The Rashīdī History 3.6
The Tarikh-i-Rashidi (Elias, Ross) 3.6
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3.6.1
During the ten years (counting from the battle of 2nd August, 1541) over which Mirza Haidar's regency extended, he is said, in the Akbar-Náma, to have devoted himself, when not actively engaged with his enemies, to the restoration of the province and the improvement of its resources. He found it in a state of ruin and desolation, and raised it to a land abounding in cultivation and flourishing towns; he extended the frontiers also, and ruled with moderation and justice. Yet the austere Abul Fazl takes him to task for devoting too much of his time and attention to music, and thereby becoming forgetful of the dangers that surrounded him. Still more he blames him for continuing the government of the State in the name of the puppet prince, Nazuk Shah. After his military successes, it was his duty, the historian considers, to read the prayers and strike the coins in the name of "his imperial benefactor then struggling with adversity;" while there was no necessity to cultivate the attachment of the native rulers. Yet he is obliged to admit that when Humayun had returned from exile in Persia, and had repossessed himself of Kabul, Mirza Haidar at once conceded to him the honours due to a sovereign. How far Abul Fazl's estimate of Mirza Haidar's character is a just one, may be open to question. In the first place, it was not entirely to music that he devoted the interval of well-earned repose that he enjoyed in Kashmir.
3.6.2
It was during these years that he wrote the Tarikh-i-Rashidi—a work which, strange to say, Abul Fazl makes no mention of. Yet it is evident, from incidental allusions to dates in the body of the book, that this task occupied no little of the Mirza's time. To judge by the number of authors he cites, or speaks of, in the course of his history, he must have collected a good number of books about him, and the study of these may perhaps have occupied more of his leisure than the lute or the zitára. Among them, it may be noted, was a copy of the "Memoirs" of his cousin Baber, which, in all probability, he had obtained while in India at the court either of Humayun or of Kámrán; and, no doubt, it was the first copy ever utilised for historical purposes. Secondly, as regards the imputed infidelity towards the Chaghatai Emperor, it should not be forgotten that the historian of Akbar was writing after events had seemed to justify his view. At the time when Mirza Haidar administered Kashmir in the name of Nazuk Shah, Humayun was a refugee in Persia, dependent on the uncertain friendship of Shah Tahmásp, and it must have been quite a matter for speculation whether he would ever return, or if, indeed, any member of the house of Baber would again occupy the throne of Hindustan.
3.6.3
After completely subjugating Kashmir, and defeating the troops that Shir Shah had sent against him, there seems to have been no reason, but loyalty to the Chaghatais, why the Mirza should not have set himself up as king of the State. His action in recognising the native puppet may fairly be regarded as one of self-denial— a temporary measure, undertaken while waiting to see whether his patron might not return, and claim his own kingdom in India. As events fell out, he did return, though not till January 1555, or nearly four years after our author's death. Step by step, he made himself master of the principal districts of Afghanistan, regained Kunduz and Badakhshan, and disposed of Kamran Mirza, together with other enemies of his house. But as early as 1545, when, with the aid of Shah Tahmasp, he had wrested only Kandahar and Kabul from his rebellious brother, and while still far beyond the limits of India, Mirza Haidar transferred to Humayun the nominal sovereignty with which he had invested Nazuk Shah. He sent an envoy to Kabul, to inform his patron of these proceedings and to invite him to Kashmir. His letters were full of expressions of loyalty and attachment, and, in pressing his invitation, he pointed out that the country he had subdued would serve as an impregnable position, from which the Emperor might pour down his troops for the conquest of Hindustan — an enterprise which he urged him to attempt without delay.
