Ur-manuscript of the ‘Ishqnama

In this section, I seek to address the structure of the ‘Ishqnama and its politics of intimacy and sex. First I consider the ‘Ishqnama and its relationship to other similar historical and literary texts such as Wajid ‘Ali Shah's Divan. In rereading the ‘Ishqnama, I argue that Wajid ‘Ali Shah deployed the text and visuals to showcase his sovereignty through the depiction of truthful events such as the punishment of his lovers and management of his estate. Factual historical events are only one feature of the manuscript as Wajid ‘Ali Shah weaves intimate sexual moments into his narrative in a hyperbolic, emotive language to emphasize how his management of his household mirrors his handling of the Avadh state. Wajid ‘Ali Shah undertakes such a balance by utilizing Urdu poetry to assert his connection to an Indo-Persianate past and to align himself with Indo-Persianate rules of proper comportment for leaders, such as justice. Thus, the manuscript does not disavow pleasure and desire, but instead constrains them within the bounds of Persian and Urdu poetry. My brief foray into the structure of the ‘Ishqnama demonstrates that the language and aesthetics of sexual practices were a foundational component of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's political stagecraft.

Wajid ‘Ali Shah was born in 1822 and was named heir apparent by his father, Amjad ‘Ali Shah (r. 1842–47), in 1842 when the father bypassed his eldest son in favour of the younger brother. The complete ‘Ishqnama with painting and handwritten calligraphy was completed in 1849, when Wajid ‘Ali Shah was 27 years old and had been on the throne for two years. It is unclear whether Wajid ‘Ali Shah began the manuscript while still a prince or immediately after he ascended to power. The event with which the ‘Ishqnama begins is, as stated previously, Wajid ‘Ali Shah's embarking on his first sexual affair at age eight. Throughout this opening vignette and the rest of the historically specific episodes, the reader cannot be certain whether Wajid ‘Ali Shah kept a diary of his sexual behaviour and then mined this diary for his literary source material, or whether he created a new childhood narrative for himself in 1849. Compounding this confusion is the fact that Wajid ‘Ali Shah prevented any worker credit, as there is no signature of a calligrapher or artist to be found within the manuscript. As the manuscript's sole author and poet, Wajid ‘Ali Shah seemingly has complete narrative control, which leaves open the question of time. When exactly did Wajid ‘Ali Shah create this manuscript, and who exactly was his intended audience?

The year 1849 was an important one for Wajid ‘Ali Shah. He completed two immensely elaborate manuscripts: the ‘Ishqnama and the Divan (a collection of poems). Both manuscripts are physically quite large: the ‘Ishqnama is approximately 46.2 by 30.2 centimetres, while the Divan measures 41.2 by 26 centimetres. Their sizes indicate that, when the manuscripts were displayed in a courtly setting, only a few courtiers could huddle around them, forcing an intimate viewing experience. In addition, they both have the same cream-coloured paper and hashiya (border) design of gold and red. The Divan even includes a miniature of Wajid ‘Ali Shah sitting on his throne that bears an uncanny resemblance to throne scenes in the ‘Ishqnama.Footnote ²⁷ Because of their visual resonances, the ‘Ishqnama and Divan should be seen together as part of Wajid ‘Ali's early imperial message. That both manuscripts are written in a poetic register speaks to the fact that Wajid ‘Ali considered poetry to enhance his sovereignty and the perfect means for conveying his authority. Moreover, in 1849, he minted a new coin. And, on a personal note, he witnessed the death of one of his sons from smallpox.

That same year also saw the arrival of a cantankerous British Resident, William Henry Sleeman, who, within his first five weeks as acting British Resident, had pushed for Wajid ‘Ali's removal.Footnote ²⁸ Sleeman travelled through the Avadhi countryside collecting information for his report, which ended up accusing Wajid ‘Ali Shah and his administration of devastating Avadh financially and socially. In his two-volume memoir, Sleeman states that he witnessed a proliferation of crime, bribery, and extortion throughout Avadh. Wajid ‘Ali was described as ‘a crazy imbecile who is led like a child’ by the hands of a few ‘fiddlers, eunuchs, and poetasters’.Footnote ²⁹ Sleeman suggested, in other words, that Wajid ‘Ali Shah was more interested in poets, eunuchs, and dancers than in running a responsible administration. The British government would later use Sleeman's report to justify its complete absorption of Avadhi territory.

While it would be tempting to suggest that Wajid ‘Ali created his manuscript to provide a direct counterpoint to Sleeman's account, manuscript production was too intensive a process to have been completed in the span of a few months. Given the high quality of the images and the elaborate hashiya, the ‘Ishqnama's production must have started at least a year before Sleeman's arrival, though Wajid ‘Ali Shah could have expedited the process once news circulated that Sleeman planned to submit such an antagonistic report. Indeed, a copy of the ‘Ishqnama currently in a depository in Pakistan contains the date of 1848, which suggests that the ‘Ishqnama was most likely planned out a year before Sleeman's arrival (see the third section of this article). In either case, Wajid ‘Ali Shah commissioned two manuscripts in a poetic register that espoused intimacy and intimate bonds as foundational to his rule, which was at odds with Sleeman's account. While Sleeman saw the members of his court as a liability, Wajid ‘Ali himself saw these dancers, musicians, and lovers as an asset to his power.

The ‘Ishqnama, as mentioned, has been read as an autobiographical text and has been taken as a chronicle of the true events of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's life. While ‘Ishqnama does follow principles of the vaqa'i genre by centring on the historical life of Wajid ‘Ali Shah, it also contains elements of the genre of the masnavi (literary narrative), especially in its opening lines and its thematic emphasis on the sacrality of love.Footnote ³⁰ In tandem with the parameters of these multiple genre categories, the ‘Ishqnama positions Wajid ‘Ali Shah's personal and sexual life as an affective bond for his courtly politics. Wajid ‘Ali Shah reveals details of his life at court such as the enforcement of social and courtly hierarchies, the aggrandizement of his masculinity vis-à-vis his heterosexuality, and the disciplining and punishment of members of his court, all with varying shades of veracity.

In the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah never establishes a direct connection between his manuscript and older historical memoirs, but he does provide a genealogy of his royal investments for proper comportment. In the ‘Ishqnama, during a musical celebration, Wajid ‘Ali Shah makes note of historical figures who have influenced his courtly practices. He states:

Here, Wajid ‘Ali Shah is creating a historical lineage of proper manners (sha‘ār) and behaviour by recalling Indo-Muslim rulers who favoured the arts, such as Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II (r. 1580–1627) and Muhammad Shah (r. 1719–48). These citations validate Wajid ‘Ali Shah's artistic and courtly investments in pleasure and support his creation of the music school, the Parīkhāna. Outside the ‘Ishqnama, Aloys Sprenger notably catalogued the library of the nawabs between 1848 and 1850, and compiled a list of major manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, and Hindi circulating in the court.Footnote ³² Within this catalogue, neither works authored by Adil Shah nor those of Muhammad Shah are directly mentioned. Therefore, a complete literary genealogy of the ‘Ishqnama may be impossible to reconstruct. While that front may remain opaque, Wajid ‘Ali Shah makes it quite clear that he is aligning himself with the norms of Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II and Muhmmad Shah, notable musical patrons and poets who patronized aural poetics featuring sensual tropes to enhance their power.Footnote ³³ With these investments in mind, it is no wonder that ‘Ishqnama was completed in a poetic register and positions the emotional power of desire as a cornerstone of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's sovereignty.

