ANST-701 Lessons

The students enter the Ancient Studies classroom and quietly take their seats. They immediately notice that the professor is sitting on the edge of her desk, hands resting gently in her lap, with a bit of a sad look on her face. Her usual start-of-class antics are nowhere to be seen.

Glancing up at her students, she smiles a bit, then gestures towards an old portrait of a beautiful young woman displayed on her desk. The woman in the portrait smiles back a bit wistfully, waves shyly at the class, then ducks out of sight.

Hello again, my dears. I have to say that the story of one of the famous witches and wizards we are discussing today does make me a touch melancholy. You see, she died quite young, which never fails to remind me that sometimes, life just isn’t fair. But, let’s see what we can learn today, shall we?

Mumtaz Mahal

You should recall the historical figure, Shah Jahan, from our previous lesson. He is generally considered the last emperor of India’s golden age and was a great and comparatively kind ruler to those who came after. In no small part, his successes were due to one of his wives, Mumtaz Mahal. Yes, I did say one of his wives. It was quite common for rulers and men of high stature in ancient India to take multiple wives. Most often, these marriages were for political gain, however the marriage between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal was one of great love. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself once again.

Mumtaz Mahal was actually born under the name Arjumand Banu Begum on April 27, 1593. Her parents, both magical, were from Persia and had come to Agra, India where they were in service to the current emperor, Emperor Jahangir (Shah Jahan’s father). Their position was due to the family’s relationship with the then-empress, Nur Jahan. Nur Jahan was only one of the emperor’s many wives, but she was almost certainly the most powerful, and it was noted that Nur Jahan essentially controlled the emperor. Eventually, when Mumtaz and her husband came to power, she held a similar role of power and influence alongside her husband.

It was a well-known fact at the time that the Mumtaz’s family had deep roots in the wizarding world. They could trace their magical lineage back many tens of generations. However, she chose to employ her magic in a very subtle manner and her marriage to the shah was more one of equality than one controlling the other in secret.

In addition to her magical heritage, Mumtaz was known for her great kindness, compassion, and beauty. It was for these things that Shah Jahan fell in love with Mumtaz at the tender age of 15 ( Mumtaz was 14 at the time). While marriages at this age were fairly commonplace, an unnamed royal adviser who excelled at arithmancy determined that they should not be married until a very specific date: April 30, 1612, some five years after their betrothal, much to their dismay. This delay resulted in Mumtaz becoming Shah Jahan’s second wife, as he entered a political marriage in 1609. However, it was deemed necessary to ensure that their marriage was a long, happy, and prosperous one. For the sake of completeness, I should note that a third wife was added to the mix in 1617, again for purely political reasons.

However, quite honestly, it was as if the other two wives did not exist. While Shah Jahan did fulfill his obligations by siring a child with each of the other wives, his entire attention and devotion was to Mumtaz. In fact, it was Shah Jahan who gave Mumtaz her new name. Mumtaz Mahal, which translates roughly into “the exalted one of the palace,” and is a very accurate depiction of the dynamic according to all historical accounts. Not only did it accurately reflect Shah Jahan’s feelings for Mumtaz, but also the power that he entrusted to her as far as affairs of the state.

You see, Mumtaz was a wonderful person - and an extremely powerful seer. It was through her guidance that Shah Jahan planned his military campaigns. She knew the outcomes of battles before they were fought and, showing some skill in arithmancy, would assist with determining when the men should march, and who should lead which division. As such a valuable asset, she often travelled with Shah Jahan on these campaigns.

In addition to her prowess in guiding military campaigns, she was equally, if not more so, the moral compass of the throne. Seated by Shah Jahan during court proceedings, she was the one who would stay his hand when the Shah was considering the death penalty for someone who was quite repentant. It was she who would convince the Shah to give mercy and food to those so poor that they stole simply so they could eat. Conversely, if Shah Jahan was not certain that the death penalty was warranted, Mumtaz would encourage that sentence if she believed - most likely through her magical abilities - that the offender would continue on their dark path. At all times, the shah heeded her quiet wisdom and followed her advice. So much did the shah value her political acumen that he entrusted her with his royal seal, effectively giving her absolute authority over the empire in his absence.

Mumtaz and Shah Jahan had 14 children together, many of whom died at birth or at a young age, which was quite common for the time. It was the aftermath of the birth of their last son, ironically one of their longest-lived offspring, that resulted in Mumtaz’s death at the age of 39. Death from childbirth was, sadly, still extremely common in the 1700s, even if you were a witch. 

While incredibly tragic, Mumtaz’s death is also fascinating from a magical perspective, as her incredible abilities as a seer most increased the likelihood that she knew of her death beforehand, or at least some of the details surrounding it. Muggle scholars quite often scratch their heads at the fact that a woman so heavily pregnant would accompany her husband on a military campaign - for that is where they were when she died. These scholars sometimes go so far as to blame her death on this journey and hardship. 

I, and other magical scholars, have a different theory. We believe that Mumtaz knew she was going to die and, given her inherent abilities, may have determined that she would die no matter where the child was born. Given that knowledge, it is no wonder that she decided to die in the arms of the man whom she loved so very deeply. I am not a seer myself, but given the choice, I would most likely do the same, were it possible.

The legacy of Mumtaz Mahal lived on in her children, especially her daughter, Jahanara Begum, who herself had great magical talent, albeit somewhat less than her mother. It was Jahanara who helped her father return from a year of mourning for Mumtaz and took her mother’s place by his side as his trusted advisor.

Shah Jahan never recovered from Mumtaz’s death. It took him 22 years and a great deal of magic, as we discussed last class, to create the tomb he deemed worthy enough for the love of his life - the Taj Mahal - where he too was eventually entombed.

I do realize that the story of Mumtaz is a bit depressing, though an example of the great use of magic in ancient India. Hopefully our other person of interest will leave us a bit less melancholy… though his story may have you shaking your head in disbelief at times!

Mohammed Chhel and the Statute of Secrecy

Now, Mohammed Chhel is not really someone from a truly “ancient” period of India. However, his antics and, more importantly, how he got away with them are quite relevant to our discussion of magic and India. 

As you may recall from our previous lesson, charlatans were employed to convince Muggles that magic was not real. A true wizard might do some sort of a spell and then explain it away as a trick or sleight of hand. And there is no wizard that I know of over the last hundred years that was as adept at this trickery as Mohammed Chhel, although he grew quite tired of it in the end. Let me set the scene for you:

Born in 1850 in a small, rural, Indian village, Chhel was identified by the magical community as having great talent at a young age. Given that the magical government had decided to use trickery and misdirection to hide the presence of magic from Muggles, Chhel was given as much instruction in misdirection as he was in actual magical use. Chhel excelled in his studies, most particularly in the areas of charms, divination, and healing. What set Chhel apart from his fellow wizards at the time, however, was that his moral compass was most often pointed directly at the betterment of his fellow man. 

It was this compass that got him into trouble and caused the greatest breach in the International Statute of Secrecy before that mess in New York in the 1920s; a breach that, unlike the events in New York, has not been sealed completely enough for many officials.

You see, Chhel wanted to help people, and he did not care if those people were magical or Muggle. In his younger years he stayed firmly on the side of magical law, however in his later years, he could not turn away from the Muggles that needed his help. He believed that a few “miracles” here and there could be written off as trickery or a divine act, and that his rural location would cause his deeds to be forgotten quickly and easily. 

Obviously Chhel had never pursued an education in ancient studies, as he would have learned - as you have all seen in our discussions on many civilizations in this class - that the oral history of a people lasts for centuries, if not millenia. Or perhaps he did know and simply did not care about the consequences.

Regardless of his reasoning, in the early 1900s, Chhel took it upon himself to ignore the ISoS and work openly in front of Muggles. Some of his feats - such as the use of his healing skills on a sickly woman - were altruistic. He could also be found ferreting out the truth from those who were lying, presumably through his divinatory expertise. In other cases, his antics were self-serving, such as when he used a variation of the Gemino Curse to multiply the train ticket of another passenger when the conductor asked for his (which he had not purchased). Muggle tales of this particular event state that Chhel shot hundreds of tickets at the conductor apparently from his chin, which seems like an odd place to focus the magic, but to each his own.

More startling than Chhel’s open magical feats was the local Ministry’s response to both its use and the Muggle stories that began circulating about a mystic in rural India. They did nothing! At least at first. Perhaps they too believed that no one would put any stock in the stories. They were wrong.

As tales of the mystic spread, the Ministry soon bowed to the pressure of other magical agencies in surrounding countries as these agencies were concerned that stories would travel to their countries, putting their measures to separate the magical and Muggle worlds in peril. The Ministry sent agents to Ningal, the area where Chhel was performing his magic, and worked to discredit him. They tried misdirection. They tried persuasion. They considered Obliviating those influenced by Chhel, but the sheer reach of his stories made such an endeavour quite impossible. They certainly gave Chhel a stern talking to and forbade him from performing magic in front of or for Muggles ever again. Their tactics worked, or seemed to, as Chhel ceased practicing magic and then died a decade or so later, around 1925. 

But nothing is ever so simple these days! You recall my reference to oral traditions and their help in preserving stories? Well, oral reports and memories of Chhel’s acts stayed in the collective memory of the people for decades… just long enough for the Muggles to create an invention equal parts useful and terrifyingly inaccurate: the internet.

The Muggle internet is a repository for knowledge, but not just scholarly work. Did you know that any Muggle can put any information on there that they want? At any time? Even if said information is not remotely true?! It’s a bit strange, to be sure. However, even the Daily Prophet has needed to retract a story or two over the years, so I suppose accuracy isn’t everything.

But, back to the topic at hand. If you were to go onto the Muggle internet and search for information on Chhel, you would find him. You would find a list of some of the magic that he performed. Would you call this a breach of the ISoS? Many do, and various ministries around the globe employ witches and wizards that have become adept at Muggle technology and have done their best to defame what has been written about Chhel. Since you can’t Obliviate a computer, defamation and misdirection is about all we have at this point. 

For example, you can find a list of Chhel’s magic, but the source is under great scrutiny from those that own this section of ethereal information, and you cannot find a photograph of him at all. You also can’t find a date of death for Chhel, as his death certificate was destroyed before it could be digitized- a Muggle process where images are put on the internet. This absence of information leads many Muggles to believe that the magical accounts are dubious, if not downright falsified. 

While many officials feel that this containment of the stories is good enough to keep our worlds separate, there are a number of others who have experienced many a sleepless night over the matter. If a photo of Chhel performing magic were to appear… Well, that would be something that could cause the breach to break wide open once again.

Conclusion

Hopefully I have not scared you into believing that our world is about to be exposed to the Muggles. I do not actually believe that to be true, however these events should remind us to be constantly vigilant in all we do. 

And that is all we have time for today! As you are all still recovering from your midterms, I have decided to give you a break from essay writing today. You will still have a quiz to complete on today’s material before our next class. Good luck!

Image credits here and here
Original lesson written by Professor Liria Morgan