White Mughals

Product Description

White Mughals is the romantic & ultimately tragic tale of a passionate love affair that transcended all the cultural religious & political boundaries of its time. James Achilles Kirkpatrick was the British Resident at the court of Hyderabad when he met Khair un-Nissa
- Most Excellent among Women
- the great-niece of the Prime Minister of Hyderabad. He fell in love with her & overcame many obstacles to marry her converting to Islam & according to Indian sources becoming a double-agent working against the East India Company. It is a remarkable story but such things were not unknown: from the early sixteenth century to the eve of the Indian Mutiny the white Mughals who wore local dress & adopted Indian ways were a source of embarrassment to successive colonial administrations. Dalrymple unearths such colourful figures as Hindoo Stuart who travelled with his own team of Brahmins to maintain his temple of idols & Sir David Auchterlony who took all 13 of his Indian wives out for evening promenades each on the back of her own elephant. In White Mughals William Dalrymple discovers a world almost entirely unexplored by history & places at its centre a compelling tale of seduction & betrayal.