The Memoirs of Bābur 914
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 914
- Language
- English
914.1
914 AH.—MAY 2ND 1508 TO APRIL 21ST 1509 AD.[1322] This spring a body of Mahmand Afghāns was over-run near Muqur.[1323] (_a. A Mughūl rebellion._) A few days after our return from that raid, Qūj Beg, Faqīr-i-`alī, Karīm-dād and Bābā _chuhra_ were thinking about deserting, but their design becoming known, people were sent who took them below Astar-ghach. As good-for-nothing words of theirs had been reported to me, even during Jahāngīr M.'s life-time,[1324] I ordered that they should be put to death at the top of the _bāzār_. They had been taken to the place; the ropes had been fixed; and they were about to be hanged when Qāsim Beg sent Khalīfa to me with an urgent entreaty that I would pardon their offences. To please him I gave them their lives, but I ordered them kept in custody. What there was of Khusrau Shāh's retainers from Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz, together with the head-men of the Mughūls, Chilma, [Sidenote: Fol. 216.] `Alī Sayyid,[1325] Sakma (?), Sher-qulī and Aīkū-sālam (?), and also Khusrau Shāh's favourite Chaghatāī retainers under Sl. `Alī _chuhra_ and Khudabakhsh, with also 2 or 3000 serviceable Turkmān braves led by Sīūndūk and Shāh Naẕar,[1326] the whole of these, after consultation, took up a bad position towards me. They were all seated in front of Khwāja Riwāj, from the Sūng-qūrghān meadow to the Chālāk; `Abdu'r-razzāq Mīrzā, come in from Nīng-nahār, being in Dih-i-afghān.[1327]
914.2
Earlier on Muḥibb-i-`alī the armourer had told Khalīfa and Mullā Bābā once or twice of their assemblies, and both had given me a hint, but the thing seeming incredible, it had had no attention. One night, towards the Bed-time Prayer, when I was sitting in the Audience-hall of the Chār-bāgh, Mūsa Khwāja, coming swiftly up with another man, said in my ear, "The Mughūls are really rebelling! We do not know for certain whether they have got `Abdu'r-razzāq M. to join them. They have not settled to rise to-night." I feigned disregard and a little later went towards the _ḥarams_ which at the time were in the Yūrūnchqa-garden[1328] and the Bāgh-i-khilwat, but after page, servitor and messenger (_yasāwal_) had turned back on getting [Sidenote: Fol. 216b.] near them, I went with the chief-slave towards the town, and on along the ditch. I had gone as far as the Iron-gate when Khwāja Muḥ. `Alī[1329] met me, he coming by the _bāzār_ road from the opposite direction. He joined me ... of the porch of the Hot-bath (_ḥammām_)....[1330] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE ON 914 TO 925 AH.—1508 TO 1519 AD. From several references made in the _Bābur-nāma_ and from a passage in Gul-badan's _Humāyūn-nāma_ (f. 15), it is inferrible that Bābur was composing the annals of 914 AH. not long before his last illness and death.[1331]
914.3
Before the diary of 925 AH. (1519 AD.) takes up the broken thread of his autobiography, there is a _lacuna_ of narrative extending over nearly eleven years. The break was not intended, several references in the _Bābur-nāma_ shewing Bābur's purpose to describe events of the unchronicled years.[1332] Mr. Erskine, in the Leyden and Erskine _Memoirs_, carried Bābur's biography through the major _lacunæ_, but without firsthand help from the best sources, the _Habību's-siyar_ and _Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. He had not the help of the first even in his _History of India_. M. de Courteille working as a translator only, made no attempt to fill the gaps. Bābur's biography has yet to be completed; much time is demanded by the task, not only in order to exhaust known sources and seek others further afield, but to weigh and balance the contradictory statements of writers deep-sundered in sympathy and outlook. To strike such a balance is essential when dealing with the events of 914 to 920 AH. because in those years Bābur had part in an embittered conflict between Sunni and Shī`a. What I offer below, as a stop-gap, is a mere summary of events, mainly based on material not used by Mr. Erskine, with a few comments prompted by acquaintance with Bāburiana. _USEFUL SOURCES_
914.4
Compared with what Bābur could have told of this most interesting period of his life, the yield of the sources is scant, a natural sequel from the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity. Of all known sources the best are Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_ and Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Dūghlāt's Tārīkh-i-rashīdī_. The first was finished nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Bābur's death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Bābur after its author went to Hindūstān in 934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a life of Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ is especially valuable for the years of this _lacuna_. Ḥaidar's book was finished under Humāyūn in 953 AH. (1547 AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmīr. It is the most valuable of all the sources for those interested in Bābur himself, both because of Ḥaidar's excellence as a biographer, and through his close acquaintance with Bābur's family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he lived under Bābur's protection, followed this by 19 years service under Sa`īd Khān, the cousin of both, in Kāshghar, and after that Khān's death, went to Bābur's sons Kāmrān and Humāyūn in Hindūstān.
