DĀYASORANĀGAS OF IMPERIAL MUGHAL

Author(s): Balkrishan Shivram

Source: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress , 2013, Vol. 74 (2013), pp. 258-268
Published by: Indian History Congress

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44158824

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 DÃ YASOWANÃGAS OF IMPERIAL
MUGHAL
Balkrishan Shivram

Wet nursing was an ancient, intensely ingrained and extensive

accepted social custom. The practice was encouraged by various
sometimes contrasting, motivations, depending on the social group a
the personal, economic, and social circumstances. It could in fact ran
from the inconvenience of a temporary withdrawal from social dut
to anxieties about the aesthetic consequences of nursing. Wet nurse
were used extensively in Greek and Roman empires almost exclusive
by royalty and the highly born.1 Modern-day absorption of a mothe
psychological "bonding" with her new-born child was not a matter o
great concern for imperial families. Moreover imperial women durin
that period mainly were often little more than symbolic figure
delivering child after child to secure a dynasty. It was particularly
important in times of high infant and child mortality and, whiles th
notion that breastfeeding had a contraceptive effect was quite
prevalent.2In general rich mothers of that time were "tied to perpetu
pregnancy and the poor mothers to perpetual suckling".3 Poor wom
tb?n did breastfeed their children often with explicitly contracepti
intention and so had longer birth intervals, fewer and healthier children
as opposed to their richer sisters. Since "sexual intercourse" wa
reflected fatal to the nursling hence some husbands might have barr
their wives from breastfeeding rather than relinquishing their sexu
privilege. In some cultures the fear of feeding colostrum4 to an infa
may have contributed to the undermining of maternal breastfeedin
and helped perpetuating wet nursing.
I

In the Middle Age hiring of wet nurses had become so popular norm
for imperial and wealthy family that one who nursed her own child
was worthy of comment. Wet nurses, i.e., anāga or dãya ,5 were used
exclusively in imperial Mughal family. Textual and visual evidences
of Mughal reign seldom portrayed imperial woman fulfilling their
maternal role - albeit - wet nurses with the title "royal nurse" dãya or
anāga are represented prominently in the Mughal sources interacting
with magnificent children. Individual wet nurse sometimes is being
depicted holding and even suckling royal nursling wrapped in swaddling
bands who usually appear as a child but occasionally is shown as a
miniature king. For example, a copy of Rashid al-Din, Jami al-Tawarikh
(compendium of chronicles), illustrated at imperial Mughal studio,

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 Medieval India 259

depict Ghazna Khan suckling his wet nu

retiring splendour.6Similarly a folio fr
Nama "The infant Akbar Given to Nurs
nursing progression during Akbar 's init
mother keeping a "close eye" on the nu
sitting position indicates her superior so
around royal mother wears Chagatai Tu
wet nurses as Persian text of this painti
which offers a visual alike to textual des
Akbar's (d. 1 605) panegyrist Shaikh A
Persian inscription of this painting men
for infant Akbar.

Unlike to wet nurses, a dignified woman seated (in this image)

next to mother in overseeing position is most likely Maham Anaga,
superintendent of the nurses -often referred incorrectly as a wet nurse.
Interestingly neither Abu'l Fazl includes her name in the list of wet
nurses8nor is it cited in the inscriptions of the above mentioned
painting. 9Though the stories of her close relationship comparable to
those between prince and anaga are plentiful10 there is no evidence
which provides explicit confirmation of her role as a wet nurse. The
stronger possibility as suggested by Henry Beveridge is that Maham
Anaga was head or the superintendent of the nurses rather than chief
anaga. According to Beveridge she certainly was not the chief anaga
in the sense of providing maximum nourishment to the infant prince,
for that we are told by Abu'l Fazl that Didji Anaga was chief in this
respect. 11 It seems quite evident from Tārīkh-i-humāvūn while referring
Didji as Prince's nurse {anaga) denotes that MahamBega (author calls
her by this appellation)was head of the Prince's nurses, i.e.,
keãghaanaga Nawäb-i-Jshänbüd. 12 It can be confirmed from the fact
that after Maham 's death in 1 562 Bibi Fatima, another cherished women
of the realm, was promoted to the post of superintendent besides being
head urdubegiP
II

