Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World

This 2005 book looks at domestic life and the place of women in the Mughal court of the sixteenth century.

Ruby Lal (Author)

9780521850223, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 September 2005

260 pages, 6 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.55 kg

'One of the most significant contributions of this book is its attempt to place this history of the early Mughal household within the comparative context of Muslim imperial polities in early modern Asia.' The Medieval History Journal

In a fascinating and innovative study, first published in 2005, Ruby Lal explores domestic life and the place of women in the Mughal court of the sixteenth century. Challenging traditional, orientalist interpretations of the haram that have portrayed a domestic world of seclusion and sexual exploitation, the author reveals a complex society where noble men and women negotiated their everyday life and public-political affairs in the 'inner' chambers as well as the 'outer' courts. Using Ottoman and Safavid histories as a counterpoint, she demonstrates the richness, ambiguity and particularity of the Mughal haram, which was pivotal in the transition to institutionalisation and imperial excellence.

1. Introduction
2. A genealogy of the Mughal haram
3. The question of the archive: the challenge of a princess's memoir
4. The making of Mughal court society
5. Where was the haram in a peripatetic world?
6. Settled, sacred, and all-powerful: the new regime under Akbar
7. Settled, sacred, and 'incarcerated': the imperial haram
8. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Gender studies, gender groups [JFSJ], General & world history [HBG], Regional studies [GTB]