Mumtaz Mahal had travelled with Shah Jahan throughout his military campaigns, despite almost constant pregnancies. In June 1631 she was with him in the Deccan when she went into labour with her fourteenth child. After around 30 hours she gave birth to a daughter, Gauhar Ara Begum, and died of a postpartum haemorrhage on June 17. She was 38. Court chroniclers recorded that the emperor was inconsolable.
Shah Jahan reportedly withdrew into mourning for a year, and when he reappeared his hair had turned white, his back was bent and his face was worn. Their eldest daughter, Jahanara, gradually drew him back to public life and took her mother's place at court.
Mumtaz was first buried in a walled garden called Zainabad on the bank of the Tapti River at Burhanpur. That was never meant to be her final resting place. In December 1631 her body was exhumed and carried to Agra in a golden casket, escorted by her son Shah Shuja, and laid in a small building by the Yamuna while Shah Jahan finished his campaign and began planning a mausoleum.
The result, the Taj Mahal, took some 22 years and more than 20,000 workers and artisans to complete. The mausoleum itself was finished in 1648 and the whole complex around 1653. Mumtaz and Shah Jahan now lie side by side in a plain crypt beneath its famous white dome.
Key people: Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan, Jahanara Begum