Home / Quotes / Quote by William Dalrymple

Quote by William Dalrymple

“But Khair did not need such proof of her husband's love for her. Over and over again, James had risked everything for her. Most reationshps in life can survive - or not - without being put to any real crucial, fundamental test. It was James's fate for his love to be tested not once, but four times...At each stage he could easily have washed his hands off his teenage lover. Each time he chose to remain true to her. That, not the words of any will, was the evidence she could cling to.”

Book:White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

Work

White Mughals: Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India

This book explores the personal and political dynamics of a period marked by cultural exchange and conflict, focusing on the intimate lives of individuals caught in the midst of colonial expansion. more

Author

William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple, born on March 20, 1965, is a renowned historian specializing in the history and culture of the Indian subcontinent, particularly the Mughal Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries. His works are known for their in-depth historical research and engaging narrative style. more

“Akbar's Rajput policy, however, did not result from any grand, premeditated strategy. Rather, it began as a response to the internal politics of one of the Rajput lineages, the Kachwaha clan, based in the state of Amber in northern Rajasthan. In 1534 the clan's head, Puran Man, died with no adult heir and was succeeded by his younger brother, Bharmal. Puran Mal, however, did have a son who by the early 1560s had come of age and challenged Bharmal's right to rule Amber. Feeling this pressure from within his own clan, Bharmal approached Akbar for material support, offering in exchange his daughter in marriage. The king agreed to the proposal. In 1562 the Kachwaha chieftain entered Mughal service, with Akbar assuring him of support in maintaining his position in the Kachwaha political order, while his family entered the royal household. Besides his daughter, Bharmal also sent his son Bhagwant Das and his grandson Man Singh (1550-1614) to the court in Agra. For several generations thereafter, the ruling clan continued to give its daughters to the Mughal court, thereby making the chiefs of these clans the uncles, cousins or even father-in-laws of Mughal emperors. The intimate connection between the two courts had far-reaching results. Not only did Kachwaha rulers quickly rise in rank and stature in the Mughal court, but their position within their own clan was greatly enhanced by Akbar's confirmation of their political leadership. Akbar's support also enhanced the position of the Kachwahas as a whole -- and hence Amber state -- in the hierarchy of Rajasthan's other Rajput lineages. Neighbouring clans soon realised the political wisdom of attaching themselves to the expanding Mughal state, a visibly rising star in North Indian politics. [...] Driving these arrangements, though, was not just the incentive of courtly patronage. The clans of Rajasthan well understood that refusal to engage with the Mughals would bring the stick of military confrontation. Alone among the Rajput clans, the Sisodiyas of Mewar in southern Rajasthan, north India's pre-eminent warrior lineages, obstinately refused to negotiate with the Mughals. In response, Akbar in 1568 led a four-month siege of the Sisodiyas' principal stronghold of Chittor, which ultimately fell to the Mughals, but only after a spectacular 'jauhar' in which the fort's defenders, foreseeing their doom, killed their women and gallantly sallied forth to meet their deaths. In all, some 30,000 defenders of the fort were killed, although its ruler, Rana Pratap, managed to escape. For decades, he and the Sisodiya house would continue to resist Mughal domination, whereas nearly every other Rajput lineage had acknowledged Mughal overlordship.”

History India Mughals Rajputs

Book:India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765

Source: India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765

“['A]lamgir [Aurangzeb] came to formulate a very different model of sovereignty for himself and for the empire he ruled. In this new dispensation, the kingdom would be governed not by a charismatic, semi-divine king, but by a impersonal law -- namely, the 'shar'ia' of Hanafi Sufis -- administered by a reconstituted and vastly empowered judiciary guided by a reformed, thoroughly codified legal style. [...] In the courts of local judges in Gujarat, Hindu artisans, merchants and Brahmins commonly invoked the 'shar'ia' in transactions pertaining to buying, selling, renting and mortgaging property, or in pursuing litigation in law courts. Hindu women in particular used Islamic law in their attempts to resist patriarchal domination. The same held true further north. In the Punjabi town of Batala, writes the historian J. S. Grewal, 'the brahmin, the Khatri, the goldsmith and the Hindu carpenter frequented the qazi's court as much as the sayyid and the Muslim mason'. And in Malwa, the vast majority of attesters in court documents, excepting those dealing with Muslim marriages, were non-Muslims. While acknowledging religious difference, moreover, such courts did not draw legal boundaries around India's ethnic or religious communities. Significantly, the word 'shari'a' as used in local courts was not understood as applying to Muslims only, as it is today. Rather it carried the ordinary and non-sectarian meaning of 'legal'. Until the 1770s, when East India Company officials codified separate legal systems for Muslims and Hindus, Islamic law as it was administered in Mughal courts had functioned as common law. 'Alamgir's project of basing Mughal governance and sovereignty on a standardized codification of that law therefore built upon legal practices that, even though applied differently across the empire, were already in place in the Indian countryside.”

History India Islam Mughals Aurangzeb Shari A

Book:India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765

Source: India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765

“The World comes like a lover, courting. But a seeker only sees a hunter, circling its prey.”

Life Quotes Prey World Quotes Lovers Quotes Seeker Quotable Quotes Favourite Quotes Hunter Quotes Quotable Authors Poem Poetry Poet Poetry Poet

Author:Adiela Akoo

“Do what you will, this life's a fiction, And it is made up of contradiction.”