When a member of royalty was expecting, several wet nurses had to

be kept "on standby" parallel to the Hellenistic kings - to ensure that
new arrival would be safely and successfully nourished. Beside
implanting varied disposition of nurses milk multiple wet nurses were
perhaps chosen in classic Greco-Roman style as someone's "pregnancy
might not fulfilled" (for e.g. Didji Anaga's during Akbar birth14), some
may "lost" their milk or it was judged unfit and other could be victim
of the court intrigues. l5The new heir may have had several wet nurses
until weaning. Abu'l Fazl in his monumental history the Akbarnamah,
as noted before while precisely naming ten wet nurses for infant Akbar

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260 I HC: Proceedings, 74th Session, 2013

beside denotes: "many other fortunate cupolas of chastity were exalted

by the excellence of this service". l6Suckling in some cases indeed was
largely symbolic or gestural. For example Emperor Jahangir (d. 1627)
quotes, "venerable Shaikh Salim Chishti's (d. 1 572) daughter-in-law,
mother of infant Shaikh Bayazid had been the first person who gave
me milk, but not for more than a day"17 afterward we are told that he
was suckled by several wet nurses, amid them conspicuously celebrated
in contemporary chronicles is daughter of Shaikh Salim-Qutb-ud-Din's
mother. "Immediately after royal birthit was custom to take away infants
from their mothers to be was hed and wrapped in swaddling bands.
Then after touching some honey 19 to the lips of new born it was put to
the breast of a wet nurse - contrary to Abu'lFazl's postulation that
baby "might have suckled by own mother" before wet nurse. 20Fn
medieval era since the nutritional and immunogenic qualities of
colostrum were not implicit - contrary it was considered "bad" milk,
of dubious colour and evil properties.2lThus Abu'l Fazl's presumption
looks apparently incorrect.
The conventional wisdom that one's character is derived from the
milk that nourishes one in infancy was widespread in the Mughal world,
which inspired chroniclers to lists several bodily attributes that should
be logged when selecting a wet nurse. Honoured names of the "blissful
nurses and spiritually moulded cherishes"" were likely to be carefully
probed. It wasn't requisite to supply merely plentiful milk it required
to be a conduit for her necessarily good temperament and spiritual
inclinations.2:>Abu'l Fazl's claim that Akbar imbibed varied mashãrib
(dispositions), 24and wujud (essence and substance^'from the milk of
his ( qawābil-i-rūānī-qawālib ) spiritual moulded cherishers [means both;
a wet nurse and a mid-wife] is familiar to many, surprisingly this nature
of remarks have never been to subject of scrutiny for Mughal
historians.2' Tranquilized by the charming innocence of the comment
scholars have failed to recognize a theme that belongs to an early middle
age with roots in classical antiquity. Emperor Aurangzeb (d. 1707)
affirmed that wet nurse's milk has the power to change baby's emotions
and the spirits.27 The ink lingthat through milk infant absorbs the
physical as well as "spiritual" qualities of the nurse which we widely
encountered in the Quranic literature supposedly is based on Greek
notion that breast milk isa purified refinement of a woman's uterine
blood.2«

