Gulchehra Begum (also known as Gulchehara, Gulchihra or Gulshara; c. 1515–1557) was a

Mughal Mughal or Moghul may refer to: Related to the Mughal Empire * Mughal Empire of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries * Mughal dynasty * Mughal emperors * Mughal people, a social group of Central and South Asia * Mughal architecture * Mug ...

princess, daughter of Emperor Zāhir ud-Dīn Mohammad Babur of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and half-sister of Emperor

Humayun Nasir al-Din Muhammad (6 March 1508 – 27 January 1556), commonly known by his regnal name Humayun (), was the second Mughal emperor, who ruled over territory in what is now Eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Northern India, and Pakistan from ...

. Later, her half-nephew, Prince Jalal-ud-Din Mohammed ascended the imperial throne as Emperor

Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...

Background

Her name means literally "A Face like Flowers" in Persian. She was a descendant of the lines of highest Central Asian aristocracy:

Timur Timur, also known as Tamerlane (1320s17/18 February 1405), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeat ...

through his son

Miran Shah Mirza Jalal-ud-din Miran Shah Beg (1366 – 20 April 1408), commonly known as Miran Shah (), was a son of the Central Asian conqueror Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire. During his father's reign, Miran Shah was initially a powerful regio ...

, and

Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...

through his son

Chagatai Khan Chagatai Khan (; – 1242) was a son of Genghis Khan and a prominent figure in the early Mongol Empire. The second son of Genghis's wife Börte, Chagatai was renowned for his masterful knowledge of Mongol custom and law, which he scrupulously ...

. Her mother was Dildar Begum and she was the sister of

Hindal Mirza Abu'l-Nasir Muhammad (; 4 March 1519 – 20 November 1551), better known by the sobriquet Hindal ( Chagatai for "Taker of India"), was a Mughal prince and the youngest son of Emperor Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire and the first M ...

and Gulbadan Begum.The House of Timur: Genealogy of the Royal Family of India

Early life

When Princess Gulbadan was born her father, Babur, had been lord in

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

for sometime; he was also the ruler of

Kunduz Kunduz (; ; ) is a city in northern Afghanistan and the capital of Kunduz Province. The city has an estimated population of about 268,893 as of 2015, making it about the List of cities in Afghanistan, seventh largest city of Afghanistan, and the ...

and

Badakhshan Badakhshan is a historical region comprising the Wakhan Corridor in northeast Afghanistan, eastern Tajikistan, and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China. Badakhshan Province is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan. Much of historic ...

, had held

Bajaur Bajaur District (, ), formerly Bajaur Agency, is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. Prior to 2018, Bajaur Agency was the northernmost component of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a semi-a ...

and

Swat A SWAT (''Special Weapons and Tactics'') team is a generic term for a police tactical unit within the United States, though the term has also been used by other nations. SWAT units are generally trained, equipped, and deployed to res ...

since 1519, and

Kandahar Kandahar is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city, after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118 in 2015. It is the capital of Kandahar Pro ...

for a year. During ten of those nineteen years, he had been styled

padishah Padishah (; ) is a superlative sovereign title of Persian origin. A form of the word is known already from Middle Persian (or Pahlavi) as ''pātaxšā(h)'' or ''pādixšā(y)''. Middle Persian ''pād'' may stem from Avestan ''paiti'', and is ...

as the head of the

House of Timur The Timurid dynasty, self-designated as Gurkani (), was the ruling dynasty of the Timurid Empire (1370–1507). It was a Sunni Muslim dynasty or Barlās clan of Turco-Mongol originB.F. Manz, ''"Tīmūr Lang"'', in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online ...

and for his independent sovereignty. Later Babur set out on his last expedition across the

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans- Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northwest through the dis ...

to conquer an empire in India.

Marriage

She married Babur's first cousin (a son of his mother's brother Ahmad), Sultan Tukhta-bugha Khan Chaghatai Mughal. The marriage was arranged by Babur, and took place at the end of 1530. She would then be about fourteen years old. She was widowed in 1533, and nothing as to her remarriage is recorded until 1549, when she was over thirty years old. It is improbable that she remained a widow so many years. She also married with Abbas Sultan Uzbeg, just before Humayun set out on his expedition for Balkh. The bridegroom came to suspect that the Timurid army was about to act against his own people and ran away. Probably he did not take Gulchehra with him.

Death

She accompanied Gulbadan and Hamida to India in 1557 and died in the same year.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Begum, Gulchehra 1510s births 1557 deaths Mughal princesses 16th-century Indian women writers 16th-century Indian writers Timurid dynasty Daughters of emperors 16th-century Mughal Empire people