Request Permissions. With the hijra prestige economy system, kin relatedness is rooted in the social standing of hijras to one another. The eunuch slaves had many different roles to play, and different tasks were assigned to them in royal courts (Taparia 2011). . 2002. Sharmili underestimated just how much a change in her attire would provoke reactions from her colleagues. Goswamy, ed. kinship pattern for those who identify on the gender spectrum outside the male-female binary. One of the main differences between trans and hijra identities is that trans people have the freedom to self-identify as trans. Gardens of Renaissance Euope and the Islamic Empires, ed. It represented a distinct imagination about the region and emerged as a literary imaginary in the late 16th century and over the early part of the 17th century, entering into the imperial chronicles. The hierarchical guru-chela relationship is the formative core of the social organization within the hijra community. Other hijras who have higher caste privilege by birth often retain their surnames. Yet it also provides the intellectual contexts of Islamic cultures which inform our perceptions of how this visual language works. "Mughals" redirects here. The overall aim is to enable readers to understand the complex multilayered hierarchies and intersectionality between gender and kinship within the hijra community in India. Legally recognized as the third gender in April 2014 by the Supreme Court of India, the hijras are a highly stigmatized minority group with an estimated population of half a million according to the Census of India 2011 (Census of India 2011). 2: 167184. Therefore, those engaged in toli badhai are automatically considered to be higher in rank within the hijra hierarchy. This may include maintaining kin relations with their natal families or having sexual partners. These greater chiefs are mostly responsible for maintaining kin relations among different gharana networks of hijras within one state or across different states in India. New York: Columbia University Press. During this distressing time, she came in contact with the hijra community living in her area. For students aged between 11 to 14. Humayuns Sojourn at the Safavid Court. A. Panaino and R. Zipoli (eds. The perceived threat to the banks image was based on the stereotype that hijras kidnap young boys and castrate them to increase the membership of their own community. The hijra gharanas are symbolic units of lineage, called a house, guiding the overall schematic outlining of the social organization of the hijra community in India. The social standing is based on a number of factors contingent on the power relations between and among different individual hijras and their gharana networks. In his address the organisation's first President, Professor Shafaat Ahmad Khan called upon Indian historians to study all aspects of history, rather than only political history and to emphasize the integrative factors in the past. joint-family: a household system in which members of more than one generation of a unilineal descent group live together. There are strict rules of kin performativity institutionalized in a hijra prestige economy system. Amrit Rai tait autant pote quhistorien, ce qui fait de linterprtation du Mncarit et des nombreux textes rajputs lui ressemblant une tache pineuse. Its name was then changed to Indian History Congress's from its second session held in 1938, and three section, 1. Only principal offspring of each emperor are provided in the chart. This essay is part of a volume dedicated to the study of the representation of early modern siege warfare. Updates? 2006. Gender & History, 24, no. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. nonbinary family network: kinship pattern for those who identify on the gender spectrum outside the male-female binary. Some scholars have also viewed the guru-disciple lineage as a form of disguised bonded labor, especially if the hijra guru pays for the castration of their hijra disciple, in return for which the disciple is not only expected to remain in bonded servitude to their guru for a lifetime but also because there exists a hijra custom of leti, which is the amount payable by a hijra disciple to the guru if they leave their hijra guru for another (Saxena 2011, 159). The Mughal emperors displayed immense wealth and the ceremonies . Aurangzeb maintained the empire for nearly half a century and in fact extended it in the south as far as Tanjore (now Thanjavur) and Trichinopoly (now Tiruchchirappalli). 77-140, The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan: Politics, Art, Architecture, Law, Literature and Aftermath, Visual Strategies of Imperial Self-Representation: The Windsor Pdshhnma Revisited, Allegory or Visionary? The second section will focus on the prestige economy system of the hijra community and the various ranks within it. The ongoing teasing at work made Sharmili believe that at least she was being recognized for who she really is, even if that came at a cost. Milan, 2006, II: 135-57. Sharmili now commutes four hours round trip on a public bus whenever she can from Dakshinpuri to Trilokpuri just to be able to earn respect and money in traditional hijra performances. