Zinat (or Zeenat) Mahal (1821-1882)

c.1839

Watercolour on ivory

National Army Museum, London

Accession no. NAM.1960-07-197-1-4

The favourite wife of Bahudar Shah Zafar II, the last Mughal Emperor, Zinat schemed to have her only son accepted as his heir, even though he was the youngest of fifteen boys. The British refused to recognise him as such, and Zinat and her son followed the deposed Emperor into exile in Burma, where both of them subsequently died.

Text by Jacqueline Banerjee

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the National Army Museum and (2) mention this site.]

Related Material

• The Epic of the Race: The Indian Uprisings of 1857
• Representations of the Indian Mutiny in Higher Victorian Journalism

Bibliography

Dalrymple, William. The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857. New Delhi: Penguin, 2007. [Review]

"Zeenat Mahal, 1839 (c)." National Army Museum. Web. 30 May 2020. [Note: this gives Zinat's year of death as 1886, but Dalrymple records it as having taken place in 1882, twenty years after her husband's, and two years before her son's. See p.481.]

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Created 30 May 2020