Ill

In contrast to the medieval European custom, whereby new-boms were

sent away into the countryside to live with contracted wet nurses,

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 Medieval India 26 1

Mughals brought wet nurses into their hom

supervised. 29Honour was often awarded
particularly trustworthy ladies with pure
the family. Mughals concern over the quality
to a practical perspective, but also encomp
that affected the milk. Therefore the selection of a wet nurse was vital
in order to ensure the highest quality of the milk. Beginning with
Mongol, the virtuous Buddist Tangut were the most perfect wet nurses
for royal family. OljāAīm, the wet nurse of emperor 1 imur or Tamerlane
(r. 1370-1405 AD) was from high noble family. Though the wet-nurses
for Mughal royal princes were often chosen from the harem of the
senior officials of the royal palace keeping in view the protracted
political representation, however, the personal qualities of the nurses
were persistently emphasised. Abu' I Fazl records that they had to be
"even tempered, spiritually-minded" nurses from whose breasts infant
Akbar's "mouth was sweetened by the life-giving fluid".30 Bibi Fatima,
Emperor Humayun's (d. 1 556) nurse was amongst noble wives. Among
Akbars nurses, D i d j i 3 1 Anaga was wife of "the nobly born" and
trustworthy Sham-ud-Din Muhammad Khan of Ghazni who saved
Humayun from drowning after battle of Kanauj32; DayaBhawal herself
was a "special servant" distinguished for her "virtue and purity"33;
Fakhr-un-NisaAnaga (mother of Nadim Koka)34 was Humayun's
attendant from his childhood; Khwaja Ghazi was companion of
Humayun, whose wife also suckled Akbar; and Pija Jan Anaga was
married to Khawaja Maqsud of Herat, a man of "pure disposition and
integrity". 35To nurse his first son, Salim (future Jahangir), Emperor
Akbar appointed a number of women from the progeny of Shaikh Salim
- a member of the prominent pan-Indian Chishti Sufi order. Notably
among them were Bayazid and Qutbu-ud Din's mothers. 36Over the next
few years, other women from the same family served as anagas for his
two other sons, Murad and Danyal. While doing so, Akbar added a
material and bodily attachment to the spiritual ties he had already tried
to forge with the Chishtis, an order that upheld his political ambitions
to become a specifically Hindustani Muslim emperor.37Shah Jahan's
(d.1666) wet nurse persistently mentioned in chroniclers Zeb u-Nisa
aka (Dai Angah) was women of "chaste nature". Aurangzeb's nurse,
the mother of Khan Jahan, Bahadur Khan Zafar Jang also had decent
lineage.
Under Mughals this pervasive practice of the upper classes seems
to take on a different tone, since within the ruling house it involved not
just a choice of the mother to forego the joys of child-rearing, but
specifically tied to efforts of the father to forge bonding between wet
nurse's family and child - compatible to classic Islamic tradition

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262 IHC: Proceedings , 74th Session , 20/5
(discussed in section IV), Sources are replete to support this argument.
When Humayun chose Didji Anaga (principal nurse) - who was married
into the prominent Ghazni-based Ataga clan, Sham-ud-Din - to nurse
Akbar, he did so in the context of conflict with his younger brother
Mirza Kamran over parts of eastern Afghanistan, including Ghazni.
After selection the whole family of the nurse placed themselves at the
disposal of the foster child, with whom, for the rest of their lives, their
fortunes were unalterably bound up. Whatever were a child's
misfortunes or crimes in after-life, his good and bad fortunes were
equally shared by foster families. Had exile be his lot, his foster kindred
accompanied him. On the other hand, if he climbed to influence, his
foster-father was generally his most confidant adviser and his foster-
brothers were employed on the most important missions. Moral
commitments were indeed sanctified in the ritual idiom of
'breastfeeding' by which oaths of loyalty were sworn. Mughal source
are abounding in praises of "kokaltash fc"38 loyal services. Even duri
a massive revolt orchestrated by nobles and officers of Central Asia
origin in 1580, the milk relatives, i.e., Ataga clan remained faithful.
IV

Specialists on women's issue in Islamic law, for example, Avner Giladi

suggests that wet nursing may have been a deliberate method by which
to enlarge the family, make "adoption" possible, and generally multiply
ties of loyalty and filial duty. He also suggests that practice served to
push exogamy ever outward and thereby strengthen the Muslim
community.40 While marital and sexual ties were prohibited to milk
siblings, soçial access between the sexes became freer for those who
had nursed at the same breast.4,Fpr example, a Muslim woman could
meet her milk brother unveiled. 42A wet nurse would have free, familial
access to a male child whom she had once nursed for his entire
Iife.43Interestingly, the symbolic nursing even of an adult male ( rad
al'kabir )44also involved identical moral obligations and impediments
on marriage similar to those created through infant.45 In Mughal history
we finds that when "a begum . . .desired to bind an amir (or raja) to her
cause , she would send him a little milk drawn from her breast to drink
... or water to drink with which she had washed her breasts".46When
Dara Shikoh's wife wanted to secure the loyalty of Raja Rajrup Singh
to her husband cause she "offered him (because ;he had no milk in her
breast) water to drink with which she had washed her breast" says
Manucci. The raja drank the water and swore allegiance - and promptly
deserted to Aurangzeb.47 Saudi women's perception of threatening to
breastfeed their drivers to establish a symbolic maternal bond to gain
their right to drive in the ultra-conservative kingdom is also associated
with the same effect.48

