The Memoirs of Bābur 903.1
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 903.1
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903.1.1
903 AH.—AUG. 30TH. 1497 TO AUG. 19TH. 1498 AD.[335] (_a. Resumed account of Bābur's second attempt on Samarkand._) When we had dismounted in the Qulba (Plough) meadow,[336] behind the Bāgh-i-maidān (Garden of the plain), the Samarkandīs came out in great numbers to near Muḥammad Chap's [Sidenote: Fol. 43.] Bridge. Our men were unprepared; and before they were ready, Bābā `Alī's (son) Bābā Qulī had been unhorsed and taken into the fort. A few days later we moved to the top of Qulba, at the back of Kohik.[337] That day Sayyid Yūsuf,[338] having been sent out of the town, came to our camp and did me obeisance.
903.1.2
The Samarkandīs, fancying that our move from the one ground to the other meant, 'He has given it up,' came out, soldiers and townsmen in alliance (through the Turquoise Gate), as far as the Mīrzā's Bridge and, through the Shaikh-zāda's Gate, as far as Muḥammad Chap's. We ordered our braves to arm and ride out; they were strongly attacked from both sides, from Muḥammad Chap's Bridge and from the Mīrzā's, but God brought it right! our foes were beaten. Begs of the best and the boldest of braves our men unhorsed and brought in. Amongst them Ḥāfiẓ _Dūldāī's_ (son) Muḥammad _Mīskin_[339] was taken, after his index-finger had been struck off; Muḥammad Qāsim _Nabīra_ also was unhorsed and brought in by his own younger brother, Ḥasan _Nabīra_.[340] There were many other such soldiers and known men. Of the town-rabble, were brought in Diwāna, the tunic-weaver and _Kālqāshūq_,[341] headlong leaders both, in brawl and tumult; they [Sidenote: Fol. 43b.] were ordered to death with torture in blood-retaliation for our foot-soldiers, killed at the Lovers' Cave.[342] This was a complete reverse for the Samarkandīs; they came out no more even when our men used to go to the very edge of the ditch and bring back their slaves and slave-women.
903.1.3
The Sun entered the Balance and cold descended on us.[343] I therefore summoned the begs admitted to counsel and it was decided, after discussion, that although the towns-people were so enfeebled that, by God's grace, we should take Samarkand, it might be to-day, it might be to-morrow, still, rather than suffer from cold in the open, we ought to rise from near it and go for winter-quarters into some fort, and that, even if we had to leave those quarters later on, this would be done without further trouble. As Khwāja Dīdār seemed a suitable fort, we marched there and having dismounted in the meadow lying before it, went in, fixed on sites for the winter-houses and covered shelters,[344] left overseers and inspectors of the work and returned to our camp in the meadow. There we lay during the few days before the winter-houses were finished.
903.1.4
Meantime Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā had sent again and again to ask help from Shaibānī Khān. On the morning of the very day on which, our quarters being ready, we had moved into Khwāja Dīdār, the Khān, having ridden light from Turkistān, [Sidenote: Fol. 44.] stood over against our camping-ground. Our men were not all at hand; some, for winter-quarters, had gone to Khwāja Rabāṯī, some to Kabud, some to Shīrāz. None-the-less, we formed up those there were and rode out. Shaibānī Khān made no stand but drew off towards Samarkand. He went right up to the fort but because the affair had not gone as Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā wished, did not get a good reception. He therefore turned back for Turkistān a few days later, in disappointment, with nothing done. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā had sustained a seven months' siege; his one hope had been in Shaibānī Khān; this he had lost and he now with 2 or 300 of his hungry suite, drew off from Samarkand, for Khusrau Shāh in Qūndūz. When he was near Tīrmīẕ, at the Amū ferry, the Governor of Tīrmīẕ, Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar, kinsman and confidant both of Sl. Mas`ūd Mīrzā, heard of him and went out against him. The Mīrzā himself got across the river but Mīrīm Tarkhān was drowned and all the rest of his people were captured, together with his baggage and the camels loaded with his personal effects; even his page, Muḥammad T̤āhir, falling into Sayyid Ḥusain Akbar's hands. Khusrau Shāh, for his part, looked kindly on the Mīrzā.
