The Rahīmī () was a Mughal trade vessel, running from 1593 to 1613. It is known alternately as the Great Remee, Reheme, Remy, Remee, or Beheme. It was built under the patronage of Empress Mariam-uz-Zamani, chief consort of Emperor Akbar and mother of Emperor Jahangir.
The Rahimi was the largest of the Indian ships trading in the Red Sea. It had a sail area so vast that it was identifiable to sailors from miles away and was known to Europeans as, the great pilgrimage ship.
One of the most controversial aspects of "The Rahimi's" passage was the amount her officers had to pay the Portuguese for a cartaz. The Rahimi's "sum" became, in English reckoning, a standard by which other vessels were taxed. The rates set down were so that "every ship should be taxed to pay for her freedom," and the Rahimi was used as a standard, apparently, because she was so large and her tax was set at 15,000 rials.
Background The owner and patron of the ship was Mariam-uz-Zamani. During the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir, she had ships for trade and Haj pilgrims built at the Khizri Darwaza on the Ravi River near Lahore. This place was later renamed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh as Sheranwala Darwaza.
The Rahimi was homeported in Surat but often traveled to Jeddah, the port near Mecca on the Red Sea, where she carried merchandise for the vendors of the holy city and trafficked in pilgrims on various parts of their journey.
Trade and pilgrimage Mariam-uz-Zamani was the earliest recorded woman who directly participated in overseas trade and commerce. The Rahimi was owned by Mariam-uz-Zamani, a Hindu princess by birth with a "Moorish" title who was the Empress Mother of one of the most powerful empires in the world, but she was in no way immune from the dangers of the business. No other noblewoman on record seems to have been as adventurous a trader as the empress mother, however, and no trader's ship (especially the Rahimi) seems to have gotten into as much trouble as hers. The repeated recording captures of Empress Mother's ships, and not that most of the others, revealed the involvement of Indians in overseas commerce and the active involvement of Mughal noblewomen in trade.
Mariam-uz-Zamani built ships both for commercial and pilgrimage purposes. Her greatest ship, the Rahimi, was a conspicuous vessel with a large sail area in the Red Sea and was, in fact, the only ship known to Europeans as "the greatest pilgrimage ship."
Until the eighteenth century, Mecca was the location of one of the world's great commercial fairs, which drew products from Europe, Arabia, and Asia, many of which passed through the central port of Mocha Merchants from India, for example, often combined their pilgrimages with business trips, and Mughal emperors saw the pilgrimage as a way to solidify political alliances. Not only did emperors send goods for trade, but for whatever reasons — religious and non-religious — they dispatched goods and money to be distributed among the needy as well."
The local Sharifs of Mecca were the recipients of substantial Mughal largesse, and the financial assistance rendered to them brought goodwill for Muslim pilgrims from India and favors, when needed, for the imperial court. Finally, the pilgrimage to Mecca occasionally turned up a holy relic for Mughal India, as in the case of an impression of the Prophet's foot, which was brought from Mecca to Ahmedabad and housed in a magnificent memorial. The pilgrimage ship was thus a common item on Indian Ocean seas, and safe passage across the water was a highly sensitive issue.
Emperor Akbar and the Portuguese The Mughal Empire was landlocked until 1572. It was only with Akbar's conquest of Gujarat in 1572–73 that both the Mughals and Portuguese came face-to-face. The Mughals became a considerable concern for the Portuguese. It wasn't the other way around.
The Portuguese were well aware of Akbar's formidable military capacity, and they tried to stress their friendship with the Emperor as best they could. Akbar saw through their pretence but preferred to match theirs with his own. The mighty Portuguese sea power influenced Akbar's pretence. Never did the Portuguese take up arms against him. He kept them guessing until the end of his days. Nevertheless, there were hostilities from time to time, and these figure largely in Portuguese sources.
Most offensive, however, especially to orthodox Muslims, was the Portuguese development of a pass system. To travel in Portuguese waters, each Asian ship had to obtain a cartaz or pass by paying customs at a Portuguese port or by keeping an agent in residence there. If a ship did not carry the pass or was in violation of the conditions listed, it could be seized by any Portuguese agent on patrol. Particularly distasteful was that each pass carried stamped on it pictures of the Virgin Mary and Jesus, and for orthodox Muslims to travel under such conditions, especially if on pilgrimage, "would mean to countenance idolatry." Often, for strict interpreters of Islamic law, this meant the periodic suspension of the obligation of pilgrimage; although, given the free religious milieu of the Akbar and Jahangir eras, pilgrimage to Mecca did continue at a healthy rate despite the religious problems of the journey. Despite challenges, relations with the Portuguese were mostly amicable throughout Akbar's rule and continued well until Jahangir's reign.