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 Medieval India 263

Each of these examples shows that breast

tie that had a life-long social impact on a c
through breast milk could entail lifelong prot
of internecine feuds on behalf of "milk-brothers" and "milk-sons".
Manipulations of such ties - for purposes of neighbourly alliance, or
for evading obligations of sexual seclusion ( hijab ), or even for blocking
undesired preferential marriages - are all documented in modern Saudi
Arabia by Altorki,49 reflecting practices already attested in early hadith
traditions.50 These manipulative strategies were even facilitated by a
hadith tradition -ascribed to the testimony of the Prophet'swifeA'isha
- clarifying that "what is forbidden by natal kinship ( nasab ) is equally
forbidden by milk kinship {rada 'a)".51
As wet nurse to royal sons, nurses were well positioned to win the
imperial family's affection and favour; and she succeeded in parlaying
her proximity to the royal family into financial security and social status.
Comparable to Egyptian, Greek-Roman culture the nurse's family held
a recognized hereditary status of "kinship by milk" and when the nursed
"child" finally assumed the chieftaincy; his milk-fathers ( atagas ) and
milk-brothers ( kokas ) often attained considerable influence and position
at his court. The example of Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Khan, the
husband of Didji Anaga and their son Mirza Aziz is the most appropriate
to be cited here; reared Akbar while Humayun was in exile and gained
influential positions after he regained power from Afghan in 1 555 AD.
Both received the titles of Ataga Khan (foster-father, Sham-ud-Din)
and Khan-i-Azam, Koka (foster-brother, Mirza Aziz) from Humayun
and Akbar respectively. "Their positions during Akbar's early years
are well known from the histories of the time. Jahangir in his Tuzukre
marked that "[Akbar] raised [ataga's] family from the dust of the roads
to... wealth and dignity... ,".53After execution of Sham-ud-Din, Khan
Azam Aziz Koka succeeded his father in power, but proved troublesome
and contumacious; the emperor, however, refused to inflict any but the
lightest punishment on him saying: "between me and Aziz there is a
stream of milk (juh-i shir ) which I cannot cross".54 Saif Khan and Zain
Khan two sons of Pija-Jan, another nurse of Akbar, too could able to
rise to the highest echelons of the nobility through milk ties. We have
ample evidences from successive reigns indicative of "milk families"
being promoted or patronized to the leading positions. Emperor Jahangir
was much attached to the son of her wet nurse Qutbu-ud Din Koka,
who was "the foster-brother... most fit for fosterage", and promoted
him grandly at the beginning of his reign, and had patronized many
other kokas such as a son of Shaikh Bayazid.55Shah Jahan was very
warm hearted to his, wet nurse, Zeb-Un-Nisa-aka Dai Anga, atgah ,
Murad Khan and koka , Muhammad Rashid Khan. Aurangzeb's foster

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264 ÍHC : Proceedings, 74th Session , 2013
father, and his sons Mir Malik Husain (Khan Jahan, Bahadur Khan
Kokah) and Mir Muzaffar Husain (Fidai Khan Kokah) spaces were as
well raised splendidly by Aurangzeb.56
The relationship of nurses to nursling indeed was a complex one:
not only had they (at least potentially) transferred deep maternal feelings
to their assignment, their social status and material well-being also
depended upon the relationship they had thus forged and maintained.
Mughąl sources are full of references that revealed that most nobles
chose their heirs from the ablest among their progeny, which encouraged
competition among sibling - commonly known to the general readers
of Mughal history. Brothers and cousins were eligible for the same
offices, and hence almost invariably viewed his biological siblings as
political rivals and potential murderers; his kokas were for all intents
and purposes his true "brothers". We find following reaction in Mughal
histories: [sibling] is no brother! This is ... majesty foe'sl The prince
and koka shared the entire range of sibling relations, from rivalry to
love, framed by unquestioned brotherly bonds that were rooted in shared
breast milk and childhood memories. In the course of Jahangir
sovereignty, Aziz Koka would surely have received capital punishment
for his involvements - in pro-Khusrau's activities and complicity as
well with the Jahangir 's adversary, such as Raja Ali Khan of Khandesh
- "had his mother not given her milk to my father [Akbar]", Jahangir
screamed. 58Similarly, we do observe Raushan Beg beseeching Humayun
in the name of his mother (Bibi Fatima) "whose milk he [Humayun]
has suckled". 59

Regardless of the milk mother's status, ties of love and affection

established at the breast between a prince and his anaga run deep - the
bonds mistakenly labelled "fosterąge" by certain anthropologists alike
to colonial Mughal historians.^Many examples can be found in our
sources showing the wet nurse as far more to the child than simply a
source of milk; they played an active role in shaping the child in his
critical early years. Indeed, Mughal royal wet nurses resembled
Nannies in their relations with their charges, providing not only
nourishment but also maternal affection and companionship, remaining
with them long after weaning, but continuing to be identified as
" anaga ". Most wet nurses became famous for 'heir loyalty to and
intimacy with their nurslings, which brought them and their families
both material and honorary rewards. In such relation wet-nurse was
not and did not expect to be paid money for her services which indicated
the more equal relationship she enjoyed with her milk child's family.
Onçe grown, the nursed child at times would out of gratitude grant his
wet nurse money, clothes, farmland, and even a noble title while she