An important detail of the ‘Ishqnama text is the rumination on anecdotal accounts of servants’ physical appearances as a means to reinforcing Wajid ‘Ali Shah's dominance. Wajid ‘Ali Shah in the ‘Ishqnama surveys the bodies around him, stating, for example, that one lover, Rehiman, ‘is not beautiful, nor is her face insipid’.Footnote ³⁴ He discloses personalized descriptions to both create and evince intimate bonds with his courtiers. While furnishing intimate details of the real-life women in Wajid ‘Ali's court, the ‘Ishqnama also visually represents them in a strict social hierarchy that reinforces the centrality of Wajid ‘Ali's power. Throughout the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah is the one of the few figures who is depicted with a halo. There is also a clear hierarchy among the females in his zenana. Wajid ‘Ali mentions that the stipends and allowances he gives to the women in his court are distributed according to rank. At times, women received a ‘hundred-rupee monthly allowance’.Footnote ³⁵ In one dastan, Wajid ‘Ali Shah provides a full list of his lovers’ names and the new names he conferred on them once he was on the throne. Their names vary slightly, but the appellations affixed at the end are always bēgum, parī, or sahiba, which indicate their place within his court.Footnote ³⁶ For exalted women in the ‘Ishqnama, their faces are hidden behind screens and plants. Take, for instance, the miniature of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's grandmother, Maryam Markani, whose face is shielded by a halo (Figure 1).Footnote ³⁷ This is one of many images in which women of high stature are given licence to shield their faces from the painter's brush.

Figure 1.

‘Ishqnama, folio 12r. The prince falls in love with a visitor, Hajji Khanum, who has an infant child, while in the company of Maryam Markani. 1250/1834–35. RCIN 1005035. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020.

When Wajid ‘Ali introduces a new woman or lover in his manuscript, he includes information about her rank and social status. If she is a servant, he lists the family that she is employed under. Social and filial relations are stressed. Regarding one of his servants, Bandi Umda Wali, Wajid ‘Ali mentions that he met her before he was crowned king (takht shāhī pe), when she worked in the house of Jahan (Numa).Footnote ³⁸ He later decides to give Bandi Umda Wali the proper name (riẓā) of Matlub al-Sultan Hazrat Begum and to pay her a monthly salary of Rs 2,500.Footnote ³⁹ For another servant, Wajid ‘Ali states he caught a glimpse of Amer Baksh while she was living in Hazoor Bagh. Through the intercession of Chote Khan, one of the drummers in Wajid ‘Ali's theatre, Amer Baksh is able to communicate with Wajid ‘Ali and to be given signs of his faith (‘aqīdat).Footnote ⁴⁰ After that, Wajid ‘Ali finally is able to meet Amer Baksh in person. Wajid ‘Ali Shah emphasizes these social and filial relations to show that these women are vetted and that they have some kind of pre-existing relationship with members of his court before he allows them into his home.

In an effort to preserve a genealogy with his father's and grandfather's courts, Wajid ‘Ali retains members of their staff.Footnote ⁴¹ Because of this, Wajid ‘Ali decides to marry some of his late father's servants while freeing others. One such servant, Paro, who was previously employed in an exalted (ḵẖalad) house in Faizabad, enters Wajid ‘Ali's protection and is addressed thereafter as Arghawan Pari. In the later Parikhana copies, scribes suggest that Paro was the servant of none other than the Mirza Nasir al-din Haidar's late mother, Nawab Badshah Begum.Footnote ⁴² In the ‘Ishqnama, the name of Nawab Badshah Begum is never evoked, but only inferred. Through this act of employment, Wajid ‘Ali positions himself closer to the nawabi bloodline and its past courtly structure. In another instance, a courtier, Mir Muhammad Mehdi, recommends Umrao Begum as the new superintendent officer (‘ahd-darog̠a) for Wajid ‘Ali Shah's palace. Wajid ‘Ali accepts Mir Muhammad Mehdi's request because Umrao Begum is the sister of Nasir al-din Haidar's wife, Qudsia Begum, and her brother is Wafa Beg.Footnote ⁴³ Despite her impressive lineage, Wajid ‘Ali is dismissive of her as his servant because of her corpulent (farbih) physique and the large number of moles on her face. Against his own sexual desires, Wajid ‘Ali Shah keeps Umrao Begum in his employ because she preserves the relationship between his father's cousin and his elite courtier. Wajid ‘Ali Shah even mentions that he permitted some of the female servants who were in his late grandfather's zenana to go to Karbala.Footnote ⁴⁴

Notably, he discusses when the people in his household are connected to the Prophet or to Quranic and noble ancestors. In describing his first nikah marriage, to Naik Akhtar, who would later be titled Nawab Khas Mahal, Wajid ‘Ali notes that she was from the noble (ashraf) and exalted (buland) household of al-Daula ‘Ali, also known as Ahmad ‘Ali Khan. Jani Khanam, the grandmother of Wajid ‘Ali Shah, was the first to introduce Naik Akhtar as a possible match for Wajid ‘Ali because of her lineage (nisbat).Footnote ⁴⁵ In another dastan, Wajid ‘Ali mentions that his uncle-in-law, ‘Ali Naqi Khan, was a sayyid—a title that suggests he was descended from the Prophet Muhammad.Footnote ⁴⁶ Wajid ‘Ali extends these noble connections to his servants. He states that Insha Allah Khan, who was a great poet (shā‘ir) of the imagination and an eloquent poet (suḵẖun-dān) with intelligence (suḵẖun-fahm) and a sweet voice (shīrīn-maqāl), had three happy daughters. The eldest was Hederi Begum Muba Husain, the middle child was Muhammadi Begum, and the youngest (ḵẖurd-tar) was Nanhi Begum. They were escorted into the service of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's mother, where they recited marsiya during Muharram and the Urdu play of the Hindu god Indra.Footnote ⁴⁷ Thus, these three sisters and their connection to Wajid ‘Ali Shah's court are first connected to Insha Allah Khan, a famous polyglot poet in Lucknow with ties to the Mughal court.

Through his marriages and by employing household servants, Wajid ‘Ali Shah links himself to Islamicate symbols of power such as descendants of the Prophet. As Gail Minault argues, Muslim men were subject to new pressures both political and socio-economic in nature throughout the nineteenth century as a result of colonial encounters. Consequently, the term sharif, which translates into ‘noble’ and which had a prior connotation of ‘birthright to position or wealth’, was subsequently transformed into a description of good character.Footnote ⁴⁸ Therefore, in the nineteenth century, ashraf, the plural form of sharif, denoted respectability in terms of birth, religion, material resources, and caste. In the ‘Ishqnama, a lineage that goes back to the Prophet Muhammad could be a claim about Wajid ‘Ali Shah's piety or his noble character; in another sense, furthermore, it allows Wajid ‘Ali Shah to elevate the caste standing of the women in his court into ashraf.Footnote ⁴⁹ Colonial officers consistently remarked on how many low-caste subjects made up Wajid ‘Ali Shah's retinue.Footnote ⁵⁰ By providing citational claims of the ties between the women of his court and the Prophet, Wajid ‘Ali Shah rebuts these charges by making them members of an elevated status group. At the same time, Wajid ‘Ali Shah rewrites the record by blurring the gradations of power among the women of his court by indicating that were all of a high social status when in fact they came from various socio-economic positions.Footnote ⁵¹ In reality, given their unequal social roles, these women must have experienced a range of different forms of physical and psychic violence.

Throughout the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah casts only females as objects of desire. The heterosexualization of the pictorial motifs in the ‘Ishqnama was a response to the colonial discourse that sought to undermine Wajid ‘Ali Shah and previous nawabs through the accusation of homosexuality (see the fourth section of this article). In a different context, Afsaneh Najmabadi has argued that, during Iranian nationalism, there was a disappearance of the young boy as the site of romantic and mystical desire as a direct result of contact with Europeans.Footnote ⁵² The case of the ‘Ishqnama and Wajid ‘Ali Shah reinforces Najmabadi's argument. Because of the colonial discourse surrounding previous nawabs, Wajid ‘Ali Shah selected only females as his lovers, not only out of his personal predilection, but also to combat the colonial discourse of effeminization and homoeroticism. The only males who figure predominately in the ‘Ishqnama are eunuchs. Unlike the females in his zenana, the eunuchs continue to swear their loyalty to Wajid ‘Ali Shah. For Wajid ‘Ali Shah, they are never desired, and they are highly trusted.

