R.V. Smith recounts the tale of how Mubarak Begum, the mistress of an English man, built a mosque in Hauz Qazi

How did a Brahmin dancing girl from Pune come to build a mosque in Hauz Qazi, Delhi? The story is an interesting one. According to Maulvi Zafar Masan, the masjid is named after Mubarak Begum, “mistress of an English man”. He goes on to say that the mosque is built of red sandstone and measures eight meters by five meters. It is two-storied with shops on the lower floor. The upper floor, accessible from a flight of stars, has a large courtyard and prayer chamber of three compartments, roofed by disproportionally high domes. The whole building is painted with paint made of brick dust. It is fairly well preserved and the date of construction is given as 1823 and the full name and title of the woman as Bibi Mahruttun Mubarak-ul-Nissa Begum, who had converted to Islam and was nicknamed General Begum after she had married General David Ochterlony, British Resident in Delhi at the time of Akbar Shah II.

According to recorded research she was Ochterlony's favourite wife and the mother of his younger children. As such she took clear precedence over the others (meaning 12 other wives). She was known to be a devout Muslim, having once applied to make the Haj (pilgrimages) to Mecca.

Although much younger than Ochterlony, she maintained the dominant part of the relationship. This led one observer to remark that “making Sir David the Commissioner of Delhi was the same as giving the post to his Begum”. Another observer remarked that “Ochterlony's mistress is the mistress now of everyone within the walls (of the city). As a result of her influence Ochterlony considered raising his children as Muslims and when his two daughters by Mubarak Begum had grown up, he adopted a child from the family of the Nawab of Loharu. Raised by Mubarak Begum, the girl went on to marry her cousin, a nephew of the famous Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib, Arif, who died at the age of 18 and to whom Ghalib dedicated a mercia (elegy) since he and his wife (being childless) had adopted the boy as their son.

Setting herself up

The researcher goes on to say that “she (Mubarak Begum) even seems to have set herself up as a power in her own right and to have formed her own independent foreign policy. At one point it was reported that Mubarak Begum alias Generalee Begum fills the (Delhi) papers with accounts of the Nizars and Khiluts (gifts and dresses of honour) given and taken in her transactions with the Vacquils (ambassadors) of the different Indian powers (princes) – an extraordinary liberty, if true”. The researcher adds, “However in spite of all her power and high status, Mubarak Begum was widely unpopular among the British and the Mughals alike. She offended the British by calling herself lady Ochterlony, and she offended the Mughals by awarding herself the title of Qudsia Begum, previously reserved for the emperor's mother (viz, Udham Bai Qudsia Begum, mother of Ahmed Shah, who, alas, also happened to be a former dancing girl before marrying the emperor Mohammad Shah). After Ochterlony's death, she inherited Mubarak Bagh, an Anglo-Mughal garden tomb he had built in the north of the city of Delhi. But her intense unpopularity combined with her dancing girl background, ensured that no Mughal gentlemen would use her structure.”

It came to be known as Randi-ki-Masjid but now nobody refers to it as such. As a matter of fact a well-known Jama Masjid resident was shocked when asked to affirm if it was still called the “prostitute's mosque”. Time has healed the scars and the stigma attached to the mosque is beyond the ken of the present generation, which regards Mubarak Begum as a pious benefactress and builder of a historical house of prayer.