Summary

The prologue begins: “It was said that one evening…the Emperor Shah Jahan asked a Sufi saint what would become of the Mughal Empire” (1). Shah Jahan wanted to know who would become emperor following his rule. The saint predicted that the emperor’s fourth and final son Aurangzeb would follow in his father’s footsteps as emperor.

There is a page break. The saint was correct in his predictions, for Aurangzeb became Emperor in time before sentencing his eldest brother to death on the basis of religious “disturbances” (2). An imprisoned Shah Jahan shortly afterwards received his eldest son’s decapitated head as a present from his son, the Emperor.

There is a page break. Yesterday, “an ordinary man” was to judge at the trial for an accused prince. The narrator states, “None present were innocent” (2).

In Chapter One, the narrator sits in...