The Memoirs of Bābur 917.6

917.6

Meantime the Shāh's conditions seem to have been carried out in Samarkand and Bābur's subservience clearly shewn.[1337] Of this there are the indications,—that Bābur had promised and was a man of his word; that Sunnī irritation against him waxed and did not wane as it might have done without food to nourish it; that Bābur knew himself impotent against the Aūzbegs unless he had foreign aid, expected attack, knew it was preparing; that he would hear of Muḥammad Jān's report and of Najm S̤ānī's commission against himself. Honesty, policy and necessity combined to enforce the fulfilment of his agreement. What were the precise terms of that agreement beyond the two as to the _khuṯba_ and the coins, it needs close study of the wording of the sources to decide, lest metaphor be taken for fact. Great passions,—ambition, religious fervour, sectarian bigotry and fear confronted him. His problem was greater than that of Henry of Navarre and of Napoleon in Egypt; they had but to seem what secured their acceptance; he had to put on a guise that brought him hate. Khān-zāda was not the only member of Bābur's family who now rejoined him after marriage with an Aūzbeg. His half-sister Yādgār-sulṯān had fallen to the share of Ḥamza Sulṯān's son `Abdu'l-laṯīf in 908 AH. when Shaibānī defeated the Khāns near Akhsī. Now that her half-brother had defeated her husband's family, she returned to her own people (f. 9).