Shortly after the monsoon of 1613, Portuguese traders captured a ship called Rahimi off the port of Surat. At the time, the Rahimi was the ...
Shortly after the monsoon of 1613, Portuguese traders captured a ship called Rahimi off the port of Surat. At the time, the Rahimi was the largest Indian ship plying the trade route to the Red Sea from India’s west coast. According to some European accounts, it was 153 feet long and 42 feet wide and had a capacity of more than 1,000 tones.
When she was captured, the Rahimi was carrying a commercial cargo along with 700 passengers headed to Mecca. But the most remarkable fact about this ship was that its owner was a woman, Maryam-uz-Zamani or Mary of the Age, the then reigning Mughal emperor Jahangir’s mother and his predecessor Akbar’s wife.
Instances of royal women who were warrior-politicians are well-known: Chand Bibi, who lived from 1550 to 1599, the Deccani regent and warrior from Ahmednagar who held off Akbar’s incursions; Tarabai, who lived from 1675 to 1761, the Maratha queen who facilitated Maratha expansion into northern India; and perhaps the most famous of all, Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi, who lived from 1828 to 1858 and defended her kingdom against the British in the 1857 uprisings. Stories of women like Maryam-uz-Zamani, active in the world of capital and commerce on the...
