The Rashīdī History 3.3.5

3.3.5

but considerations of this kind did not weigh with the Central Asian Khans, and Sultan Said, as the author tells us, had always been ambitious of gaining glory by waging wars against "infidels." The Bolor states were accordingly overrun and plundered during a whole winter, and the expedition returned to Kashghar in the following spring. In 1529-30 the Khan undertook, in person, a campaign against Badakhshan, but sent Mirza Haidar in advance to begin operations. The Mirza records that he laid waste the environs of the chief town, Kila Zafar, and when the Khan arrived, his men had only to carry off what little had been left. The object of this expedition was to gain possession of the districts on the Upper Oxus—Wakhan, Shighnan, etc.—which had been conquered by the late Mirza Aba Bakr, and which Sultan Said, in consequence, considered himself the heir to. But the chief of Badakhshan was a relation and nominee of Baber, who took a view of the matter entirely opposed to that of Sultan Said, and threatened to support the chief. As Baber had now recovered, in India, the influence he had lost in Transoxiana, a letter from him to the aggressive Sultan Said, seems to have been sufficient to cause the Kashghar forces to be withdrawn across the Pamirs. But it was in 1531 that Mirza Haidar undertook his most important service for Sultan Said Khan.