The Memoirs of Bābur 919

919

919 AH.-MARCH 9TH 1513 TO FEB. 26TH 1514 AD.
Bābur may have spent this year in Khishm (Ḥ.S. iii, 372). During two or three months of it, he had one of the Shāh's retainers in his service, Khwāja Kamālu'd-dīn Maḥmūd, who had fled from Ghaj-davān to Balkh, heard there that the Balkhīs favoured an Aūzbeg chief whose coming was announced, and therefore went to Bābur. In Jumāda 11 (August), hearing that the Aūzbeg sultan had left Balkh, he returned there but was not admitted because the Balkhīs feared reprisals for their welcome to the Aūzbeg, a fear which may indicate that he had taken some considerable reinforcement to Bābur. He went on into Khurāsān and was there killed; Balkh was recaptured for the Shāh by Deo Sulṯān, a removal from Aūzbeg possession which helps to explain how Bābur came to be there in 923 AH.