903.1.5
[Sidenote: Fol. 44b.] When the news of his departure reached us, we got to horse and started from Khwāja Dīdār for Samarkand. To give us honourable meeting on the road, were nobles and braves, one after another. It was on one of the last ten days of the first Rabī` (end of November 1497 AD.), that we entered the citadel and dismounted at the Bū-stān Sarāī. Thus, by God's favour, were the town and the country of Samarkand taken and occupied. (_b. Description of Samarkand._)[345] Few towns in the whole habitable world are so pleasant as Samarkand. It is of the Fifth Climate and situated in lat. 40° 6' and long. 99°.[346] The name of the town is Samarkand; its country people used to call Mā warā'u'n-nahr (Transoxania). They used to call it _Baldat-i-maḥfūẓa_ because no foe laid hands on it with storm and sack.[347] It must have become[348] Musalmān in the time of the Commander of the Faithful, his Highness `Usmān. Qus̤am ibn `Abbās, one of the Companions[349] must have gone there; his burial-place, known as the Tomb of Shāh-i-zinda (The Living Shāh, _i.e._, Fāqīr) is outside the Iron Gate. Iskandar must have founded Samarkand. The Turk and Mughūl hordes call it Sīmīz-kīnt.[350] Tīmūr Beg made it his capital; no ruler so great will ever have made it a capital before (_qīlghān aīmās dūr_). I ordered people to pace round the ramparts of the walled-town; it came out at 10,000 steps.[351] Samarkandīs are all orthodox (_sunnī_), pure-in-the Faith, law-abiding and religious.
903.1.6
The number of Leaders [Sidenote: Fol. 45.] of Islām said to have arisen in Mā warā'u'n-nahr, since the days of his Highness the Prophet, are not known to have arisen in any other country.[352] From the Mātarīd suburb of Samarkand came Shaikh Abū'l-manṣūr, one of the Expositors of the Word.[353] Of the two sects of Expositors, the Mātarīdiyah and the Ash`ariyah,[354] the first is named from this Shaikh Abū'l-manṣūr. Of Mā warā'u'n-nahr also was Khwāja Ismā`īl _Khartank_, the author of the _Ṣāḥiḥ-i-bukhārī_.[355] From the Farghāna district, Marghīnān—Farghāna, though at the limit of settled habitation, is included in Mā warā'u'n-nahr,—came the author of the _Hidāyat_,[356] a book than which few on Jurisprudence are more honoured in the sect of Abū Ḥanīfa. On the east of Samarkand are Farghāna and Kāshghar; on the west, Bukhārā and Khwārizm; on the north, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya,—in books written Shāsh and Banākat; and on the south, Balkh and Tīrmīẕ.
903.1.7
The Kohik Water flows along the north of Samarkand, at the distance of some 4 miles (2 _kuroh_); it is so-called because it comes out from under the upland of the Little Hill (_Kohik_)[357] lying between it and the town. The Dar-i-gham Water (canal) flows along the south, at the distance of some two miles (1 _sharī`_). This is a large and swift torrent,[358] indeed it is like a large river, cut off from the Kohik Water. All the gardens and suburbs and some of the _tūmāns_ of Samarkand are cultivated by it. By the Kohik Water a stretch of from 30 to 40 _yīghāch_,[359] by road, is made habitable and cultivated, as far as Bukhārā and Qarā-kūl. Large as the river is, it is not too large for its dwellings and its culture; during three or four months of the [Sidenote: Fol. 45b.] year, indeed, its waters do not reach Bukhārā.[360] Grapes, melons, apples and pomegranates, all fruits indeed, are good in Samarkand; two are famous, its apple and its _ṣāḥibī_ (grape).[361] Its winter is mightily cold; snow falls but not so much as in Kābul; in the heats its climate is good but not so good as Kābul's. In the town and suburbs of Samarkand are many fine buildings and gardens of Tīmur Beg and Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā.[362]
903.1.8
In the citadel,[363] Tīmūr Beg erected a very fine building, the great four-storeyed kiosque, known as the Gūk Sarāī.[364] In the walled-town, again, near the Iron Gate, he built a Friday Mosque[365] of stone (_sangīn_); on this worked many stone-cutters, brought from Hindūstān. Round its frontal arch is inscribed in letters large enough to be read two miles away, the Qu'rān verse, _Wa az yerfa` Ibrāhīm al Qawā`id alī akhara_.[366] This also is a very fine building. Again, he laid out two gardens, on the east of the town, one, the more distant, the Bāgh-i-bulandī,[367] the other and nearer, the Bāgh-i-dilkushā.[368] From Dilkushā to the Turquoise Gate, he planted an Avenue of White Poplar,[369] and in the garden itself erected a great kiosque, painted inside [Sidenote: Fol. 46.] with pictures of his battles in Hindūstān. He made another garden, known as the Naqsh-i-jahān (World's Picture), on the skirt of Kohik, above the Qarā-sū or, as people also call it, the Āb-i-raḥmat (Water-of-mercy) of Kān-i-gil.[370] It had gone to ruin when I saw it, nothing remaining of it except its name. His also are the Bāgh-i-chanār,[371] near the walls and below the town on the south,[372] also the Bāgh-i-shamāl (North Garden) and the Bāgh-i-bihisht (Garden of Paradise). His own tomb and those of his descendants who have ruled in Samarkand, are in a College, built at the exit (_chāqār_) of the walled-town, by Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā, the son of Tīmūr Beg's son, Jahāngīr Mīrzā.[373]