Family

Shah Jahan's family

Like all his ancestors, Shah Jahan's court included many wives, concubines, and dancing girls. Several European chroniclers noted this. Niccolao Manucci wrote that "it would seem as if the only thing Shahjahan cared for was the search for women to serve his pleasure" and "for this end he established a fair at his court. No one was allowed to enter except women of all ranks that is to say, great and small, rich and poor, but all beautiful".  When he was detained in the Agra Fort, Aurangzeb permitted him to retain "the whole of his female establishment, including the singing and dancing women." Manucci notes that Shah Jahan didn't lose his "weakness for the flesh" even when he had grown very old,. Shah Jahan also had an affair with Farzana Begum, Mumtaz Mahal's sister. It was said that Farzana Begum's son was the son of Shah Jahan, and Manucci wrote, "as for myself, I have no doubt about it, for he was very like Prince Dara..

Allegations of incest

Several European chroniclers suggested that Shah Jahan had an incestuous relationship with his daughter Jahanara Begum. The European traveller Francois Bernier wrote, "Begum Sahib, the elder daughter of Shah Jahan was very beautiful... Rumour has it that his attachement reached a point which it is difficult to believe, the justification of which he rested on the decision of the Mullahs, or doctors of their law. According to them it would have been unjust to deny the king the privilege of gathering fruit from the tree he himself had planted." Joannes de Laet was the first European to write about this rumour. Peter Mundy and Jean Baptiste Tavernier wrote about the same allegations. However, the historian K.S. Lal pointed out that Aurangzeb may have been involved in "magnifying a rumour into a full-fledged scandal," and that "Aurangzeb had disobeyed Shahjahan, he had incarcerated him for years, but if he really helped give a twist to Shah Jahan's paternal love for Jahan Ara by turning it into a scandal, it was the unkindest cut of all his unfilial acts." He remarked that in "these circumstances, it is not possible to say anything with finality."