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| Source: Google Arts & Culture, Rekhta Foundation page. Exhibits feature Nawab Sultan Jahan Begum, Jahan Ara Begum and Begum Zeb-Un-Nissa. |
Google Arts & Culture features content from over 1000 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online. One such partner is the Rekhta Foundation, from Noida, India.
The foundation is the largest online repository of Urdu poetry in the world. The website displays works of over 2,100 well-known and lesser known poets from the 13th century to the present day, and includes over 25,000 nazms and ghazals (Editor's note: types of Urdu poetry) in Persian, Devanagari and Roman scripts.
Exhibits on the Rekhta Foundation site on Google Arts & Culture include a focus on the life of Nawab Sultan Jahan Begum, one of the rulers of Bhopal, the present-day capital of the state of Madhya Pradesh in India. The exhibit describes the life of Nawab Sultan Jahan Begum and how she advanced infrastructure, architecture, arts and education.
Another online exhibit is on Jahan Ara Begum, Shah Jahan's daughter. Shah Jahan is famous for building the Taj Mahal for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, while Jahan Ara Begum is known for her wisdom and her contribution to Sufism. Her Sufi mentor, Mulla Shah, wanted to name her his successor, but the rules of the order disallowed it. She is known for authoring several books, including a biography of Mulla Shah titled Ṣaḥibia and a biography of Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chisti, the philosopher who established the Chisti order of Sufism, titled Munis-ul-Arwah (The Companion Spirits).
Begum Zeb-un-Nissa, Jahan Ara Begum's niece and the eldest daughter of Aurangzeb, has her own section. She wrote poetry, and was imprisoned for the last 20 years of her life by her father.