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 Medieval India 265

was alive and mourned herwhen she pas

the woman who had raised him, the emp
and moustaches as a ritual of mourning
angah , Didji and himself carried the bier o
the death of Jahangir's wet nurse in 16
the feet of her corpse on my shoulders and
So severe was anguish and distress that
days to eat and did not change my clo
also open a pathway of upward social m
extended family. The appointment of D
to various offices both in the capital and
in the Mughal history. Evidence of Akbar
of ataga clan) favoured status is manifol
rank. By end of Akbar 's reign he had been
standing of 7000/6000, comparable to r
first figure represented his rank in the
second indicated the number of horsem
maintain from his income. The strengt
kokqhs sometimes were the only people
Khan Kokah repeatedly did to Emperor
and recklessness".62 However annoyed e
their kokas , they usually indulged them on
lyrically described as the (juy-i shir) tha
own favourite Koka , Mirza Aziz Koka.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 . Alarmed by the widespread use of wet nurses by the rich in classical age, G
Roman philosophers and moralists such as Pliny, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Aulus
(all from second century AD) accused a mother whose child was wet nursed o
idle, selfish and endangering the emotional bond with her child.
See, Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing : A History from Antiquity to the Present ,
Blackwell, 1988; idem, Breasts , Bottles and Babies. A History of Infant F
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986; Sara F. Matthews Grieco, "Breast
Wet Nursing and Infant Mortality in Europe (1400-1800)", Historical Perspect
Breastfeeding , Florence: UNICEF International Child Development Center, 19
15-62.

2. K. Bradley, "Sexual Regulations in Wet-nursing Contracts from Roman

£//o,62(1980), pp. 321-25.
3. For e.g., see Dorothy McLaren, "Marital fertility and lactation, 1 570-720", in W
English Society , ed. Mary Prior, London and New York: Methuen. 1985,p. 45.
4. L. G. Deruisseau, "Infant Hygiene in the older Medical Literature, Ciba Symp
11(1940), pp. 530-60.
5. Anäga in Mughal literature primarily mean wet-nurse though in Turkish it
always have this meaning. See, M. Pavet de Courteil le. Diet iqna ire Turk-Oriental
L'Imprimerie Imperiale, 1870,p.37; The Akbarnama of Abu-l-FazLtmns. Henry Bev

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 266 IHC: Proceedings , 74th Session, 2013
vols. 1-3, New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1998, vol. 1. p. 134 (translator note on
Maham A naga).
Dâya (Mid. Pers, dãyagor dãye) is a Persian word for wet nurse, although sometime in
Mughal history it refers spiritual suckling of new-born. See Shaikh Abu'l Fazl,
Akbarnamah , ed. Abdul Rahim, vols. 1-3 (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1878-
1886), vol.1, chapter ix, p. 43 " qawābil-i-rū%ānī-qawālib " (also n.l). Also see,
Encyclopaedia Iranica . vol . VU, pp. 164-66 (online version) and Francis Joseph
Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English dictionary, including the Arabic words and
phrases to be met with in Persian literature , Delhi: Manohar, 2006, p. 502.
6. A Folio, "Ghazna Khan as a baby with his Mother and Nurse", Rashid ai-Din, Jami al -
Tawarikh , fo!.210v, 1420s, Bibliotheque Nationalede France, Paris, Ms. Supp. Pers. 1113.
For earlier illustrated copy of Jami al-Tawarikh. today housed in the Raza Library in
Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, see "Birth of Ghazna Khan" published in Barbara Schmitzand
and Ziyaud-Din A. Desai, Mughal and Persian Paintings and Illustrated Manuscripts
in the Raza Library Rampur , New Delhi: Rampur Raza Library and Indira Gandhi
National Centre for the Arts, 2006, pl. 259 .
7. A Folio, "The infant Akbar Given to Nurse", British L ibrary Akbar Nama , MS Or. 1 2988,
fol.20v(Persian inscriptions of painting corroborate breastfeeding progression of new-
born Akbar). See, Norah M. Titlev. Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts: A Catalogue
and Subject Index of Paintings from Persia, India, and Turkey in the British Library
and the British Museum . London : British Museum Publications Ltd, 1977, p. 4.
8. Akbarnama, vol.1, chapter IX. Henry Beveridge 's assumption (p. 134) that she might
have been named under some other appellation such as Khawaja Gazi 's wife also seems
inconceivable.