Akbar's empress consort Mariam-uz-Zamani herself, however, remained untouched by the apostasy issue. There is no record of any question being raised about her position as a ship's owner under the Portuguese Pass, neither her religious status as a wife and then the mother of a Muslim emperor nor the Hindu tradition of her birth seems to have been jeopardized by her involvement in sea trade in Christian waters. Rather, her status as a sequestered financier allowed her both the adventure of overseas trade and protection from religious restrictions such an enterprise might entail.
East India Company English interest in India began to take shape at the time of the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In 1600, piqued by the success of the Portuguese in the spice trade with India, the English formed the chartered English East India Company and sent a few reconnaissance voyages to India before dispatching, in 1607, an unusually accomplished ambassador in William Hawkins, along with his agent, William Finch.
William Hawkins arrived at Jahangir's court at Agra "very richly clad," wearing apparel of "scarlet and violet," his cloak "lined with taffeta and embroidered with silver lace," a suitably high idea of his own importance, and carrying a letter of introduction from King James, rather perplexingly written in Spanish.
William Hawkins was a fluent Turki speaker and received immediate and familiar attention from the emperor. Jahangir was delighted to be able to converse with a foreigner in the old language. He greeted Hawkins warmly and invited him to come daily to the palace for talks and drinks, and he even bestowed on him the very generous post of 400 horses in the imperial service.
Finding his name unaccountably difficult to pronounce, Jahangir offered Hawkins the much more suitable title of Khan, and Hawkins Khan settled into courtly life at Agra, dressing in the "Mohammeddan manner" of the Mughal noblemen, and even marrying Mariam, an Armenian Christian woman who had been living as Jahangir's ward in his immense zenana and whom Jahangir chose for him as a wife.
Relations with the English
William Hawkins arrived in Agra with letters for Jahangir in order to solicit from him specific trading privileges. Despite his encouraging reception, however, Hawkins's mission would not succeed. The Portuguese were adamant about not sharing their trade in India and, still strong at court during this period, used their influence to intrigue against the Hawkins mission.
William Hawkins himself, despite his fluency in Turki and his perseverance, is arrogant and rash, refusing to play by the rules of the Mughal court, where nuance and finesse are preferred to intransigence. Even so, Hawkins may have been able to secure some firmans from the ever-generous Jahangir had his agent, William Finch, not made a grave error in judgment by crossing Mariam-uz-Zamani's path.
In late 1610 or early 1611, when Mariam-uz-Zamani's ship was being loaded for Mocha, she sent one of her agents to buy indigo in Bayana (an important center of indigo production 50 miles southwest of Agra) to be put aboard the ship for sale in Mocha. Just as the deal was being completed, however, the English trader, William Finch arrived and did what no Indian would dare to do. He offered "a little more than she should have given," got the indigo, and made off with it. When Mariam-uz-Zamani heard that she had been outbid by an Englishman, she was furious and complained to her son, the emperor, who made the English representative at the court, William Hawkins, suffer for a long time after that. William Finch, on the other hand, struggled to sell the acquired indigo in Lahore. His hasty decision to outbid the charismatic Mariam-uz-Zamani may have contributed to his difficulties there.
William Hawkins had instructed William Finch to return to Agra as soon as he had disposed of his goods, but the latter had come to the conclusion that the prospects of English trade in India were hopeless and informed Hawkins that he planned to sell the indigo in Syrian city, and then travel back to England. Believing that Finch's real intention was to "run away," Hawkins discreetly sent a letter of power of attorney to a Jesuit missionary in Lahore, authorizing him to seize all goods carried by Finch, including Indigo. Nicholas Ufflet was then sent to Lahore to take over the indigo.
William Hawkins himself had to suffer for a long time after leaving the Mughal court, mentioning that he had no choice but to currie favour with the Jesuits to obtain safe conduct that would allow him and his wife to travel to Goa, from where they would embark for Europe. This initial plan, however, changed when Hawkins prompted a final attempt to persuade the emperor to grant a firman and for his rehabilitation in court, but he was unsuccessful and finally left Agra on 2 November 1611: "To stay, I would not be amongst these faithless infidels."
The repercussions were so severe, that in 1612, English Captain Jourdain noted, " the Empress's ship, the Rahimi, was bound for Mocha, & the [ local ] merchants would not lade their goods aboard until we [Europeans] were gone from the country."
In 1612, a few months before Captain Best arrived, the English hijacked Rahimi. Six English ships hijacked roughly ten ships departing from the Red Sea ports. Rahimi was one of them, and the British swiftly pillaged all of them after transporting them to a nearby harbor. Rahimi was ransomed for 4,000 pounds.
Seizure by the Portuguese
During the reign of Jahangir, the Portuguese were threatened by the presence of other European traders, especially the English, in the Mughal Court. The Portuguese, who had been trading on Indian shores for almost a decade, were extremely apprehensive of the new English interlopers who sought trading rights from the Emperor.
In order to pressurise the Emperor to expel European rivals from the Mughal court, the Portuguese challenged Jahangir’s authority and prestige by targeting a ship owned by his mother, Empress Mother Mariam-uz-Zamani.