In the British Library in London there is a manuscript copy of the memoir of Princess

Golbadan who was born in around 1523 and died in 1603.

Known as the Fumayana Nama, it tells the story of the origins of the Mogul Empire,

of its founder Goulbadan's father, Babu,

and of her half-brother, Humayan, its second emperor.

In what is the only surviving female- memoir from the Mobile Empire

Princess Goldbadan recounts her itinerant childhood

across northern India and Kabul, the death of her father,

and the subsequent civil wars during her brother's reign.

She tells of her marriage at 17 of the regulations instated by her nephew Akbar, the then third Mogul Emperor, which would later

confined her to award Haram, and finally and perhaps most exceptionally of what would be

the first pilgrimage made by a royal Muslim woman to the Holy

lands. Galperin's journey spanning seven years in a distance of 3,000 miles across

the Arabian Sea through mountains and across desert

before reaching Mecca where her group stayed for nearly four years

before returning home.

My guest today is Professor Ruby Lao, historian and professor the

Emory University, who has previously been on this podcast before to talk about

Noh Johann, the co-empress with Jahan.

Her latest book, Vagabond Princess,

the Great Adventures of Golbadan,

examines this largely forgotten manuscript

...