9. "The infant Akbar Given to Nurse supra.

1 0. For e.g., she attended on Akbar "from his cradle

life for sake of baby Akbar" and was for many years cent
All this does not follow that she first did so in the capacit
are also told that Adham Khan was from the differe
Akbarnamah, vol.1, pp. 186-87 (index: VI- VII); vol.11, p.
Khwaja Nizam-ud din Ahmad , trans. B. De, vols. 1 -3, Calc
191 1-39, vol. II, p.l 12. Henry Beveridge, "MāhamAnaga"
Society of Great Britain and Ireland , 1 899, pp. 99-1 01 .
1 1 . The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl , vol. I, p. 134 "Māham
Fazl (p. 384/187) how other nurses of Akbar accuse
incantations" so as to prevent the infant Akbar from accep
own.

12. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl ,voI. 1, p. 134 .

13. Gavin R.G. Hambly, "Armed Women Retainers in the Zenanas of Indo-Muslim
The Case of Bibi Fatima", in Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Pat
and Piety, ed. Gavin R.G. Hambly , New York. St. Martin's Press, 1998. pp. 42
14. Akbarnamah , vol. I, p. 43.
15. Here Mughal seems following the advises of Greco-Roman doctors such as Sor
138 AD), and Galen (129- c.216 AD) who recommended several wet nurses w
possibility of the nurse falling ill or even sometime dying. See Soranus [of E
Soranus ' Gynecology , O. Temkin, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Pres
p. 94.

16. Akbarnamah, vol. I, p. 44 .

17. Nurud-Din Muhammad Jahangir, Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, A. Rogers, trans. H. Beveridge, ed.
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968, p. 32.
18. Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , pp. 75-78 .

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 Medieval India 267

19. Akbarnamah , vol.1 ,p. 43 (n.3) The actual word in

the practice of putting a honey into the mouths of t
20. Akbarnamah ,vol.!,p. 44.
2 1 . Medical authorities who even urged maternal nu
(generally until the postpartum flux had ceased
"cleansed"). Soranus' Gynecology, pp, 2/17-18. See
Classical Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge Univer
22. Akbarnamah , vol.1, p. 43.
23. Akbarnamah , Vol. I, pp. 43-44.
24. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English dic
25. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English dic
26. Compare, Ruby Lai, Domesticity and Power, p.
27. Nicoiao Manucci, Storia Do Mongor , trans. Wi
of Bengal, 1907), vol. II, p.32.
28. Avner Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses ,
38, and also chapter 2. Giladi advocates that Arbo-
nursing, like all of the Islamicate medical beliefs w
specifically from Hippocrates and Galen, whose ide
between the ninth and eleventh centuries CE.

29. Research on Mughal dynasty shows that "sexual activity ' of wet nurse before weaning
was considered fatal to the nursling and to be avoided by all means. For e. g., Rashid al-
Din(in Jami al-Tawarikh, ed. B. Karimi, 1-2 vols, Tehran: 1976) recounts that Ghãznã
Khan had wet-nurse, Moghãlchin, wife of noble Isheng (the Khitan), who slept with his
husband, and the young Ghãznà contracted diarrhoea from her milk, thus Moghãlchin
was reprimanded and replaced.
30. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl,vo'.', p. 1 29.
3 1 . Didji in Turkish means a child's plaything, or handsome. See, The Akbarnama of Abu -
/-Far/, vol.1, p. 130 (n.2).
32. The Akbarnama of Abu-1-Fazl , vol,!, p. 1 30.
33. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-FazL vol.1, p. 1 30.
34. She is incorrectly referred to as the 'vife of Nadim Koka in Akbarnamah (for e,g,
vol. l,p. 130). See, Humayunnama of GulbadanBegam , ed. and trans. A.S. Beveridge,
Delhi: Oriental Books, 1983, p. 122.
35. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl, vol.1, pp. 1 3 1 (n.4) & 448.
36. Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , pp.32, 75-78 & 85.
37. Munis D. Faruqui, The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504-1 7/ 9. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012,p.73.
38. The precise definition of wet nurse's children remained ambiguous. All close relatives of
the Wet Nurse who were of sufficiently youthful age could have plausibly called kokaltash
(milk brothers and sisters).
39. See, IqtidarAlam Khan, "The Nobil; „ Under Akbar and the Development of His Religious
Policy, 1560-80," in India's Islamic traditions, 711-1750, ed. R. M. Eaton, Delhi : Oxford
University Press, 2003. See also, Afzal Husain, The Nobility Under Akbar and Jahangir ,
Delhi: Manohar, 1999, pp. 45-69.
40. Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses.
4 1 . Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses. Breast milk in Islamic law acts as an impediment
to marriage, similar to blood. To marry a relative by nursing is prohibited as a foçm of
incest. The Qur ' an , early commentaries, and hadiths conclude that a man is also forbidden
from marrying his milk aunt, milk niece, milk daughters, and milk mother of his wife.
The concept of "sire's milk" ( laban al-fahl) only expand the circle.