Wajid ‘Ali Shah incorporates different female bedfellows from a range of classes and races into his court and zenana. By doing so, he stages his marriages and sexual affairs to showcase his virility and imperial power.Footnote ⁵³ Each lover adds to Wajid ‘Ali Shah's power, since ‘symbolically the world, like his lovers’, is considered ‘under his protection’.Footnote ⁵⁴ To adopt an adage, the personal was political. This is especially true for rulers like Wajid ‘Ali Shah, whose sexuality needed to be mastered, since it translated into an ‘idealised masculinity of kingship’.Footnote ⁵⁵ In the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah makes sure to differentiate between mut'a, short-term marriages, and nikah marriages, which are permanent. He is emphatic that his lovers are under his protection, which ultimately displays and reinforces his kingship. However, Wajid ‘Ali Shah is very specific about who exactly is granted the benefits of his royal guardianship.

Throughout the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah performs his political sovereignty by emphasizing and idealizing his heterosexuality. This is evident in the dastan featuring Sahiba Khanum, an older servant in the employ of the nawabi court.Footnote ⁵⁶ At this point, Wajid ‘Ali Shah is 19 years old and is married to his first wife, Naik Akhtar. A love blossoms between Wajid ‘Ali Shah and Sahiba Khanum as she sings ghazals and dances for him, and they revel in their shared affection for ganjifa cards.Footnote ⁵⁷ During the course of his love affair with Sahiba Khanum, his wife suffers a miscarriage of their daughter, Murtaza Begum. The section, which directly follows the news of Murtaza Begum's death, is a matla’ ghazal that is devoted neither to his wife nor to his deceased daughter, but to Sahiba Khanum. Wajid ‘Ali Shah actively silences his wife's sorrow within the ‘Ishqnama's narrative structure in order to centre the narrative on himself and his sexual prowess. According to Wajid ‘Ali Shah's account, after his daughter's death, his wife, Naik Akhtar, acquiesces to his affair with Sahiba Khanum and decides Wajid ‘Ali Shah's desires (ḵẖẉāhish) should become hers as well.Footnote ⁵⁸

The miniature of folio 32v shows Sahiba Khanum displaying her thigh. Sahiba Khanum heated a part of a sitar (guitar) and struck her left thigh multiple times, causing fresh wounds (zaḵẖm). In the dastan, she dresses the wound herself and then proceeds to limp toward Wajid ‘Ali Shah so that he can tend to her maimed (lang) leg (Figure 2). This narrative of self-branding is repeated a few times in the ‘Ishqnama. As a motif, it allows Wajid ‘Ali Shah to gain complete control over his lovers’ submissive bodies and showcase the intensity of his own emotions. The physical act of disfigurement is reinforced by the ‘Ishqnama's poetic vocabulary. In the case of Sahiba Khanum, her state is described as heated (garm) from her eyes to her physical well-being, which becomes fatigued (ta‘ab) under her inflamed passion. Instead of reading the Sahiba Khanum dastan as merely describing Wajid ‘Ali Shah's cruel behaviour toward his wife and daughter, the narrative structure is in place so that the emotional ties between him and his lovers become synonymous with the dependency of a court on their king and a king on his court.

Figure 2.

‘Ishqnama, folio 32v. Sahiba Khanum, a singer, shows the prince the burn on her thigh and receives sympathy. 1257 (1841–42). RCIN 1005035. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020.

As in the Sahiba Khanum dastan, throughout the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah is accompanied by females. He is usually the only man in each pictorial scene. In this folio and in many others scattered throughout the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali constructs his sovereign subjectivity as an individual who pines after love. As in the Sahiba Khanum account, he is rarely pictorialized as actively engaging in bureaucratic matters. Expressing desire is not inimical to or an escape from rational governance. By reconsidering the politics of the ‘Ishqnama, we see that Wajid ‘Ali's governance occurs through his control of women such as Sahiba Khanum. His household, which includes his lovers, serves as a reflection of his state and his right to rule.

In another reading, however, the ‘Ishqnama offers varying levels of truthfulness about self-harm in the interest of aggrandizing the principal hero figure, Wajid ‘Ali Shah. The emotions of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's lovers are the most exaggerated. There are multiple instances in which his lovers become so jealous that they go beyond cases of self-harm such as the Sahiba Khanum dastan and move into the realm of attempted suicide. For instance, at his Chatterwala palace, one of his lovers, Nanhi Begum, goes to the top of a tower (burj) to end her life because she is jealous (rushk) of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's other lovers. Before she can commit suicide, Wajid ‘Ali Shah arrives and lectures her on her ‘irrational’ decision (‘āqil dūr).Footnote ⁵⁹ He claims that suicide is born out of ignorance (jahālat) and brings ‘disgrace’ (ruswā).Footnote ⁶⁰ She decides not to jump. Previously, Wajid ‘Ali did attempt suicide. He never labels his own actions as being against God, instead reserving such a judgement only for his lovers. In another dastan, the servant Hedari Begum attempts suicide (jān apnī dēnī pe ḥāẓir) by eating crushed (kūtā) glass because her desire (ārzū) for Wajid ‘Ali Shah is unrequited.Footnote ⁶¹ In the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah possesses such charisma that his lovers are bound to him and willing to sacrifice their lives. In the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali Shah's lovers are so enchanted by and in thrall to Wajid ‘Ali Shah that they no longer operate according to an austere ‘strategy of conduct’.Footnote ⁶² His magnetism is what binds his lovers, courtiers, and court to his rule.

In the ‘Ishqnama poetic narrative, one could argue that Wajid ‘Ali Shah's wives and lovers have some degree of power. When one of Wajid ‘Ali's servants and lovers, Umda Begum, attempts to leave the court, Naik Akhtar, Wajid ‘Ali's wife, argues that Umda cannot quit of her own volition because she was given by God and, as such, must abide by different rules.Footnote ⁶³ Although Naik Akhtar appears to have some agency in confronting Umda, her actions ultimately benefit Wajid ‘Ali Shah, as Umda Begum is his lover. To this end, various lovers physically display their devotion to Wajid ‘Ali Shah through their suicide attempts, displaying their frenzied love for him. These macabre displays of affection evince how some of these women operated with a bit of agency. They are rewarded with more money and freedom after each unsuccessful attempt.

In the ‘Ishqnama, even when his wives disobey him, the bedroom still remains an extension of Wajid ‘Ali's rule and power. Throughout the ‘Ishqnama, it appears that Wajid ‘Ali Shah is overwrought with emotions. He is jealous. His lovers deceive him and run off with other men. In dastan 75, this exact scenario plays out with one of his lovers, Sar-faraz Pari, who betrays him by seeking the company of other men. As a result of his heartbreak (dard-e jigar), he becomes melancholic (shiddat g̠am).Footnote ⁶⁴ His emotional pain manifests itself in his body. He is afflicted with (satānā) buboes (ḵẖiyārak), which are huge blisters on the lymph nodes. He is unable to stand properly and is extremely helpless (ma‘ẓūr). Through the course of his lovesickness for Sar-faraz Pari, he is driven to such a state of grief that he loses (farāmosh) his physical and emotional senses.Footnote ⁶⁵ Shortly thereafter, he strikes his left thigh with a heated hookah pipe (qaliyān), which in effect duplicates the behaviour of his lovers who underwent similar trials and burned themselves out of love. When Wajid ‘Ali Shah reveals his scars (dāg̠) to Sar-faraz Pari, she frivolously (‘abs) laughs at his pain.Footnote ⁶⁶ As this dastan illustrates, Wajid ‘Ali Shah's management of his household is not devoid of emotions. He expresses deep anguish at having to part with his lovers. They, in turn, do not always comply with his desires.