3.6.4
He is recorded, moreover, by Abul Fazl himself, to have read the prayers and to have struck the coins in Humayun's name at about this period ; while unanswerable evidence as regards the coinage is to be found, to this day, among the specimens of the money of Kashmir, which have come down to us. In the British Museum there is a silver coin of Kashmir, bearing the name of Humayun and dated 952 or 953 of the Hajra (1545 or 1546). Mr. Rodgers also describes two coins of Humayun which were struck, in Kashmir, in the year 953, and another bearing a date subsequent to 950, but on which the third figure is illegible. This last one, however, contains in the field a letter ha, which Mr. Rodgers believes may stand for the initial letter of the name Haidar. In any case, the dates that are decipherable not only fall within the period of Mirza Haidar's regency, but they are good evidence that he regarded Humayun as his sovereign while at the height of his own power in Kashmir, although no coins are known which show that he so regarded him previous to his recovery of Kabul. Neither the coins nor the documentary history of the period, however, are completely worked out, and until the tales that both have to tell are exhausted, it would perhaps be premature to conclude that, even prior to the subjugation of Afghanistan in 1545, Mirza Haidar may not have afforded testimony, in one form or another, that he regarded himself and his puppet king as, alike, dependants of the Chaghatai Emperor.
3.6.5
Thus, whatever faults the Mirza may have had, disloyalty to his chiefs can hardly be accounted one of them. He served his first master, Sultan Said Khan, with devotion till the end of the Khan's reign, and when forced by the barbarities of his successor, Rashid Sultan, to seek safety for his life with the Chaghatais in India, he served them likewise with good faith, as long as he lived. Besides Abul Fazl's and Firishta's, the notices of Mirza Haidar's life, among the writings of Asiatic authors, appear to be few. Several quote his history, and even copy from it extensively, but only two, as far as I have been able to ascertain from translations, make any mention of his personality. Jauhar, in his Memoirs of Humayun, does no more than briefly allude to his master's faithful lieutenant. The author of the Tarikh-i-Daudi, cited above, calls him "a youth of a magnanimous disposition," but vouchsafes no more. Amin Ahmad Razi, however, has devoted a few sentences to him in his geographical work, the Haft Iklim, an important extract from which was translated into French by Quatremère, and published in 1843. Ahmad Razi tells us that Mirza Haidar "was endowed with an excellent character and a rare talent for elegant composition in verse, as well as in prose. To these gifts of nature, he added those of extreme valour, and all the qualities that constitute a great general.
3.6.6
Having been sent into Kashmir by Sultan Abu Said Khan, he penetrated into this province by the road of Kashghar and Tibet [Ladak] and entirely subdued it. He entered it also a second time from the side of India, and establishing his residence in Kashmir, formed it into an independent principality .... He was author of the historical work entitled the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, which was named in this way after Rashid Khan, sovereign of Kashghar. This book enjoys universal esteem." Ahmad Razi then appends some verses of the Mirza's, as a specimen of his poetic genius. Among Europeans, Mr. W. Erskine is perhaps the only original author who has touched on Mirza Haidar's personal characteristics or attainments; even he does so only very briefly, though in several passages he praises his work in the highest terms. He sums him up as "a man of worth, of talent, and of learning." For his own part, he naively tells us that he had many accomplishments, and though most of those he names were of a more or less mechanical order, others, at least, show a taste for authorship, and make us picture him as a man of some imagination. Taking into consideration the life he led — his adventures, sufferings, discomfitures, and escapes — and the age and countries he lived in, he may be accounted also a man of learning. At any rate, he was a patron of the learned whom he came in contact with, and seems to have taken an interest in their teachings, as well as in the books he knew of;
3.6.7
though it may be open to question, perhaps (from a European point of view), how far he used them to the best advantage for historical purposes. Yet, withal, he was a bigoted Musulman and a fanatical Sunni, as his remarks about the transactions of Baber with the Persian Shias, after the capture of Samarkand in 1511, clearly indicate. And his bigotry took many curious forms, as, for instance, his approval of the hypocritical proceedings of Sultan Said Khan, his refraining to trace his pedigree beyond the date of Amir Bulaji, because Bulaji's ancestors were not Musulmans, and his pious invocations on the Moghul Khan, whose religious zeal and enlightenment led him to drive horseshoe nails into the heads of his subjects, to induce them to become Musulmans. In short he belonged to his times, and herein lies the chief value of all that he has left on record. The reader, however, will form his own judgment of the author's character and worth. What may safely be said is that his history carries with it a conviction of honesty; while he himself, though a soldier of fortune, was, as shown by the advice he tendered to Humayun, and by his administration of Kashmir, no mere Dugald Dalgetty of the East.