The Memoirs of Bābur 936.1.4

936.1.4

The contribution made towards filling the gap of 936-937 AH. in the body of Niẕāmu-'d-dīn Aḥmad's _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ is limited to a curious and doubtfully acceptable anecdote about a plan for the supersession of Humāyūn as Pādshāh, and about the part played by Khwāja Muqīm _Harāwī_ in its abandonment. A further contribution is made, however, in Book VII which contains the history of the Muḥammadan Kings of Kashmīr, namely, that Bābur despatched an expedition into that country. As no such expedition is recorded or referred to in surviving Bābur-nāma writings, it is likely to have been sent in 936 AH. during Bābur's tour to and from Lāhor. If it were made with the aim of extending Tīmūrid authority in the Himālayan borderlands, a hint of similar policy elsewhere may be given by the ceremonious visit of the Rāja of Kahlūr to Bābur, mentioned by Aḥmad-i-yādgār (_vide post_).[2696] The T̤.-i-A. was written within the term of Abū'l-faẓl's work on the _Akbar-nāma_, being begun later, and ended about 9 years earlier, in 1002 AH.-1593 AD. It appears to have been Abū'-l-faẓl's authority for his account of the campaign carried on in Kashmīr by Bābur's chiefs (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ vol. ii, part i, Jarrett's trs. p. 389). An important contribution, seeming to be authentic, is found interpolated in Aḥmad-i-yādgār's _Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana_, one which outlines a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor in 936 AH.