According to Wajid ‘Ali Shah, his effusive emotions are not a sign of weakness. Through the affective language of ‘ishq, Wajid ‘Ali Shah positions himself as the most esteemed ashiq, lover, for his court and his household. Further along in the ‘Ishqnama, Sar-faraz Pari becomes jealous, attempts suicide, and undergoes a self-imposed exile from the palace.Footnote ⁶⁷ She returns to Wajid ‘Ali Shah after a short period of time and apologizes (‘uẓr). As a result, their ardent love (ātish shauq) resumes once again.Footnote ⁶⁸ Wajid ‘Ali Shah uses this incident in which he seemingly loses control of his emotions and burns himself to showcase his emotional investment in his lovers and other courtly relationships. In addition, unlike some of his lovers, Wajid ‘Ali Shah always recovers from his passion. In a later dastan, Sar-faraz attempts suicide by consuming a diamond (almās) from a ring (nigīn).Footnote ⁶⁹ In the narrative, Sar-faraz suffers more than Wajid ‘Ali. She even miscarries. The exact line is: ‘She fell out of pregnancy. And I [Wajid ‘Ali Shah] suffered.’Footnote ⁷⁰ In the end, Wajid ‘Ali regains control over Sar-faraz by showcasing her misfortunes (muṣībat) and shifting the story back to his own emotions. Through narrative plot points such as his attempts at suicide and deep depression, Wajid ‘Ali shows that he grieves while at the same time these moments show his resilience. Through it all, he remains the central figure on which the entire narrative and the household pivot. Ultimately, Wajid ‘Ali Shah's suffering is part of his moral advancement that allows him to become a more just ruler, while the women are mere narrative devices so that he can attain emotional mastery over the emotions of others.

There are two dastans in the ‘Ishqnama that have been excised in later lithographs: dastan 66 and dastan 89. Focusing on one of them reveals the political subtleties at play in the original manuscript that have been lost in the later Parikhana copies. Dastan 66, which was excised from later Parikhana lithograph copies, is centred on a measured act of discipline, which ultimately highlights Wajid ‘Ali Shah's equanimity. In this dastan, Wajid ‘Ali doles out punishment to one of his female soldiers. His jurisprudence and measured response are symbolic of how he governs his court and his people.Footnote ⁷¹ Earlier on in the ‘Ishqnama, Wajid ‘Ali narrates that he created an army of women to protect himself, which consisted of mostly Turkish females. Previously, Wajid ‘Ali had attempted to reform his regular army, constituted of male soldiers, by introducing new disciplinary techniques. The East India Company put an end to his reforms and forced him to reduce the army.Footnote ⁷² By employing women, Wajid ‘Ali circumvents the colonial decrees meant to undermine his rule. For a short time, these Turkish women were his personal guards in his palace. Because of colonial regulations, Wajid ‘Ali Shah could not exert his authority over a touring army, but he had the means to discipline his intimate familiars.

In dastan 66, a member of his special troop is accused of deceitfulness (dagā). When he inquires after her (taḥqīq kiyā), members of his court reveal her relationship with a bath attendant (ḥammāmī). Wajid ‘Ali Shah's anger quickens at ‘her spreading lies’ (jhūt bātil) and he decides to use her as an example (ibrat) for his zenana. He consults shari‘a law (sharī‘at) and resolves to punish her by shaving her head (Figure 3).Footnote ⁷³ In the miniature, the scene of punishment appears tranquil. Wajid ‘Ali Shah oversees her punishment with cool detachment. By punishing the Turk solider, Wajid ‘Ali demonstrates his ability to discipline those in his zenana. These scenes symbolically demonstrate how he treated his other courtly relationships. He was just and ethical by following the rules of shari‘a law, as in the case of the solider.

Figure 3.

‘Ishqnama, dastan 66, folio 233r. RCIN 1005035. Source: Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020.

Here, it must be noted that many of his lovers were of Turkish or African descent, pointing explicitly to the question of slavery in Wajid ‘Ali Shah's court. The mechanism by which Wajid ‘Ali Shah recruited and enslaved these women who in effect served as reproductive pools needs further study. While many of these figures are marginal within the story, the ‘Ishqnama shines light on many of these lower-class women who were culled from local Indo-African households and recruited from Africa. Particularly, their specific geographic locale is pinpointed by their names, which are affixed with terms such as sīdī and zangī. In conjunction, generic markers such as colour further indicate that some of these women were of African descent. Indigenous terms associated with slavery, such as ghulām, bandī, and kanīz, are employed in the ‘Ishqnama not only to discuss these African women, but also to describe other women and men at Wajid ‘Ali Shah's court. In this case, slavery is not industrialized (i.e. chattel status). Instead, slavery in Avadh can be defined using the Richard Eaton's rubric of ‘the condition of uprooted outsiders, impoverished insiders—or the descendants of either—serving persons or institutions on which they are wholly dependent’.Footnote ⁷⁴ In this case, the slave or courtier has total dependency on the court and on their master, Wajid ‘Ali Shah. Thus, the relationship is a ‘reciprocal, contractual’ one in which ‘the slave owe[s] obedience and loyalty as well as service and labor to the master, while the latter owe[s] protection and support to the slave’.Footnote ⁷⁵ In thinking through these bonded sexual relationships in the ‘Ishqnama through the lens of slavery, the status differentials between Wajid Ali Shah and these women are emphasized. Thus, the concept of an erotics of sovereignty that I argue undergirds the ‘Ishqnama seeks to obfuscate the issue of consent and forced bondedness by focusing on love and desire as the driving forces behind Wajid ‘Ali Shah's relationships rather than coerced servitude. One productive aspect of the ‘Ishqnama manuscript is that it provides portraits of these enslaved women, which grants them a semblance of personhood. This differs from the copies, which further dehumanizes enslaved men and women by removing their images and visible presence.

Manuscripts were a costly enterprise. In this regard, Wajid ‘Ali Shah spared no expense, and the ‘Ishqnama was the most extravagant manuscript completed during his reign. Wajid ‘Ali Shah was not ashamed of his sexual history; he unabashedly circulated copies of the ‘Ishqnama during his exile in Calcutta. Copies were completed in both lithograph and handwritten forms, and news of the ‘Ishqnama's production likely travelled to other neighbouring courts through word-of-mouth transmission.Footnote ⁷⁶

The Parikhana and the other copies

Up to this point, for simplicity, I have referred to the lithograph copies as the Parikhana. Although this was the title of one of the lithographs, the history of their transmission entails a knottier story. There were various copies published with various titles, undertaken by various translators. Scribes first copied the ‘Ishqnama in 1848, prior to the manuscript's completion in 1849. This copy will hitherto be referred to as the Lahore Manuscript. It was the first copy to transform the ‘Ishqnama's poetry into prose. After that, there are scattered references to now missing copies that were printed in poetic verse during Wajid ‘Ali Shah's exile in Calcutta from 1856 to 1887. Two other lithograph copies, entitled Mahal Khana Shahi (The Royal King's House) and Parikhana (Fairy House), followed. These later copies made a number of narrative and linguistic changes over the course of their publication from 1914 to 1965. By following this chain of transmission, the elisions of some of the ‘Ishqnama manuscript's dastans along with the removal of the poetic format and the images can be interrogated more thoroughly. This section moves in a schematic and chronological order to trace the evolution of these copies and their differences from the ‘Ishqnama manuscript.

