The Memoirs of Bābur 936.3
The Bābur-nāma in English (A. S. Beveridge) 936.3
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936.3.1
As after being in Sihrind, Bābur is said to have spent two months hunting near Dihlī, it may be that he followed up the punitive expedition sent into the Kaithal _pargana_ of the Karnāl District, by hunting in Nardak, a favourite ground of the Tīmūrids, which lies in that district. Thus the gap of 936 AH. with also perhaps a month of 937 AH. is filled by the "year's" travel west of Dihlī. The record is a mere outline and in it are periods of months without mention of where Bābur was or what affairs of government were brought before him. At some time, on his return journey presumably, he will have despatched to Kashmīr the expedition referred to in the opening section of this appendix. Something further may yet be gleaned from local chronicles, from unwritten tradition, or from the witness of place-names commemorating his visit. _e. Bābur's self-surrender to save Humāyūn._ The few months, perhaps 4 to 5, between Bābur's return to Āgra from his expedition towards the North-west, and the time of his death are filled by Gul-badan and Abū'l-faẓl with matters concerning family interests only.
936.3.2
The first such matter these authors mention is an illness of Humāyūn during which Bābur devoted his own life to save his son's.[2719] Of this the particulars are, briefly:—That Humāyūn, while still in Saṃbhal, had had a violent attack of fever; that he was brought by water to Āgra, his mother meeting him in Muttra; and that when the disease baffled medical skill, Bābur resolved to practise the rite believed then and now in the East to be valid, of intercession and devotion of a suppliant's most valued possession in exchange for a sick man's life. Rejecting counsel to offer the Koh-i-nūr for pious uses, he resolved to supplicate for the acceptance of his life. He made intercession through a saint his daughter names, and moved thrice round Humāyūn's bed, praying, in effect, "O God! if a life may be exchanged for a life, I, who am Bābur, give my life and my being for Humāyūn." During the rite fever surged over him, and, convinced that his prayer and offering had prevailed, he cried out, "I have borne it away! I have borne it away!"[2720] Gul-badan says that he himself fell ill on that very day, while Humāyūn poured water on his head, came out and gave audience; and that they carried her Father within on account of his illness, where he kept his bed for 2 or 3 months.
936.3.3
There can be no doubt as to Bābur's faith in the rite he had practised, or as to his belief that his offering of life was accepted; moreover actual facts would sustain his faith and belief. Onlookers also must have believed his prayer and offering to have prevailed, since Humāyūn went back to Saṃbhal,[2721] while Bābur fell ill at once and died in a few weeks.[2722] _f. A plan to set Bābur's sons aside from the succession._ Reading the _Akbar-nāma_ alone, there would seem to be no question about whether Bābur ever intended to give Hindūstān, at any rate, to Humāyūn, but, by piecing together various contributory matters, an opposite opinion is reached, _viz._ that not Khalīfa only whom Abū'l-faẓl names perhaps on Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's warrant, but Bābur also, with some considerable number of chiefs, wished another ruler for Hindūstān. The starting-point of this opinion is a story in the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ and, with less detail, in the _Akbar-nāma_, of which the gist is that Khalīfa planned to supersede Humāyūn and his three brothers in their Father's succession.[2723] The story, in brief, is as follows:—At the time of Bābur's death Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's father Khwāja Muḥammad Muqīm _Harāwī_ was in the service of the Office of Works.[2724] Amīr Niẕāmu'd-dīn `Alī Khalīfa, the Chief of the Administration, had dread and suspicion about Humāyūn and did not favour his succession as Pādshāh. Nor did he favour that of Bābur's other sons.
936.3.4
He promised "Bābur Pādshāh's son-in-law (_dāmād_)" Mahdī Khwāja who was a generous young man, very friendly to himself, that he would make him Pādshāh. This promise becoming known, others made their _salām_ to the Khwāja who put on airs and accepted the position. One day when Khalīfa, accompanied by Muqīm, went to see Mahdī Khwāja in his tent, no-one else being present, Bābur, in the pangs of his disease, sent for him[2725] when he had been seated a few minutes only. When Khalīfa had gone out, Mahdī Khwāja remained standing in such a way that Muqīm could not follow but, the Khwāja unaware, waited respectfully behind him. The Khwāja, who was noted for the wildness of youth, said, stroking his beard, "Please God! first, I will flay thee!" turned round and saw Muqīm, took him by the ear, repeated a proverb of menace, "The red tongue gives the green head to the wind," and let him go. Muqīm hurried to Khalīfa, repeated the Khwāja's threat against him, and remonstrated about the plan to set all Bābur's sons aside in favour of a stranger-house.[2726] Here-upon Khalīfa sent for Humāyūn,[2727] and despatched an officer with orders to the Khwāja to retire to his house, who found him about to dine and hurried him off without ceremony. Khalīfa also issued a proclamation forbidding intercourse with him, excluded him from Court, and when Bābur died, supported Humāyūn.
