) of the neighbouring Safavid empire, a learned scholar who also became head of state. In the Mughal world, Hamida Banu Begum (1527-1604), the emperor Akbar’s mother, was an avid bibliophile and commissioned an illuminated manuscript of the Hindu epic Ramayana. Akbar’s third wife, Salima Sultan Begum (1539-1613), wrote Persian verses and maintained a library of her own. Maham Anga, Akbar’s foster mother and one of the most influential women of his early reign, commissioned a mosque in Delhi that included a madrasa.

Closer to home, Chand Bibi’s Qutb Shahi cousin, the princess Khairut-un-Nisa Begum, had a mosque built for her tutor in 1626. Muslim women of the Deccan also produced spiritual knowledge. Qutb Shahi princesses composed their own poetic eulogies during the annual month-long Muharram commemorations honouring the sacrifices of the Prophet’s family. These rituals involved mourning assemblies made up exclusively of women, where Shi’a devotional poetry was recited and performed.

Zakiras (female reciters) performed poetic eulogies, recounting the martyrdoms of the caliph Ali, and the Prophet’s grandsons Hasan and Husain in Karbala. Their art required verbal dexterity, mastery of the cherished poetry of the classical tradition, and the ability to move devotees into a state of collective lamentation.

A century after Chand Bibi’s rule, Khadija Sultana (d. 1688) of Bijapur commissioned a Khavarnamah (Book of the East) recounting the heroic exploits of the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali. She was the first woman to patronise a work in the Dakkhani language, and played a vital role in Adil Shahi politics. She also commissioned Dakkani works by the poets Khurshid, such as Hasht Bihisht and Yousuf Zulaikha. Highly educated and financially well-off, she received revenue from a coastal province, which included a Dutch-operated factory in Vengurla. Khadija Sultana travelled to Mecca for Hajj – relatively uncommon for a woman – and also visited Shi’a pilgrimage sites in Yemen.

Excerpted with permission from Chand Bibi: The Lives and Legends of a Warrior Queen, Sarah Waheed, Penguin India.