The Lahore Manuscript was crafted as a handwritten facsimile in 1848 and is currently located in the Punjab University Library in Lahore. It is the earliest datable copy of the ‘Ishqnama manuscript, the only one to be completed purely in Persian, the first to transform the ‘Ishqnama's verse form into prose, and the first to remove all visual material. The Lahore Manuscript is identifiable as the first reproduction because of its textual contents. First, it contains the following poetry on its last folios: ‘To history, the hemistiches of Akhtar are spoken. From my opportunity [to observe] the conditions of women’ (Be tārīḵẖ in guftah miṣra‘-i aḵẖtar. Az aḥvāl naswān kardim furṣat).Footnote ⁷⁷ These four lines do not appear in the ‘Ishqnama. They are found only in the Lahore Manuscript. The lines were later reprinted in the Mahal Khana Shahi (1914) and the Parikhana (1965) with minor edits.Footnote ⁷⁸ Since the Mahal Khana Shahi and Parikhana retain these lines, it is clear that the respective authors of the Parikhana copies had access to either the Lahore Manuscript or some version of it such as the Mahal Khana Shahi.Footnote ⁷⁹ Moreover, the Lahore Manuscript is the only version besides the ‘Ishqnama to mention the illustrations. Although the Lahore Manuscript does not contain any paintings, it does indicate when a picture appears, stating ‘a picture has been prepared’ (shabah taiyār shud). Such phrasing indicates that the writer(s) of the Lahore Manuscript either had direct access to the completed ‘Ishqnama or composed the Lahore Manuscript simultaneously with the creation of the paintings and manuscript of the ‘Ishqnama.

The Lahore Manuscript also contains the two dastans, namely dastans 66 and 89, found in the ‘Ishqnama that were later excised from lithograph copies of the Mahal Khana Shahi and Parikhana. One of the dastans, as mentioned in the previous section, describes Wajid ‘Ali Shah's ordering that one of his soldiers be whipped and her hair shaved. Given this inclusion, the scribes of the Lahore Manuscript must have read the original ‘Ishqnama, in which this dastan is illustrated and narrated (Figure 3). In the Lahore Manuscript, dastans 66 and 89 do not appear in sequential order with the rest of the dastans. A line is marked below the colophon, the last lines of the text, and the two dastans are written underneath as if the copyist realized his mistake and added them in haste. A subsequent copyist—for instance, the author of Mahal Khana Shahi of the 1914 edition—must have committed an error by not copying dastans 66 and 89, since they did not occur sequentially in the Lahore Manuscript. Another possibility is that the Mahal Khana Shahi author deliberately chose to excise this story.

Besides structural clues to the dating of the Lahore Manuscript, there is also an exact date in the colophon, which reads 1265/1848. The year 1849 is what is inscribed in the colophon of the ‘Ishqnama. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the ‘Ishqnama was initiated, at the latest, in 1848 and completed in 1849, during the first two years of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's rule. This means that either the scribe of the Lahore Manuscript obtained a version of the ‘Ishqnama before the calligrapher had finished the manuscript in 1849 or he copied the date in error. This date of 1265/1848 also appears in later copies, including the Mahal Khana Shahi and Parikhana. In the Mahal Khana Shahi, the lithograph bears the date of 1914, when it was completed, and the Hijra date of 1265, which aligns with the Lahore Manuscript and not the ‘Ishqnama.

The inclusion of elements of the Lahore Manuscript in later reproductions such as Mahal Khana Shahi and Parikhana—for instance, the same poetic language—bears witness to Wajid ‘Ali Shah's history of rebellion and exile. After the illustrated ‘Ishqnama was completed in 1849, Wajid ‘Ali Shah kept it in his possession until 1858, when British-allied soldiers raided his Lucknow palace. The soldiers subsequently gave the manuscript to their commanding superior, Sir John Lawrence, who presented it to Queen Victoria in 1859.Footnote ⁸⁰ In a letter addressing the ‘Ishqnama manuscript, Sir John Lawrence states:

In 1859, Sir John Lawrence was already deeming the ‘Ishqnama a ‘faithful illustration of [Wajid ‘Ali Shah's] life’. He underscored the idea that the ‘Ishqnama had historical veracity. To this day, the manuscript resides in the Queen's library in Windsor Castle. Unlike some of the other Indian manuscripts housed there, this manuscript was never intended to be given to the English.Footnote ⁸² Since the ‘Ishqnama was taken from India in 1858, the only means for its story to continue circulating after 1858 was through an already extant copy such as the Lahore Manuscript. One might thus speculate that scribes utilized the Lahore Manuscript rather than the ‘Ishqnama because it was the only source of reference available in northern India.

The Lahore Manuscript is the only reproduction to be handwritten and not in a lithograph format, and its composition resembles an akhbarat (a proto-newspaper) containing a number of Persian scripts by different scribal hands with varying degrees of legibility. The visual aspect of this copy was an afterthought. It is completed in the shikasta and naskh scripts, which expedite writing, rather than the neat, clean nastaliq script used throughout the ‘Ishqnama. Furthermore, throughout the Lahore Manuscript, sentences and phrases are repeatedly crossed out. Given its perfunctory appearance, the Lahore Manuscript was most likely produced simultaneously with the ‘Ishqnama, serving as a kind of rough draft for Wajid ‘Ali Shah's artisans in his kitabkhana, hence its early date of 1265/1848. In the Lahore Manuscript's colophon, a title, ‘A Piece of History [qita‘ tārīkh]’, is included—a phrase that concludes both the Mahal Khana Shahi and the Parikhana copies, much like the specific phrasing of ‘To history, the hemistiches of Akhtar are spoken’. As mentioned, unlike these later copies, the Lahore Manuscript does not end there. The appearance of the two appended dastans suggests that the scribe copied the colophon too quickly before completing the correct order of the dastans. This likelihood reinforces the notion that the Lahore Manuscript served as a draft form of the ‘Ishqnama. Much of the commentary in the margins of the Lahore Manuscript contains potential chapter titles for the dastans and indicates when paintings appear. They also contain brief asides. The margins of the Lahore Manuscript thus point to another possible point of circulation. The presence of the marginalia may mean that various readers had access to the Lahore Manuscript and spent enough time studying it to offer commentary. In many cases, akhbarat were not only distributed textually in bound book form, but also orally disseminated. As with akhbarat, the appearance of the Lahore Manuscript was secondary because the orator would have read it out loud to a group of listeners who could not visually perceive the text. Wajid ‘Ali Shah may have elected to have two types of texts produced: one a handwritten copy that would have gained a wider audience through oral transmission and the other a luxurious manuscript copy for his own private courtly use.

There were also political and technological reasons for Wajid ‘Ali Shah's decision to disseminate both the ‘Ishqnama and the Lahore Manuscript in a handwritten form and not through a lithograph press. By 1820, Nawab Ghazi al-din Haidar (r. 1814–27) had established a lithograph printing press in Lucknow.Footnote ⁸³ Aloys Sprenger, who catalogued the Lucknow Palace Library, noted that, by 1830, there was an active printing press, which increased the availability ‘of periodical and light literature’.Footnote ⁸⁴ By 1849, 700 books had been lithographed in Lucknow and the nearby city of Cawnpore.Footnote ⁸⁵ After a series of events, Wajid ‘Ali Shah abolished both the lithograph and printing presses from 1849 until 1857. He also closed down the Lucknow Observatory in 1849.Footnote ⁸⁶ In his official statement on the matter, Wajid ‘Ali Shah argued that his court could no longer bear the expense and upkeep of both presses and the observatory. Yet British Resident Sleeman accused Wajid ‘Ali Shah of shutting down the press because it had printed and distributed an unflattering text: Qaisar ut-Tawārīkh. The author of Qaisar ut-Tawārīkh, Sayyid Kamal ud din Haidar, happened to be a ‘superintendent of the Avad observatory office’.Footnote ⁸⁷ According to Sleeman, Wajid ‘Ali Shah closed down the press and observatory to take a stand against those who had undermined his authority. In either case, with the press no longer operational, Wajid ‘Ali Shah elected to transcribe and circulate the ‘Ishqnama as the handwritten Lahore Manuscript instead of reversing his earlier decree.