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Second, the British colonialists criminalized hijras by banning them from public areas under the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) of 1871. This upward mobility then raises a hijra guru to the status of a hijra chief, or nayak within the larger community. Addressing this confusion are classifications made by the hijra communities themselves on who real hijras are and how they are differentiated from those who are fake. One such way to demarcate the difference between the two is by affiliation to a hijra house. Real hijras have a house affiliation whereas fake hijras do not have this affiliation. Within a Hindu cosmological frame of reference, desire is seen as the root of all evil, and renouncing desire through asexuality and castration is seen as a way of being associated with rising above the material pleasures and becoming spiritual. . (Kapila, interview by author). The failure of the Mughals to cope with them after the reign of his son Bahdur Shh I led to the collapse of the empire in the mid-18th century. Md. Heritage of the Mughal World. You can download the paper by clicking the button above. In her coming days of apprenticeship with the hijra guru, Sharmili learned the hijra ways of being. Not being in a position to negotiate her working relations with the bank management, Sharmili eventually decided to quit her job as a safai karamchari. How do Indian social hierarchies intersect with hijra kinship? An Epistemology of Collusion: Hijras, Kothis and the Historical (Dis) Continuity of Gender/Sexual Identities in Eastern India. For many lower-rank hijras, it is difficult for them to perform gender the way they would like to, due to the prohibitive costs of makeup, fine clothing, and body transformations. Scholars argue that castration then does not embrace sexual ambiguity since the pressure is on renouncing it (Jaffrey 1996, 56). Beyond Emasculation: Being Muslim and Becoming Hijra in South Asia.. In India, an authentic hijra identity is based on its affiliation to a hijra gharana (house society) (see Goel 2016). This insistence of the religiosity of a castrated hijra body is rooted in three key factors. Sharmilis colleagues continued to bully her. Aurangzeb was the third son of the emperor Shah Jahn and Mumtaz Mahal (for whom the Taj Mahal was built). Explain the hijra prestige economy system. The hijra financial chain is a structure of systematic payments whereby those at the bottom of the structure pay those above them. Ancient, 2. Chatterjee, I. The chela is not allowed to participate in the hijra activities or earn through their hijra networks until the dand is paid in full by the chela to the guru. The administration weakened, and the process was hastened by pressure on the land by Mughal grantees who were paid by assignments on the land revenue. The militancy of the Sikhs and the Jats boded ill for the empire in the north. Nanda, Serena. The plan broke down, however; Shivaji fled to the Deccan and died, in 1680, as the ruler of an independent Maratha kingdom. 1996. Salve, P., D. Bansod, and H. Kadlak. (Champa, interview by author). (Saloni, interview by author). I am still a hijra and I do not want to harm my body permanently for the rest of my life. The chelas have to show respect to the guru by not acknowledging this aspect of their lives in public, despite it being a public secret. Crossing Lines of Subjectivity: The Negotiation of Sexual Identity in Hyderabad, India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 24, no. Testimony to this fact is that the first colonial antisodomy law introduced by the British in 1861 through Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) considered homosexuality an unnatural act and a public offense until 2018 in the postcolonial Indian nation-state. The environment grew so hostile that Sharmili would end up crying in the bathroom at her place of work most of the time. Agrarian discontent often took the form of religious movements, as in the case of the Satnamis and the Sikhs in the Punjab. Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India. Aurangzebs absence in the south prevented him from maintaining his former firm hold on the north. Goel, Ina. The passing down of sanitation work from one generation to another within the Valmiki community is made possible because of a government policy that enables safai karamcharis to nominate a member of their family to take up the same line of work after their death (Salve et al. caste system: Indian kinship is always grouped around a system of social stratification based on birth status known as the caste system. Charting change from the cutting edge of knowledge, pursuing the frontiers of For the ethnic groups, see Mughal people. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions Both faced adversity at the court, lost their throne and. . Fake hijras are men who are cross-dressed beggars and not legitimate hijras but are often mistaken as having a hijra identity by the mainstream public (Dutta 2012, 838). A majority is considered similar to that of a mother-in-lawdaughter-in-law relationship, which is both sour and sweet at times. Thus there has been a growth of papers on womens history, environmental and regional history. 3: 380400. Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 18501900. Find out about the impact of Aurangzeb's death, the East India Company and why India became a British colony in 1857 with BBC Bitesize KS3 History. 2006. GRANTA. The first section of this chapter will highlight the historical roots of the formation of a kinship system within the hijra community and its connection to the contemporary forms of kinship. Indian Journal of Gender Studies 18, no. Want to create or adapt books like this? Economic and Political Weekly 52, no. Even though they were colleagues, Sharmili felt lower than them in social status, not only because of caste but also because of her transgender identity. The Mughals were a powerful Turkic-Mongol tribe that originated from Central Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. It was on this day, as she clearly remembers, that one of her colleagues pulled at her, to shame her for acting like a female. Request Permissions, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. 2018 Social Scientist In this ceremony, Sharmili was adopted by the guru to the hijra house or gharana to which the guru herself belonged; in this way, she became a new member of the house. hijras: also known as third gender in India; can be understood as subaltern forms of trans-queer identities existing within a prestige economy system of kinship networks. Other agrarian revolts, such as those of the Jats, were largely secular. During this period he was much occupied with safeguarding the northwest from Persians and Central Asian Turks and less so with the Maratha chief Shivaji, who twice plundered the great port of Surat (1664, 1670). We Refuse to Be Subjects of Experiment for Those Who Do Not Understand Us: Transgender Persons Bill. I learned to speak Hijra Farsi and was ritually adopted into the community by a guru. 2019. With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India. Therefore, the more chelas a guru has, the more social status and respect the guru earns in the broader hijra community. Indian Historical Review, 40 (1), 2013, pp.17-40. While most of the Muslim Mughal rulers were known for religious tolerance and coexistence, Aurangzeb discriminated against Hindus and destroyed many of their temples. 2005 Indian History Congress Most of the people they ruled practiced Hinduism . There are also many descriptive ways and terminologies to identify the same kin relation within hijras. PROFILE: Blank Noise: Street Actions and Digital Interventions Against Street Sexual Harassment In India, PROFILE: Vietnam Womens Shelter: Contradictions and Complexities, Chapter 4: Controlling National Borders by Controlling Reproduction, Chapter 5: Understanding Caste and Kinship within Hijras, a Third Gender Community in India, Chapter 6: The City and The Easy Life: Work and Gender among Sherpa in Nepal, Chapter 7: Latin America: Introducing the Region, PROFILE: The Guatemalan Womens Group: Supporting Survivors of Gender-Based Violence, Chapter 8: Being a Good Mexican Man by Embracing Erectile Dysfunction, Chapter 9: Intersectionality and Normative Masculinity in Northeast Brazil, Chapter 10: Mexicos Antipoverty Program Oportunidades and the Shifting Dynamics of Citizenship for uu Savi (Mixtec) Village Women, Chapter 11: Qeqchi-Maya Women: Memory, Markets, and Multilevel Marketing in Guatemala, Chapter 12: The Caribbean: Introducing the Region, Chapter 13: Quinceaeras: Girls Coming-of-Age Parties in Contemporary Havana, Cuba, Chapter 14: Jamaican Realities of Masculinities and Sexualities: How Far Have We Come since Michel Foucault?, Chapter 15: The Global North: Introducing the Region, PROFILE: Indian Rights for Indian Women: Kathleen Steinhauer, an Indigenous Activist in Canada, Chapter 17: Male Sex Work in Canada: Intersections of Gender and Sexuality, Chapter 18: Intersectionality and Muslim Women in Belgium, Chapter 19: Fatherhood and Family Relations in Transnational Migration from Mezcala, Mexico. Long Slow Burn: Sexuality and Social Science. 