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 268 ÍHC: Proceedings , 74th Session, 2013
42. Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses , p. 30.
43. Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses , p.27.
44. Giladi, Infants , Parents and Wet Nurses , p. 28.
45. Prominent Islamic jurists to be listed among the supporters of radâ al-kabir are
IbnTaymiyya ( Majmu at Fatawa , Cairo: 1908, vol. 4, p. 149) and Ibn Hazm ( Al-Muhalla ,
Cairo: 1928-33, Vol.pp. 10-17).
46. Storia Do Mongor, vol, I, p. 3 10.
47. Storia Do Mongor , vol, I, p. 3 1 0. As we know Rajrup later soured Nadira Begum's milk
by delivering military coup de grace to Dara Shikoh.
48. The present driving ban applies to all women in Saudi Arabia, in spite of their nationality,
and it's been a topic of heated public debate in recent years.
49. Soraya Altorki, "Milk kinship in Arab Society: An unexplored problem in the ethnography
of marriage", Ethnology, 19 (1980), pp. 233-44.
50. G. H. Stern, Marriage in early Islam , London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1939, pp. 95-103;
J. Schacht, " Radā [Suckling]", in Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam , eds. H. A. R. Gibb
and J. H. Kramers, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974, pp. 463- 64.
5 1 . Giladi, Infants , Parents and Wet Nurses, p. 38 .
52. The A 'in-i Akbari of Abu 'IFazl, trans. H. Blochmann, D. C. Phllott, and Jadunath Sarkar,
New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1994, vol. I, pp. 337-38 and 343-46; Shyakh Farid
Bhakkari, Zakhirat-ul-Khawanin, ed. Syed Moin-ul-Haq, 1-3 vols, Karachi: Pakistan
Historical Society, 1961, 1970 and 1974, trans, of vol. I by Z.A. Dcsai. Delhi: Idarah-i-
Adabiyat-i-Delhi, 1993, pp. 58-70/79-99.
53. Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , p. 80.
54. Motamad Khan, Iqbalnamah-i Jahangiri , ed. Abdul Hai and Ahmad Ali , Calcutta: Asiatic
Socirty of Bengal, 1 865, pp. 230-3 1 . See also Shah Nawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-Umara, ed.
Abdur Rahim, vol. 1 , Calcutta : Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1888, p. 675.
55. Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , pp. 32,75-78 .
56. Ma 'athir al-Umara , trans. H. Beveridge, Patna: Janaki Prakashan ,1979, vol. I, pp.773-
88/798-8 13. See Manucci, Storia Do Mongor , vol. II, p. 122.
57. Gulbadan Begam, Humayun Nama , trans. A. S. Beveridge, Delhi: Oriental Books, 1972,
p 201.
58. See, Tuzuk-i Jahangiri, p.8o.
59. Jawhar Aftabchi, Tazkirat al-Waqayat , trans. Charles Stewart, Delhi: Delhi. Idarah-i-
Adabiyat-i-Delhi, 1972, pp. 33,74.
60. See, for instance. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics , ed. James Hasting,
Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 19 13, vol. 4, pp. 104-09.
6 1 . Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , pp . 84-85 .
62. Bhimsen Saxsena, Tarikh-i-Dilkasha , trans. Jadunath Sarkar, Bombay. Dept. of Archives,
Maharashtra, 1972, p. 202. See, Manucci, Storia Do Mongor , vol. II, pp. 122.

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