914.5
A work issuing from a Sunnī Aūzbeg centre, Faẓl bin Ruzbahān _Isfahānī's Sūlūku'l-mulūk_, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Māwarā'u'n-nahr through Bābur's invasions. The book itself is a Treatise on Musalmān Law, and was prepared by order of `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān _Aūzbeg_ for his help in fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Bābur in 918 AH., at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad _Yasawī_ [in Haẓrat Turkistān], that, if he were victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it in Māwarā'u'n-nahr (Rieu's Pers. Cat. ii, 448). The _Tārīkh-i Ḥājī Muḥammad `Ārif Qandahārī_ appears, from the frequent use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author was a native of Qandahār, a place much occupying Bābur's activities, and because he was a servant of Bairām Khān-i-khānān, whose assassination under Akbar he witnessed.[1333] Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar survives no copy is now known of the section of his General History which deals with Bābur's. An early source is Yahya _Kazwīnī's Lubbu't-tawārīkh_, written in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), but brief only in the Bābur period. It issued from a Shī`a source, being commanded by Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_'s son Bahrām.
914.6
Another work issuing also from a _Ṣafawī_ centre is Mīr Sikandar's _Tārīkh-i-`ālam-arāī_, a history of Shāh `Abbas I, with an introduction treating of his predecessors which was completed in 1025 AH. (1616 AD.). Its interest lies in its outlook on Bābur's dealings with Shāh Ismā`īl. A later source, brief only, is Firishta's _Tārīkh-i-firishta_, finished under Jahāngīr in the first quarter of the 17th century. Mr. Erskine makes frequent reference to Kh(w)āfī Khān's _Tārīkh_, a secondary authority however, written under Aurangzīb, mainly based on Firishta's work, and merely summarizing Bābur's period. References to detached incidents of the period are found in Shaikh `Abdu'l-qādir's _Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī_ and Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_. _EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS_
914.7
The mutiny, of which an account begins in the text, was crushed by the victory of 500 loyalists over 3,000 rebels, one factor of success being Bābur's defeat in single combat of five champions of his adversaries.[1334] The disturbance was not of long duration; Kābul was tranquil in Sha`bān (November) when Sl. Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, then 21, arrived there seeking his cousin's protection, after defeat by his brother Manṣūr at Almātū, escape from death, commanded by Shaibānī, in Farghāna, a winter journey through Qarā-tīgīn to Mīrzā Khān in Qilā'-i-ẓafar, refusal of an offer to put him in that feeble Mīrzā's place, and so on to Kābul, where he came a destitute fugitive and enjoyed a freedom from care never known by him before (f. 200_b_; T.R. p. 226). The year was fatal to his family and to Ḥaidar's; in it Shaibānī murdered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and his six sons, Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā and other Dūghlāt sulṯāns.