The question becomes this: why did Wajid ‘Ali Shah transform the ‘Ishqnama's Urdu poetry into Persian prose in the Lahore Manuscript? To take it from a different angle: as a poet himself, why did Wajid ‘Ali Shah elect to summarize the ‘Ishqnama in Persian prose? I propose that the dissemination of the Lahore Manuscript was somewhat accidental and not the only means for his story to circulate. Wajid ‘Ali Shah intended the Lahore Manuscript to be a rough draft of his ‘Ishqnama manuscript and only after the ‘Ishqnama manuscript was carried off in 1858 did he rely on the Lahore Manuscript as his only means of recalling the story. This would explain the Lahore Manuscript's sloppy appearance and its haphazard assembly. It is unclear whether Wajid ‘Ali Shah circulated the Lahore Manuscript in an akhbarat style of transmission before or after the ‘Ishqnama was forcibly removed from India in 1858. Another possibility is that, with the Lahore Manuscript as his guide, soon afterward, Wajid ‘Ali Shah lithographed the ‘Ishqnama in verse.

After the rebellion and while in exile in Calcutta, Wajid ‘Ali Shah was given a sizable pension of about a ‘hundred thousand rupees’. He spent some of his funds constructing a housing complex in Garden Reach (Matiya Burj), Calcutta, and re-establishing a printing press, Matba-e Sultani, in the area. Matba-e Sultani literally translates into ‘royal printing press’. Many of the books published by Matba-e Sultani were distributed free of charge from 1860 to 1885.Footnote ⁸⁸ Wajid ‘Ali Shah thereby enabled a wider audience to gain access to his library collection and his writings.Footnote ⁸⁹ Reversing his earlier order on the printing press, Wajid ‘Ali Shah published many of his poetry collections and novels through lithography during his exile in Calcutta.Footnote ⁹⁰

I have so far been unable to locate the lithographed form of the ‘Ishqnama in poetic verse. Scant references to its existence appear in both Urdu and English.Footnote ⁹¹ The most intriguing citation is in the History of Avadh written by Najm ul-Ghani in 1919. In his fifth and final volume, Najm ul-Ghani utilizes the ‘Ishqnama extensively to reconstruct Wajid ‘Ali Shah's life and rule.Footnote ⁹² Najm ul-Ghani reproduces exact poetic verses that appear in the ‘Ishqnama manuscript and, I assume, in the missing lithographed copy. Before launching into a long quotation and summary of the ‘Ishqnama's Urdu poetry, Najm ul-Ghani states: ‘Wajid ‘Ali Shah (bādshāh) versified (mauzūn) in a mansavi the conditions (kaifīyat) of his youthfulness (shabāb).’ Further down, he demarcates the various versions of the ‘Ishqnama, stating: ‘[A]nd here and there (kahīṅ-kahīṅ) Wajid ‘Ali Shah's poetry (sher) on his palatial abode (maḥal) will also be copied (naql) word for word (bi-‘ainihi).’Footnote ⁹³ Even though this versified copy (naql) that Najm ul-Ghani Rampuri refers to has not been located, it is clear that historians and a larger public as early as 1919 had access to it in a lithographed form. As such, the Lahore Manuscript, with its Persian prose, was not the primary mode by which readers consumed and comprehended the ‘Ishqnama. Instead, I contend that this missing lithograph copy of the ‘Ishqnama in poetic verse (mauzūn) served as the main material format for the Urdu-speaking public sphere from the 1860s to the 1910s. In preserving the poetry in this missing lithograph copy, Wajid ‘Ali Shah must have perceived that a reading public could understand the subtleties of his Urdu poetry. Significantly, at this point, Najm ul-Ghani Rampuri does not mention the retention of any signs of painting or hashiya decorations in the print copies. In only 50 years, the aesthetics of the print book had already greatly changed the original ‘Ishqnama manuscript.

Beyond the ‘Ishqnama copies, in Calcutta, lithography was an important technology for Wajid ‘Ali Shah, as the format allowed him to dispute many of the colonial myths that circulated about him. In one of his printed poems, entitled ‘From Lucknow to Kolkata’, Wajid ‘Ali Shah comments directly on the unfair treatment he has received from the British. He cites the toxicity of the Bengal landscape and the inescapable ecology of exile as his evidence. In one line, he ruminates: ‘Bengal is hot, it is charmingly barren (lūn) and it intensely (tapish) eats up everything.’Footnote ⁹⁴ He further elaborates that ‘to whoever was alive (jānwar), he/it opened his/its mouth to him’.Footnote ⁹⁵ In this poem, bodies both animal and human in the barren landscape of Bengal function as testimonials, bearing witness to the trauma, injustice, violence, and pain of exile. He dramatizes the inherent otherness of Bengal, suggesting that his own body is being transformed by the new landscape. He is ‘eaten up’ by Bengal. Noticeably, in the poem, Wajid ‘Ali Shah has no qualms about using his press to comment on politically charged topics in the poetic register.Footnote ⁹⁶

‘Abdul Halim Sharar (1860–1926), who lived in the same area of Calcutta as Wajid ‘Ali Shah, attests to the fact that ‘Ishqnama copies circulated in the city in poetic verse.Footnote ⁹⁷ As part of the ‘Muslim education and reform movement’, Sharar had a very low opinion of Wajid ‘Ali Shah and his ‘Ishqnama text, since it was of little educational value.Footnote ⁹⁸ In a series of articles written in around 1913, Sharar penned his response to reading the ‘Ishqnama, stating:

Sharar states that he read a text of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's ‘love-affairs and hundreds of the amorous escapades (rindāna e‘tidālin) of his early youth’ that was completed in the ‘[masnavī] style and versified (mauzūn)’ form. Shahar's description of the ‘Ishqnama as a poetic copy is similar to Najm ul-Ghani Rampuri's specific terminology referring to a ‘versified masnavi’. Besides the charge of obscenity, Sharar's response also makes it evident that the lithograph press afforded Wajid ‘Ali Shah the opportunity to recover his poetic voice and distribute his poems and books to a large reading audience during his exile. With Shahar's and Najm ul-Ghani Rampur's strong testimonials, the existence of an ‘Ishqnama copy in poetic verse also validates Orsini's profound argument that earlier commercial publishers in northern India selected ‘texts of pleasure’—those that had resonance with an oral performative past.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Clearly, at the start of the twentieth century, the poetics of the ‘Ishqnama were still viable and were inherently a pleasurable part of the reading and listening experience for consuming the story. Wajid ‘Ali Shah's poetics, as Sharar's response strongly indicates, was judged for its aesthetic message and measured against those of other poets.

After the Lahore Manuscript and the missing poetic copy, the next extant ‘Ishqnama copies are from 1914 and 1926. Both are entitled Mahal Khana Shahi and are printed in Urdu, not Persian. They were circulated during the rise of vernacular print in India and under the auspices of the new obscenity laws that passed in the Indian Penal Code, section 292, which banned the distribution and sale of obscene books. Administrators began to enforce the code in 1862, but the law had wide-reaching effects only after the 1940s. This was also the period of British Repression in India that spanned 1907–47. These laws had very little effect on the distribution of the ‘Ishqnama copies, since British administrators did not disapprove of it. Only a handful of readers such as ‘Abdul Halim Sharar, not government officials, considered the text obscene (ashlil).

During the period when the Mahal Khana Shahi was published, obscene materials in Hindi were part of the ‘publishing boom’ in the area around Uttar Pradesh.Footnote ¹⁰¹ According to Charu Gupta: ‘The number of presses in Uttar Pradesh had risen from 177 in 1878–79 to 568 in 1901–02 and 743 in 1925–26.’Footnote ¹⁰² She states: ‘By the early twentieth century, wide-ranging pulp and popular literature—semi-pornographic sex manuals and romances in colloquial Hindi, thin tracts and small formats of songs and poems in Braj, flooded the market in Uttar Pradesh.’Footnote ¹⁰³ The Mahal Khana Shahi operated for a slightly different public audience than these Hindi tracts because it was completed in Urdu. Nevertheless, Gupta's observations stand. Obscenity laws did little to curb the publication of erotic texts, since the term ‘obscene’ encompassed such a vast amount of literature. Only a few books were publicly vilified at the time. In 1927, Pandey Becan Sharma ‘Ugra's Chaklet was published—a story that ‘dealt with issues of sodomy, sexual acts between adult males and adolescent boys, and other aspects of male homosexuality’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ It garnered the most public and governmental ire. While readers such as Sharar might have disapproved of Mahal Khana Shahi, the text was never under state surveillance.

The debacca (introductions) of the Mahal Khana Shahi editions contain further information on the book's public reception. Abdahkar Mirza Fiza ‘Ali Khanjar, who created the first Mahal Khana Shahi copy in 1914, states in the foreword:

Like other future copyists, Khanjar names the space in which he initially discovered the ‘Ishqnama text. He found a lithograph copy in the library of the lawyer Muhammad Yusuf Hussain Khan Sahab Bahadar, which speaks to the fact that the book had currency in middle- and upper-class Urdu-speaking circles. Khanjar further states:

Khanjar positions himself as a historian whose duty (farẓ) is to honestly translate Wajid ‘Ali Shah's text. Khanjar's analysis of the ‘Ishqnama as a truthful history deviates slightly from Sharar's earlier stance positing the ‘Ishqnama as a history but also as a poetic descendant of Urdu poets such as Shauq. Sharar, unlike Khanjar, may have seen the ‘Ishqnama as part of Lucknow's Urdu repertoire because he read the text in the poetic format. By 1914, Khanjar may have had access only to a copy in prose. The only indication of which format Khanjar read is his comment that he read the book History of the Parikhana—a title that so far has not surfaced on a lithographed copy. In either case, whether Khanjar had access to the prose or the poetic copy, he considered the book a truthful representation of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's royal family and judged them to be obsessed with sex and pleasure (‘aish).

In response to Mahal Khana Shahi's popularity, Nami Press in Lucknow published a second edition in 1926 under the same title, and Abdahkar Mirza Fida Ali Khanjar is still credited as the author. The Mahal Khana Shahi copies of 1914 and 1926 mark the moment at which the ‘Ishqnama copies came to be distributed exclusively in a legible Urdu prose format. While the majority of the sentences are in prose, Mahal Khana Shahi does gesture to the ‘Ishqnama's poetic past by including a few ghazals. They appear at the end of certain dastans. However, these ghazals are not from the original ‘Ishqnama manuscript and appear to be Abdahkar Mirza Fida Ali Khanjar's invention. Many historians writing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries utilized these two editions of 1914 and 1926 as references when researching and completing their books on the nawabate of Avadh.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ But it is with these editions that the ‘Ishqnama and the reading public forsook the poetic register, as these copies were exclusively printed primarily in prose.

In 1965, the writer Tehsen Sarwari undertook the next ‘Ishqnama edition, entitled Parikhana. In the text, he made a number of linguistic edits.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ First, as in the introduction of the Mahal Khana Shahi, there is a narrative of discovery to justify his translations. Tehsen Sarwari states:

Like Khanjar before him, Tehsen Sarwari felt compelled to translate this text from Persian into Urdu. Later in his introduction, Tehsen Sarwari reveals that he was not translating from a pure Persian text, but was in fact reading a subsequent Urdu copy:

This description makes it clear that Tehsen Sarwari worked from some version of the Mahal Khana Shahi. He did not translate between languages, but modified the Urdu linguistic register from a florid Persianized Urdu into a simplified Urdu with a few Persian verbs. The simplification in Tehsen Sarwari's translation implies that there must have been a shift in audience and audience expectations for Urdu novels by the 1960s. The Mahal Khana Shahi's literary Urdu, which includes Persian terminology and metaphoric speech, gives way to the Parikhana's accessible Urdu register, which is very plain and direct. In the Parikhana, Tehsen Sarwari retains only half of the ghazals found in the Mahal Khana Shahi, further reducing the role of poetry in Wajid ‘Ali Shah's original manuscript and in his political thought.

Much like his prose, Tehsen Sarwari's analysis of the ‘Ishqnama is quite dry. He states:

By the 1960s, as Tehsen Sarwari's introduction testifies, Wajid ‘Ali Shah and his text were disparaged for concentrating on the subject of sexual pleasure.Footnote ¹¹²

By focusing on the form of the ‘Ishqnama copies, we can better understand why Wajid ‘Ali and his book were considered deviant. For instance, the switch from poetry to prose in the copies masks the connections of the ‘Ishqnama to Indo-Persianate rules of comportment and justice. To this end, many of the translators of the ‘Ishqnama copies elide this connection and, in their introductory remarks, describe the ‘Ishqnama as historical non-fiction. Such a claim bolsters the idea that, during his tenure as nawab, Wajid ‘Ali Shah was so consumed by love and sex that he neglected statecraft.

Discomfort with the ‘Ishqnama manuscript

The ‘Ishqnama manuscript has received very little scholarly attention. And the few cultural figures who have remarked on the manuscript, including ‘Abdul Halim Sharar (1860–1926), Mildred Archer (1911–2005), and the director Satyajit Ray (1921–92), all equate the ‘Ishqnama with perversity and decadency. Beyond these few cases, there has been a general amnesia about the art historical, historical, and literary significance of the ‘Ishqnama manuscript. Just as importantly, when it does enter academic discourse, historians have drawn from the Urdu copies and not from the original manuscript.

Before turning to these figures, a word must be said about the archiving principle of non-normativity within the nawabi bloodline, which affected the reception of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's poems and his sexual practices. A discourse of native sexual non-normativity emerged under the British and was part and parcel of the British imperial and colonial project to undermine the political sovereignty of the nawabs and other native princes. The roots of this discourse began in the eighteenth century and stretched to the sunset of the nawabs’ reign in 1856. Colonial and imperial officers disparaged the role of women in the nawabi court, the nawabs’ clothing, their femininity, and their non-normative sexuality for the following nawabs: Shuja‘ al-Daula (r. 1754–75), Asaf al-Daula (r. 1775–97), Ghazi al-din Haidar (r. 1814–27), Nasir al-din Haidar (r. 1827–37), Muhammad ‘Ali Shah (r. 1837–42), and Amjad ‘Ali Shah (r. 1842–47). The last nawab, Wajid ‘Ali Shah (r. 1847–56), accrued all of his forefathers’ deviant signifiers. The role of empire and colonialism in characterizing the nawabs and their sexuality as excessive must not be forgotten when examining the reception of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's ‘Ishqnama.

A snapshot of this is found in the words of Captain Shakespeare, a British officer stationed in Avadh who wrote a dismissive report about Wajid ‘Ali Shah (r. 1847–56) to the governor general of India on 29 September 1845, stating:

For Shakespeare, Wajid ‘Ali Shah strayed far beyond the line of propriety in terms of his decorum and sexual practices. Shakespeare's authoritative text served as a technique of the modern British empire to impose its sovereignty and forcefully seize desired territory. His statement was later utilized in the 1855 Outram report, which justified the annexation of Avadh by depicting Wajid ‘Ali Shah as an unfit ruler. The report was named after James Outram, who served as the final British Resident of Avadh from 1854 to 1856. Much of Outram's rhetoric was an extension of Shakespeare's and Dalhousie's writings. Dalhousie, who had a low opinion of Wajid ‘Ali Shah, was appointed governor general of India from 1848 to 1856.Footnote ¹¹⁴ Together, these officers’ writings formed a citational chain that attempted to justify the deposal of Avadhi courtly culture.

