Zeb-un-Nissa (Makhfi)

Zeb-un-Nissa Makhfi (1638–1702) was a Mughal princess and Persian poet, the eldest child of Emperor Aurangzeb and his chief consort Dilras Banu Begum. Born at Daulatabad on 15 February 1638, she memorised the Quran by the age of seven and was educated by Hafiza Mariam in Persian, Arabic, philosophy, astronomy and mathematics. Writing in secret under the pen name Makhfi — "Hidden One" — she kept a Delhi salon of scholars and poets, built a great private library, and composed the ghazals later collected as *Diwan-i-Makhfi*. She never married, and spent about the last twenty years of her life imprisoned by her father at Salimgarh Fort, Delhi, where she died on 26 May 1702.