Bakshi Banu Begum was born in September of 1540 in Lahore to Gunwar Bibi, in the year of the Timurid exodus from India. She fell into the hands of her uncle, Askari Mirza, with her father's camp along with her half-brother, the baby Akbar in 1543.[2] In the depth of the winter of 1545, she was sent with Akbar from Qandahar to Kabul by the orders of her uncle, Askari Mirza, while being accompanied by their attendants and foster mothers.
In 1550, at the age of ten, she was betrothed by her father to Ibrahim Mirza, the eldest son of Sulaiman Shah Mirza, the Governor of Badakshan and his wife Haram Begum. Ibrahim was also a descendant of Alexander the Great through his mother's side. He was six years older than Bakshi, and was killed in 1560, leaving the princess a widow at the age of twenty. In the same year, Bakshi was given in marriage to Mirza Sharaf-ud-din Husain Ahrari, the Viceroy of Ajmer and Nagur, by her younger brother, the Emperor Akb