936.3.5
As Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad was not born till 20 years after Bābur died, the story will have been old before he could appreciate it, and it was some 60 years old when it found way into the _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_ and, with less detail, into the _Akbar-nāma_.
936.3.6
Taken as it stands, it is incredible, because it represents Khalīfa, and him alone, planning to subject the four sons of Bābur to the suzerainty of Mahdī Khwāja who was not a Tīmūrid, who, so far as well-known sources show, was not of a ruling dynasty or personally illustrious,[2728] and who had been associated, so lately as the autumn of 1529 AD., with his nephew Raḥīm-dād in seditious action which had so angered Bābur that, whatever the punishment actually ordered, rumour had it both men were to die.[2729] In two particulars the only Mahdī Khwāja then of Bābur's following, does not suit the story; he was not a young man in 1530 AD.,[2730] and was not a _dāmād_ of Bābur, if that word be taken in its usual sense of son-in-law, but he was a _yazna_, husband of a Pādshāh's sister, in his case, of Khān-zāda Begīm.[2731] Some writers style him Sayyid Mahdī Khwāja, a double title which may indicate descent on both sides from religious houses; one is suggested to be that of Tirmiẕ by the circumstance that in his and Khān-zāda Begīm's mausoleum was buried a Tirmiẕ sayyid of later date, Shāh Abū'l-ma`ālī. But though he were of Tirmiẕ, it is doubtful if that religious house would be described by the word _khānwāda_ which so frequently denotes a ruling dynasty.
936.3.7
His name may have found its way into Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's story as a gloss mistakenly amplifying the word _dāmād_, taken in its less usual sense of brother-in-law. To Bābur's contemporaries the expression "Bābur Pādshāh's _dāmād_" (son-in-law) would be explicit, because for some 11 years before he lay on his death-bed, he had one son-in-law only, _viz._ Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā _Bāī-qarā_,[2732] the husband of Ma`ṣūma Sulṯān Begīm. If that Mīrzā's name were where Mahdī Khwāja's is entered, the story of an exclusion of Bābur's sons from rule might have a core of truth. It is incredible however that Khālīfa, with or without Bābur's concurrence, made the plan attributed to him of placing any man not a Tīmūrid in the position of Pādshāh over all Bābur's territory. I suggest that the plan concerned Hindūstān only and was one considered in connection with Bābur's intended return to Kābul, when he must have left that difficult country, hardly yet a possession, in charge of some man giving promise of power to hold it. Such a man Humāyūn was not. My suggestion rests on the following considerations:—
936.3.8
(1) Bābur's outlook was not that of those in Āgra in 1587 AD. who gave Abū'l-faẓl his Bāburiana material, because at that date Dihlī had become the pivot of Tīmūrid power, so that not to hold Hindūstān would imply not to be Pādshāh. Bābur's outlook on his smaller Hindūstān was different; his position in it was precarious, Kābul, not Dihlī, was his chosen centre, and from Kābul his eyes looked northwards as well as to the East. If he had lost the Hindūstān which was approximately the modern United Provinces, he might still have held what lay west of it to the Indus, as well as Qandahār.
936.3.9
(2) For several years before his death he had wished to return to Kābul. Ample evidence of this wish is given by his diary, his letters, and some poems in his second _Dīwān_ (that found in the Rāmpūr MS.). As he told his sons more than once, he kept Kābul for himself.[2733] If, instead of dying in Āgra, he had returned to Kābul, had pushed his way on from Badakhshān, whether as far as Samarkand or less, had given Humāyūn a seat in those parts,—action foreshadowed by the records—a reasonable interpretation of the story that Humāyūn and his brothers were not to govern Hindūstān, is that he had considered with Khalīfa the apportionment of his territories according to the example of his ancestors Chīngīz Khān, Tīmūr and Abū-sa`īd; that by his plan of apportionment Humāyūn was not to have Hindūstān but something Tramontane; Kāmrān had already Qandahār; Sulaimān, if Humāyūn had moved beyond the out-post of Badakhshān, would have replaced him there; and Hindūstān would have gone to "Bābur Pādshāh's _dāmād_".