2011. https://www.census2011.co.in/transgender.php. Indian kinship is always grouped around a system of social stratification based on birth status known as the caste system. Consequently, if one is higher in rank, the workload for them is less. Jamel Ostwald and Anke Fischer-Katner (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 175-204. Sharmili felt violated. Moreover, those hijras lower in rank also find it difficult to attract customers in some open cruising areas because of increasing competition from other effeminate men (or kotis) and female sex workers. Sharmili inherited this job from one of her dying relatives, her maternal uncle, and worked at a national bank in New Delhi as a safai karamchari. Creating Groups Outside the Caste System: The Devadasis and Hijras of India. The example of Kachhawahas was followed by . Also read, Akbar's Successors Humayun 1530 -1556 Important dynasties and kingdom of Ancient India Mughal Emperors - Sample Questions & Answers nonbinary family network: kinship pattern for those who identify on the gender spectrum outside the male-female binary. Conventionally, the senior gurus do not engage in sex work openly or visit cruising areas to solicit prostitution. Aurangzeb was a serious-minded youth and a devout Muslim. Life is not perfect! Under him the Mughal Empire reached its greatest extent, although his policies helped lead to its dissolution. The hijras therefore function as a closed social group, tied by their kin relatedness and guided by an internal council that helps to maintain the social order within their prestige economy system. However, in some cases, the gurus might themselves be involved in sex work but only with a select client base. Eventually, Sharmili made contacts in another hijra group, in the Trilokpuri area of New Delhi that let her accompany them in their group for. Do you think thispainting suggeststhat the Mughalsclaimed kingshipas a birthright? They worked to bring Muslims and Hindus together into a united India. Hinchy, Jessica. Private Pleasures of the Mughal Empire, Art History, Vol.37, No.3, 2014, pp.409-427. Interview with Indian activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi on the third gender, Women in the World, 8 March 2017. Discuss. Based on my fieldwork, one of the many rules within this prestige economy system is the expectation that the chelas always speak in a pitch lower than their gurus and dont interrupt or cross them while the gurus are speaking to others in public. The pious ruler of an Islamic state replaced the seasoned statesman of a mixed kingdom; Hindus became subordinates, not colleagues, and the Marathas, like the southern Muslim kingdoms, were marked for annexation rather than containment. Genealogy of the Baburid Dynasty. Kalyani, a hijra who has not been castrated but has breast implants, said: We hijras are well aware today of our health and the consequences that such an atrocious operation (castration ceremony) of removing the most sensitive and important part of our bodies can do. Such relatedness was formed by a system of discipleship-lineage of the guru-chela relationship. Caste and Religion Create Barriers Within the Hijra Community. There are some other aspects of kin relatedness that often appear to be contradictory to its gendered status within the hijra community. theory. M. Sharma and P. Kaimal, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2013, The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan, edited by Ebba Koch and Ali Anooshahr, Mumbai: Marg Foundation, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol.9, no.1 (April 1999), pp. Through kinship, hijras sustain their ordered rankings within their cultural enclaves by justifying their logic according to the rules made by the internal governing councils of the hijra community, and this renders their community a closed social group. In 1675 Aurangzeb arrested and executed the Sikh Guru (spiritual leader) Tegh Bahadur, who had refused to embrace Islam; the succeeding Guru, Gobind Singh, was in open rebellion for the rest of Aurangzebs reign. First, hijras are associated within Hindu mythology to many androgynous avatars of gods and goddesses (Pande 2004; Pattnaik 2015). Hossain, A. Impact of Covid-19 on Hijras, a Third-Gender Community in India, Covid-19. The Deccan kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda were conquered in 168687, but the insecurity that followed precipitated a long-incipient economic crisis, which in turn was deepened by warfare with the Marathas. They were now more open and outwardly bullying Sharmili by calling her derogatory names like, (asshole or giving ass) (Bhaskaran 2004, 95), The environment grew so hostile that Sharmili would end up crying in the bathroom at her place of work most of the time. 2019. They did not even consider that Sharmili was inwardly always feminine, and when they saw her displaying those traits outwardly, the colleagues at work started making fun of her new effeminate look. These doctrines assert the position of the sovereignin a given historical context. became an office joke that was quickly shared and spread among some of her male colleagues. Taparia, S. 2011. Hence they were granted . Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. Ebba Koch The history paintings created for Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58), the builder of the Taj Mahal emerge as highly complex creations, which in their ambition and dialectic reach out far beyond their apparent function, to illustrate a historical narrative in the tradition of Islamic and Indian book painting. Ina has also worked with FHI 360, UNICEF, the National AIDS Control Organization in India, the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, and the humanitarian organization Plan International. 