Being an extensive reader, she kept accounts of her encounters with the Emperor and the state of affairs. Salima was thus, one of the most important ladies at the court.[5]
Salima and Maryam Makani played a crucial role in negotiating a settlement between Akbar and Jahangir when the father-son's relationship turned sour in the early 1600s, eventually helping to pave the way for Jahangir's accession to the throne.[5][9] During Jahangir's reign, Salima Begum played a crucial role in securing pardon for the powerful, Khan-i-Azam, Mirza Aziz Koka, who had been sentenced to death by Jahangir.[9]
In 1575, Salima went for the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca along with her aunt Princess Gulbadan Begum and many other royal ladies.[10] Salima was an accomplished poet and collected a library, to which apparently copy of all books had to be contributed, which had any currency iSalima died on 15 December 1612 at Delhi. Her step-son, Jahangir, gives particulars of her birth and descent; her marriages and he states that she was seventy three years old at the time of her death in 1612. By his orders, her body was laid in a garden which she herself had commissioned.[13]
Jahangir praises her both for her natural qualities and her acquirements. She creates an impression of herself as a charming and cultivated woma