Hamida Banu Begum

Hamida Banu Begum (Persian: حمیده بانو بیگم; c. 1527 – 29 August 1604) was the empress consort of the second Mughal emperor Humayun and the mother of his successor, the third Mughal emperor Akbar. She was bestowed the title of Mariam Makani (lit. 'Dwelling with Mariam'), by her son, Akbar. She also bore the title of Padshah Begum during the reign of Akbar.

Hamida Banu Begum was born c. 1527 to a family of Persian descent. Her father, Shaikh Ali Akbar Jami, a Shia, was a preceptor to Mughal prince Hindal Mirza, the youngest son of the first Mughal emperor, Babur. Ali Akbar Jami was also known as Mian Baba Dost, who belonged to the lineage of Ahmad Jami Zinda-fil. As suggested by her lineage, Hamida was a devout Muslim. She had a younger half-brother named Khwaja Muazzam.

She met Humayun, as a fourteen-year-old girl and frequenting Mirza Hindal's household, at a banquet given by his mother, Dildar Begum (The late Babur's wife [widow] and Humayun's step-mother) in Alwar. Humayun was in exile after his exodus from Delhi, due to the armies of Sher Shah Suri, who had ambitions of restoring Afghan rule in Delhi.

When negotiations for Humayun's marriage with Hamida Banu Begum were going on, both Hamida and Hindal bitterly opposed the marriage proposal, possibly because they were involved with each other. It seems probable that Hamida was in love with Hindal, though there is only circumstantial evidence for it. In her book the Humayun-nama, Hindal's sister and Hamida's close friend, Gulbadan Begum, pointed out that Hamida was frequently seen in her brother's palace during those days, and even in the palace of their mother, Dildar Begum.

Initially, Hamida refused to meet the emperor; eventually after forty days of pursuit and at the insistence of Dildar Begum, she agreed to marry him. She refers to her initial reluctance in the Humayunama,

I shall marry someone; but he shall be a man whose collar my hand can touch, and not one whose skirt it does not reach.

The marriage took place on a day chosen by the Emperor, an avid astrologer himself, employing his astrolabe, at mid-day on a Monday in September 1541 (Jumada al-awwal 948 AH) at Patr (known as Paat, Dadu District of Sindh). Thus, she became his junior wife, after Bega Begum (later known as Haji Begum, after Hajj), who was his first wife and chief consort. The marriage became "politically beneficial" to Humayun, as he got help from the rival Shia groups during times of war.

A year after a perilous journey through the desert, on 22 August 1542, she and Emperor Humayun reached Umerkot ruled by Rana Prasad, a Hindu Sodha Rajput, at a small desert town, where the Rana gave them asylum. Two months later, she gave birth to the future Emperor, Akbar, early in the morning on 15 October 1542 (fourth day of Rajab, 949 AH); he was given the name Humayun had heard in his dream at Lahore – the Emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar.