The following is a literal translation of the passage in Abdul Hamid Lahori's Padshahnama (written, c.1650), the official history of the first two decades of Shahjahan's reign (1628-58). After a description of the Taj Mahal, the official history proceeds:
"Thirty villages within the limits of the sub-district (pargana) of the Capital City (haveli-i daru'l khilafa) of Akbarabad (Agra) and Nagar Chand, whose total standard revenues (jama) amount to forty lakh dams, that is, one lakh rupees, if the full standard were to be realised (`twelve-monthly'), the particulars [of villages and their names] being as follows... . [details here omitted] - and, owing to the abundance of attention given, with the aid of seasons (lit. `year and month') even more than this sum is obtained - together with the revenues from the shops of the bazaars and the well-used inns aforesaid [in Tajganj], which amount to two lakhs of rupees, have been placed in waqf for this illumined tomb, so that should there occur any need for repairs, the requisite amount be drawn out of these endowed resources (mauqufat) and spent on the repair of these buildings; while the balance is to be spent on the established disbursements that have been set aside for the salary of persons placed on annual and monthly pay, and the subsistence (lit. `broth and bread') of the [tomb-] keepers, servants, pious devotees and servants of this grand edifice and other needy and destitute persons. Whatever remains in excess, let the sovereign of the time (khalifa-i waqt), with whom the custody (tauilyat, the position of mutawalli) of this auspicious building would vest, use in whatever manner he deems fit."
Abdu'l Hamid Lahori, Padshahnama, ed. Kabir Al-Din et al., Bib. Ind.,
Calcutta, 1866-72, Vol. II, pages 330-31.A summary of this passage will also be found in Salih Kanbu Lahori, `Amal-i Salih, ed. G. Yazdani, Bib. Ind., Calcutta, 1912-46, Vol.II, p.385: No substantive difference.
The Mughal pargana of Agra was much larger than the British or present pargana of Agra. Nagar Chand is presumably the same as Chandwar, a pargana, adjacent to the Mughal pargana of Agra, on the left side of the Yamuna. Salih omits its name and mentions only pargana Agra, as the one in which the waqf villages were located.
A very significant point is that it is not the Taj but 30 villages and Tajganj that were placed in waqf. The Taj Mahal itself was not made into a waqf.
As for the custodian, the designation of Khalifa was conventionally used for the Mughal Emperor in the days of the Mughal Empire, usually in phrases like khalifa-i zaman, khalifa-i waqt (as here used), etc. The Emperor's favoured seat was called daru'l khilafa, `seat of the caliphate' (the designation used in Lahori's passage above for Agra). It has no reference to the theological jurists' khalifa, the supposed political head of the entire Islamic community, a position that pan-Islamicists claimed for the Ottoman Sultan in late 19th century.
It seems to have been the normal practice in the Mughal government to attach villages to particular imperial tombs in waqf; and government officials were appointed to collect the revenues of the villages and bazaars, etc., so endowed. Thus we read in a report of 1701, from Aurangzeb's late years, that one Khwaja Musa who was the Superintendent of the Market Revenues (darogha-i sa'ir) of Mumtazabad (Taj Ganj), was now in addition appointed as collector of revenues (amin) of the villages attached to Akbar's tomb, obtaining a slight increase in his official rank or mansab (by which officials drew their pay) in recompense for this enlarged jurisdiction (Akhbarat-i Darbar-i Mu`alla, Royal Asiatic Society, London, 45/118). Quite obviously, there was no special `management' of the waqfs of villages and shops established for the tombs, separate from the apparatus of Mughal administration.
(Translation and commentary by Professor Irfan Habib.)
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