The Memoirs of Bābur 928
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 928
- Language
- English
928.1
928 AH.-DEC. 1ST 1521 TO NOV. 20TH 1522 AD. _a. Bābur visits Badakhshān._ Either early in this year or late in the previous one, Bābur and Māhīm went to visit Humāyūn in his government, probably to Faizābād, and stayed with him what Gul-badan calls a few days. _b. Expedition to Qandahār._
928.2
This year saw the end of the duel for possession of Qandahār. Khwānd-amīr's account of its surrender differs widely from Ma`ṣūm's. It claims that Bābur's retirement in 927 AH. was due to the remonstrances from Harāt, and that Shāh Beg, worn out by the siege, relied on the arrangement the Amīrs had made with Bābur and went to Sīwī, leaving one `Abdu'l-bāqī in charge of the place. This man, says Khwānd-amīr, drew the line of obliteration over his duty to his master, sent to Bābur, brought him down to Qandahār, and gave him the keys of the town—by the hand of Khwānd-amīr's nephew Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn, specifies the _Tarkhān-nāma_. In this year messengers had come and gone between Bābur and Harāt; two men employed by Amīr Khān are mentioned by name; of them the last had not returned to Harāt when a courier of Bābur's, bringing a tributary gift, announced there that the town was in his master's hands. Khwānd-amīr thus fixes the year 928 AH. as that in which the town passed into Bābur's hands; this date is confirmed by the one inscribed in the monument of victory at Chihil-zīna which Bābur ordered excavated on the naze of the limestone ridge behind the town. The date there given is Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 6th 1522 AD.). Ma`ṣūm's account, dated 923 AH. (1517 AD.), is of the briefest:—Shāh Beg fulfilled his promise, much to Bābur's approval, by sending him the keys of the town and royal residence.
928.3
Although Khwānd-amīr's account has good claim to be accepted, it must be admitted that several circumstances can be taken to show that Shāh Beg had abandoned Qandahār, _e.g._ the removal of the families after Bābur's retirement last year, and his own absence in a remote part of Sind this year. _c. The year of Shāh Beg's death._ Of several variant years assigned for the death of Shāh Beg in the sources, two only need consideration.[1555] There is consensus of opinion about the month and close agreement about the day, Sha`bān 22nd or 23rd. Ma`ṣūm gives a chronogram, _Shahr-Sha`bān_, (month of Sha`bān) which yields 928, but he does not mention where he obtained it, nor does anything in his narrative shew what has fixed the day of the month.
928.4
Two objections to 928 are patent: (1) the doubt engendered by Ma`ṣūm's earlier ante-dating; (2) that if 928 be right, Shāh Beg was already dead over two months when Qandahār was surrendered. This he might have been according to Khwānd-amīr's narrative, but if he died on Sha`bān 22nd 928 (July 26th 1522), there was time for the news to have reached Qandahār, and to have gone on to Harāt before the surrender. Shāh Beg's death at that time could not have failed to be associated in Khwānd-amīr's narrative with the fate of Qandahār; it might have pleaded some excuse with him for `Abdu'l-bāqī, who might even have had orders from Shāh Ḥasan to make the town over to Bābur whose suzerainty he had acknowledged at once on succession by reading the _khuṯba_ in his name. Khwānd-amīr however does not mention what would have been a salient point in the events of the siege; his silence cannot but weigh against the 928 AH. The year 930 AH. is given by Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ (lith. ed. p. 637), and this year has been adopted by Erskine, Beale, and Ney Elias, perhaps by others. Some light on the matter may be obtained incidentally as the sources are examined for a complete history of India, perhaps coming from the affairs of Multān, which was attacked by Shāh Ḥasan after communication with Bābur. _d. Bābur's literary work in 928 AH. and earlier._
928.5
1. The _Mubīn_. This year, as is known from a chronogram within the work, Bābur wrote the Turkī poem of 2000 lines to which Abū'l-faẓl and Badāyūnī give the name _Mubīn_ (The Exposition), but of which the true title is said by the _Nafā'isu'l-ma`āsir_ to be _Dar fiqa mubaiyan_ (The Law expounded). Sprenger found it called also _Fiqa-i-bāburī_ (Bābur's Law). It is a versified and highly orthodox treatise on Muḥammadan Law, written for the instruction of Kāmrān. A Commentary on it, called also _Mubīn_, was written by Shaikh Zain. Bābur quotes from it (f. 351_b_) when writing of linear measures. Berézine found and published a large portion of it as part of his _Chrestomathie Turque_ (Kazan 1857); the same fragment may be what was published by Ilminsky. Teufel remarks that the MS. used by Berézine may have descended direct from one sent by Bābur to a distinguished legist of Transoxiana, because the last words of Berézine's imprint are Bābur's _Begleitschreiben_ (_envoi_); he adds the expectation that the legist's name might be learned. Perhaps this recipient was the Khwāja Kalān, son of Khwāja Yaḥya, a Samarkandī to whom Bābur sent a copy of his Memoirs on March 7th 1520 (935 AH. f. 363).[1556]
928.6
2. The _Bābur-nāma_ diary of 925-6 AH. (1519-20 AD.). This is almost contemporary with the _Mubīn_ and is the earliest part of the _Bābur-nāma_ writings now known. It was written about a decade earlier than the narrative of 899 to 914 AH. (1494 to 1507 AD.), carries later annotations, and has now the character of a draft awaiting revision. 3. A _Dīwān_ (Collection of poems). By dovetailing a few fragments of information, it becomes clear that by 925 AH. (1519 AD.) Bābur had made a Collection of poetical compositions distinct from the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_; it is what he sent to Pūlād Sulṯan in 925 AH. (f. 238). Its date excludes the greater part of the Rāmpūr one. It may have contained those verses to which my husband drew attention in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of 1911, as quoted in the _Abūshqa_; and it may have contained, in agreement with its earlier date, the verses Bābur quotes as written in his earlier years. None of the quatrains found in the _Abūshqa_ and there attributed to "Bābur Mīrzā", are in the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_; nor are several of those early ones of the _Bābur-nāma_. So that the Dīwān sent to Pūlād Sulṯān may be the source from which the _Abūshqa_ drew its examples.
928.7
On first examining these verses, doubt arose as to whether they were really by Bābur _Mīrānshāhī_; or whether they were by "Bābur Mīrzā" _Shāhrukhī_. Fortunately my husband lighted on one of them quoted in the _Sanglakh_ and there attributed to Bābur Pādshāh. The _Abūshqa_ quatrains are used as examples in de Courteille's _Dictionary_, but without an author's name; they can be traced there through my husband's articles.[1557]