A few of the imperial ladies may be mentioned. The princess Gul-Badan, third daughter of Baber and Dil-Dar, wrote a history of the deeds of her half-brother, Humayun. In her later life she went with other great ladies on pilgrimage to Mecca, taking seven years for the journey; one-half of this time she spent in Arabia, where she performed the rites of the pilgrimage four times. After twenty more years filled with works of piety and charity she died at the age of eighty. Her nephew, Akbar, with his own hand helped bear her to the tomb. Most powerful of all the Mogul imperial ladies was the Persian Nur-Jehan, or Nur-Mahal, wife of Jehangir. Born in poverty and actually cast away by her parents, she rose to the throne of command. Mohammad Hadi says that “by degrees she became, in all but name, undisputed sovereign of the empire, and the king himself became a tool in her hands. He used to say that Nur-Jehan Begam has been selected, and is wise enough, to conduct the matters of state, and that he wanted only a bottle of wine and a piece of meat to keep himself merry. Nur-Jehan won golden opinions from all people. She was liberal and just to all who begged her support. She was an asylum for all sufferers, and helpless girls were married at the expense of her private purse. She must have portioned above five hundred girls in her lifetime, and thousands were grateful for her generosity.” Not only could she rule the empire effectively, if not always wisely and impartially, but she could lead armies. Defeated at last by Shah-Jehan, she put on perpetual robes of mourning for her dead husband and spent her last eighteen years in devoted seclusion. Mumtaz-Mahal, niece of Nur-Jehan and wife of Shah-Jehan, did not aspire to political control. She held fast the heart of her imperial husband and became the mother of his fourteen children. The incomparable Taj Mahal, built by the emperor after her untimely death, bears eternal witness to great love followed by great grief.