The Rashīdī History 3.1.5

3.1.5

Baber was a descendant of Amir Timur (or Tamerlane), and was, consequently, on one side of his family, more a Turk than a Moghul, for Timur belonged to the Barlas, a Turki tribe of distinguished lineage. Following the common usage of the day, however, Mirza Haidar would have called Baber a "Chaghatai," while the latter would have spoken of his cousin as a "Moghul." Mirza Haidar came of the Dughlat tribe — a sub-division, or sept, of the true Moghuls of Chaghatai's line — and one that was accounted about equal, in point of nobility, to the Barlas. By the end of the fifteenth century the members of all the Moghul and Chaghatai ruling families had become much scattered, and mixed in blood, through frequent intermarriages with aliens. Many of them had, for several generations, lived in Turki countries, where they had become Turks in manners and language. So much was this the case with Baber and his kindred, that he had come to look upon himself as more of a Turk than a Moghul, and in his Memoirs mentions, more than once, his aversion and contempt for the Moghul race. The Dughlat had remained more distinctively Moghul, though among its members, also, much intermixture with Turki tribes appears to have taken place.