After British annexation, Wajid ‘Ali Shah settled permanently in Calcutta, where he sought to recreate the former glory of his Lucknow court. One of the many inhabitants of Garden Reach (Matiya Burj), as the new courtly space came to be known, was ‘Abdul Halim Sharar, a historian, novelist, and reformer. Sharar's opinions about morality and state governance are quite visible in his literary output. The premise of one of his novels, Firdaus-i Birin (Paradise on Earth), for instance, centres on the dangers of superstitions to show the virtues of reason—a quality that Sharar believed Wajid ‘Ali Shah lacked.

Sharar was the first author to link Wajid ‘Ali Shah's debauchery with the ‘Ishqnama manuscript. In Hindustān men Mashriqī Tamaddun kā ākhirī Namūnah, originally printed as a series of articles around 1913, Sharar reserves his most scathing remarks for the last nawab, stating he was a ‘criminal (mujrim)’ for engaging in sexual affairs and publishing details on them.Footnote ¹¹⁵ He further explains his revulsion for the ‘Ishqnama, stating:

Because the ‘Ishqnama manuscript was already in England by the time he penned his scathing review, Sharar must have read a lithograph copy of the ‘Ishqnama that was completed in a poetic format and with no accompanying images. Having read one of these ‘Ishqnama copies, Sharar states that Wajid ‘Ali Shah's book transgressed both taste and morality. Wajid ‘Ali Shah is deemed a criminal (mujrim) and unchaste (na–pak). Sharar takes the ‘Ishqnama copy as an accurate reflection of reality and accepts the claim that Wajid ‘Ali Shah fell in love with hundreds of women. As a fellow writer, Sharar could not forgive Wajid ‘Ali Shah for debasing poetry with his ‘obscene’ (fāḥish) language.

The charge of obscenity against the ‘Ishqnama continued during the formation of the discipline of South Asian art history, and has animated discussions on Wajid ‘Ali Shah's literary and artistic patronage. Mildred Archer, former curator of the India Office Library in London, catalogued and curated exhibitions on Indian paintings. She was the first to review the ‘Ishqnama based on its art historical merit. In 1955, she stated that, within the ‘Ishqnama:

Archer's emotive vocabulary such as ‘pleasure’, ‘voluptuousness’, ‘fever’, and ‘squalor’ devalues the literary conceits and aesthetics of the ‘Ishqnama. To turn Archer's interpretation on its head, the ‘Ishqnama painting style could be considered refined rather than voluptuous. The ‘fevered colour’ could be described as subdued. A sense of royalty rather than squalor could be all-pervading. I reverse Archer's language here so that one can more easily notice that Archer's discussions of the ‘Ishqnama are not objective and are conditioned by colonial paradigms of decadence and excessive sexuality. For Archer, this manuscript reifies the logic of colonialism according to which, by surrounding himself with women, Wajid ‘Ali Shah was feminized and emasculated as an Oriental despot.

Such an attitude has persisted in contemporary reception of the ‘Ishqnama. For example, the 1977 film Shatranj ke Khilari (The Chess Players) centres on Wajid ‘Ali Shah's court, and has been studied as a postcolonial film that ‘critiques both colonialist and nationalist constructions’.Footnote ¹¹⁸ To achieve this aim, the filmmaker Satyajit Ray notably refused to read the ‘Ishqnama, and instead pulled from a number of resources including British documents and the expertise of Urdu historians to create a semi-historical film.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Since Satyajit drew from local sources, the film not only reflects Satyajit's personal feelings toward the nawab, but also highlights the myths of Wajid ‘Ali Shah circulating in the Indian public sphere. While undertaking research for his film, Satyajit states that he encountered a manuscript detailing Wajid ‘Ali's sexual exploits beginning at a very young age. The manuscript in question was most likely a copy of the ‘Ishqnama. Refusing to read this text, Satyajit remarked to one of his researchers, Manikda: ‘[D]on't tell me all this [about the ‘Ishqnama] because then I'll dislike him [Wajid ‘Ali Shah] even more.’ Satyajit wanted to complete the film as an impartial party, and he thought that Wajid ‘Ali's overt sexuality only reinforced colonial historiography, claiming that a decadent king needed to be overthrown. As Satyajit notes: ‘He [Wajid ‘Ali Shah] even had no hesitation in showing shamefully low taste and in using obscene language.’ Eventually, after further research, Satyajit gained greater sympathy for Wajid ‘Ali Shah, but this research did not include reading the ‘Ishqnama. Footnote ¹²⁰ After Shatranj ke Khilari was released, a debate erupted over Satyajit Ray's construction of Wajid ‘Ali's gender.Footnote ¹²¹

These recent assumptions by art historians and filmmakers throughout the twentieth century show the resilience of the association between Wajid ‘Ali Shah and the ‘Ishqnama and opprobrium and disrepute. But these representations derived from different versions of the ‘Ishqnama. While in England, Archer mostly likely saw the original ‘Ishqnama manuscript, as she remarks on the paintings, which are available only in the manuscript format. Her disgust for the ‘Ishqnama may have stemmed from the fact that she did not read Urdu or Persian and therefore could not understand the text and its crucial relationship to the images. Archer could only make a superficial analysis based on the paintings. For his part, Satyajit Ray's research assistants most likely read the ‘Ishqnama as an Urdu lithograph copy. In that format, the ‘Ishqnama reads more like a factual biography, which would have been useful for Satyajit's quest for objective documents and historicity. Paradoxically, however, he refused to engage with a text that was too truthful. The lithograph copies, for their part, seemingly bolstered the idea that Wajid ‘Ali Shah undertook passionate affairs at the expense of his politics.

Such cases of turning to the copies are the norm, including in more recent engagements. Historian G. D. Bhatnagar's careful study of Wajid ‘Ali Shah's court, completed in 1968, uses a version of the lithograph copies. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones's recent monograph on Wajid ‘Ali Shah, published in 2014, utilized primarily the Parikhana copy.Footnote ¹²² Recently, art historian Tushara Bindu Gude in 2011 and Emily Hannam in 2018 commented on the ‘Ishqnama manuscript in short catalogue entries.Footnote ¹²³ Though abbreviated, these entries are a much-needed rejoinder to previous scholarship.

The ‘Ishqnama has long carried with it the stigma of its historical period. In alignment with Allison Busch's argument on Riti poetry and its relationship with Indian courts, there are three main reasons why Wajid ‘Ali Shah's literature and his courtly culture are earmarked as decadent.Footnote ¹²⁴ First, there is an assumption that the culture of the court of the nawabs, especially Wajid ‘Ali Shah, facilitated British colonization. This notion is apparent in the colonial discourse on the nawabs’ sexuality, which was used to discredit the native right to rule to justify replacing the nawabs with a supposedly more rational colonial system. Second, the literature by these ‘emasculated’ courtly rulers looked backward to Islamicate motifs instead of forward to so-called modern European tropes. As such, Wajid ‘Ali's gender and sexuality served as a symbol of non-normativity and backwardness for Indian nationalists and colonialists alike, as encapsulated in Sharar's reaction. Third, during Indian nationalism, these texts were measured against new moral criteria. In this context, Wajid ‘Ali's sexuality was considered a blight on the nation of India and was a site of moral disavowal.Footnote ¹²⁵ Sharar was the first to push this sentiment regarding the ‘Ishqnama, and his position was inadvertently reinforced by Satyajit Ray. This history cannot be disentangled from the current reception of the ‘Ishqnama and helps t explain the text's absence from literary studies. Moreover, the active silencing of the ‘Ishqnama in current media productions such as Shatranj ke Khilari as well as the art historical amnesia surrounding the work's miniatures and the text's literary merit also stem from its colonial reception.