The Places in Between

by Rory Stewart

Babur’s diary is the first credible report of the Koh-i-Noor. It was almost certainly the diamond he captured at the siege of Agra, and he describes it as worth “half of the daily expense of the whole world.” According to Babur, it had first been acquired by the Delhi Sultan at Malwa in 1304. There is no certainty about where it was before Malwa. Little evidence supports the Indian Sunday Tribune’s claims that the Koh-i-Noor was seized by Alexander the Great at the battle of Jhelum in the Punjab in 326 B.C., and then owned by the great Buddhist ruler Asoka. Babur gave the diamond to his favorite son, Humayun, who probably carried it into exile in Persia and presented it as a gift to the Shah of Iran, who in turn sent it to his liege-king in the Deccan. On July 8, 1656, the diamond was presented to Babur’s great-great-grandson Shah Jahan at Agra, where Babur had first seized it. In 1739 Nadir Shah, the ruler of Iran, acquired the diamond from Shah Jahan’s eventual heir and carried it back to Iran across Afghanistan. He called it “Koh-i-Noor,” Mountain of Light. It was then about 186 carats and common belief held that whoever owned it would rule the world, provided it was worn by a woman. Nadir’s son subsequently gave it to Ahmed Shah Durrani, his Afghan Chief of Horse and the founder of modern Afghanistan. Ahmed Shah kept the Koh-i-Noor in his capital at Kandahar as the central symbol of Afghanistan’s independence from Persia. His grandson then carried it back across Afghan...