2011. Dalit: formerly untouchable community in India. So much so that when Sharmili started showing visible signs of becoming herself by growing her hair and wearing light makeup to work, other colleagues at the bank did not like it. The ongoing teasing at work made Sharmili believe that at least she was being recognized for who she really is, even if that came at a cost. Omissions? They mediated between people belonging to the different religious communities to ensure peace, stability and justice. Mughal: early modern empire in South Asia founded in 1526 that spanned two centuries. that makes the Social Scientist indispensable to teachers and students, laymen Hijras participation in any research- or media-related activities must also be approved by someone higher in rank. New York:Routledge. New York:Routledge, https://thewire.in/lgbtqia/caste-religion-hijra-community, Part V: The Global North (North America and Europe), https://www.census2011.co.in/transgender.php, Next: Chapter 6: The City and The Easy Life: Work and Gender among Sherpa in Nepal, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. These include their mutual cordial relationships, hijras with more money and better methods of feminine gender performativity, caste status, and sometimes just circumstantial luck. The ambivalence of simultaneously using both male and female gendered pronouns for addressing the kin relatedness to the same person within hijra community creates a unique way to embrace the androgynous nature of hijra kinship. Programmatic political statements were made with differing aesthetic modes which contrast Persianate abstract linearity against Europeanizing illusionism within the space of a single image. Transing-normativities: Understanding Hijra Communes as Queer Homes in The Everyday Makings of Heteronormativity: Cross-cultural Explorations of Sex, Gender, and Sexuality, edited by Serta Sehlikoglu and Frank G. Karioris, 13952. The term harem is originated from Persian which means . He grew up as a serious-minded and devout youth, wedded to the Muslim orthodoxy of the day and free from the royal Mughal traits of sensuality and drunkenness. Census of India. Reddy, G. 2001. 5: 634642. They have rescued us from the harsh and brutal world. 18 May. The new Islamic policy alienated Hindu sentiment and undermined Rajput support. Sharmili underestimated just how much a change in her attire would provoke reactions from her colleagues. By the time of Shah Jahns unexpected recovery, matters had gone too far for either son to retreat. The journal has constantly taken the view that India for its purpose is the country with its Pre-Partition boundaries, while treats Contemporary History as the history of Indian Union after 1947. The Mughal social structure, in line with the Islamic sharia, recognised fosterage as a legally valid relationship, enjoying social acceptability and legal protection.1 Fosterage not only created possibilities of new familial connections that co-exited with unilateral relations through blood, but also established an extended network of allegianc. Therefore, the population counted by the census is not a true representation of hijra demographics in India. Therefore, in the hijra community, the core and the burden of maintaining the guru-chela relationship rests heavily upon the individuals where kin relatedness becomes highly performative (see Butler 2006). Aurangzebs tomb is located in Khuldabad, India. We have no one that we can trust, even our families, the one to which we were biologically born, have disowned us. In addition, Hindu idols, temples, and shrines were often destroyed. Historically those coming from the Valmiki community have been denied priestly jobs and even barred by the upper castes from entering temples for the fear that lower castes will pollute the sacredness of those spaces. The nati-chelas may work as beggars in the morning and as sex workers in the evening; the chelas might works as ritual workers in the morning and sex workers in the evening. Since then, pulling at Sharmilis dupatta became an office joke that was quickly shared and spread among some of her male colleagues. Akbar encouraged syncretic religion called divine faith, focused on, emperor as ruler common to all groups of India, rather than imposing, Aurangzeb imposed taxes on Hindus; He broke with Akbar's religious, toleration, replacing everything with Islam and mosques, Emperor, gentry, elites, merchants (later gained power), Hindu women couldn't associate with men outside home, and obeyed, Sati: Hindu woman killed herself if husband died, Muslims and Hindu under own religious laws, Fratricide was common; all crime punishments were mild, The society in Mughal India was ruled by a Muslim Emperor with a, Nationality and ethnicity did not reflect social status, as it was mainly. In those taunts, Sharmili found recognition of a gender identity she always thought she belonged to. The Invisibles: A Tale of the Eunuchs of India. A wealth of Old Hindi texts in the Rajasthani and Brajbhasha dialects survives from the early modern period, but they remain an underused archive of Mughal history. Sharmili felt fortunate to be accepted by her hijra guru for her chosen gender identity but also felt discriminated against due to her caste identity. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Though most of the kin relation terms are addressed in the feminine pronoun, chela (which is lower in the hierarchy) and nati-chela (disciple of a disciple, lowest in the hierarchy) are addressed using male pronouns. After about 1680, Aurangzebs reign underwent a change of both attitude and policy. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Michel Conan, Washington D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, Transcultural Imaginations of the Sacred, edited by Margit Kern and Klaus Krger. ), Law Addressing Diversity. The Mughal Empire was an early modern Islamic empire that controlled some part of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. In this chapter, the author looks at the organization and functions of a third-gender group in India: the hijras. Its population at the time has been estimated as between 110 and 150 million (a quarter of the world's population), over a territory of more than 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles). early modern empire in South Asia founded in 1526 that spanned two centuries. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress Eventually, Sharmili made contacts in another hijra group, in the Trilokpuri area of New Delhi that let her accompany them in their group for toli badhai. The annual journal of the Indian History Congress, entitled The Proceedings of the Indian History Congress carries research papers selected out of papers presented at its annual sessions on all aspects and periods of Indian History from pre-history to contemporary times as well as the history of countries other than India. The gurus have the privilege of choosing who will accompany them for ritual blessings, or toli badhai. Therefore, hijra kinship functions as an androgynous institutionalized system of discipleship-lineage based on power relations and further legitimized by internal hijra councils. Sharmili now commutes four hours round trip on a public bus whenever she can from Dakshinpuri to Trilokpuri just to be able to earn respect and money in traditional hijra performances. However, Sharmilis hijra guru had other plans for her. 2015. Decisive aspects of maintaining hijra kin through performative aspects of respect, livelihoods, and embodiment are central to the hijra social system. (Kalyani, interview by author). One explanation for this confusion over the differences between other third-gender identities, transgender persons, and those born intersex could be that the Hindi word hijra has been used as a catchall term for all these identities. Although the CTA was rescinded in 1952, a collective memory still paints hijras as historical gender deviants with a criminalized sexual variance. The literary and political imaginary of Kashmir in the Mughal court drew upon older textual traditions like the literature and histories from Kashmir, corpora of Arab and Persian geographies compiled from the ninth century onwards, travel accounts, wonder tales and the chronicles of the Ghaznavid and Timurid courts. There is no other way of skipping it. Ritual work is considered to be of the highest prestige within the hijra community. How do power dynamics shape the relationship between hijra guru and chela? There are three key aspects of performative kin relatedness within the hijra community: respect, livelihoods, and embodiment. Most dangerous of all is the point in the negotiation when a hijra threatens to shame those who refuse to pay by lifting their skirts and exposing whatever lies beneath the hijras petticoat. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The first overt sign of change was the reimposition of the jizya, or poll tax, on non-Muslims in 1679 (a tax that had been abolished by Akbar). In fact, in colloquial Hindi, the term intersex is culturally synonymous with the term hijra. It was on this day, as she clearly remembers, that one of her colleagues pulled at her dupatta to shame her for acting like a female. In the seventeenth century, eunuchs became trusted servants in the Mughal courts. Mustering courage, Sharmili showed up at work in a, , a traditional style of clothing typically worn by women in north India, coordinating her outfit with a dark color shade of lipstick and a long scarf called a, . It does so on the basis of three imperial biographies of Akbar. Aurangzeb, also spelled Aurangzib, Arabic Awrangzb, kingly title lamgr, original name Mu al-Dn Muammad, (born November 3, 1618, Dhod, Malwa [India]died March 3, 1707), emperor of India from 1658 to 1707, the last of the great Mughal emperors.