The Memoirs of Bābur 936.2.4

936.2.4

Humāyūn's arrival in Āgra is said by Abū'l-faẓl to have been cheering to the royal family in their sadness for the death of Alwar (end of 935 AH.) and to have given pleasure to his Father. But the time is all too near the date of Bābur's letter (f.348) to Humāyūn, that of a dissatisfied parent, to allow the supposition that his desertion of his post would fail to displease. That it was a desertion and not an act of obedience seems clear from the circumstance that the post had yet to be filled. Khalīfa is said to have been asked to take it and to have refused;[2703] Humāyūn to have been sounded as to return and to have expressed unwillingness. Bābur then did what was an honourable sequel to his acceptance in 926 AH. of the charge of the fatherless child Sulaimān, by sending him, now about 16, to take charge where his father Khān Mīrzā had ruled, and by still keeping him under his own protection. Sulaimān's start from Āgra will not have been delayed, and (accepting Aḥmad-i-yādgār's record,) Bābur himself will have gone as far as Lāhor either with him or shortly after him, an expedition supporting Sulaimān, and menacing Sa`īd in his winter leaguer round Qila`-i-ẕafar. Meantime Humāyūn was ordered to his fief of Saṃbhal.