he same marble exquisitely worked
in mosaic. Upon that of the Queen, amid wreaths of flowers, are
worked in black letters passages from the Koran, one of which, at the
end facing the entrance, terminates with 'And defend us from the
tribe of unbelievers'; that very tribe which is now gathered from all
quarters of the civilized world to admire the splendour of the tomb
which was raised to perpetuate her name.[6] On the slab over her
husband there are no passages from the Koran--merely mosaic work of
flowers with his name and the date of his death.[7] I asked some of
the learned Muhammadan attendants the cause of this difference, and
was told that Shah Jahan had himself designed the slab over his wife,
and saw no harm in inscribing the words of God upon it; but that the
slab over himself was designed by his more pious son, Aurangzeb, who
did not think it right to place these holy words upon a stone which
the foot of man might some day touch, though that stone covered the
remains of his own father. Such was this 'man of prayers', this
'Namazi' (as Dara called him), to the last. He knew mankind well,
and, above all, that part of them which he was called upon to govern,
and which he governed for forty years with so much ability.[8]

The slab over the Queen occupies the centre of the apartments above
and in the vault below, and that over her husband lies on the left as
we enter. At one end of the slab in the vault her name is inwrought,
'Mumtaz-i-mahal Banu Begam', the ornament of the palace, Banu Begam,
and the date of her death, 1631. That of her husband and the date of
his death, 1666, are inwrought upon the other.[9]

She died in giving birth to a daughter, who is said to have been
heard crying in the womb by herself and her other daughters. She sent
for the Emperor, and told him that she believed no mother had ever
been known to survive the birth of a child so heard, and that she
felt her end was near. She had, she said, only two requests to make;
first, that he would not marry again after her death, and get
children to contend with hers for his favour and dominions; and,
secondly, that he would build for her the tomb with which he had
promised to perpetuate her name. She died in giving birth to the
child, as might have been expected when the Emperor, in his anxiety,
called all the midwives of the city, and all his secretaries of state
and privy counsellors to prescribe for her. Both her dying requests
were granted. He