Twilight of the Sultanate c15.s4.5

c15.s4.5

His early years as ruler were spent in fighting his cousins and other relations. Like his father 'Umar Shaikh, Bābur was ever dreaming of possessing Samarqand, "indissolubly associated with the glory and greatness of Amīr Tīmūr".¹²⁰ In 1497 he defeated his cousin Baisunqar and occupied Samarqand, but the latter invited to his rescue Shaibānī Khan, chief of the Uzbegs. Shaibānī rendered little help to Baisunqar, but himself snatched Samarqand from Bābur, who had to retreat to Tashkent, a virtual fugitive (1501). Bābur was not strong enough to face Shaibānī, and yet he could not sit idle. So he moved south-eastwards and occupied Kabul (1501-2). "We are justified in assuming," writes Sir Denison Ross, "that it was while Bābur was bringing order into his new kingdom... that he was first inspired with his Indian dream".¹²¹ In January, 1505, he marched through the Khyber Pass and arrived at Derā Ghāzī Khan, taking Kohāt and Tabrīlā on the way. He was back in Kabul in May 1505 after this successful campaign in the east.¹²² It is significant that an expedition to India was seriously thought of as early as 1505. For full twenty years thereafter the pendulum of Bābur's desires swung between the east and the west. During this period his chief interest lay in Central Asian politics, but urged by the force of circumstances he had occasions of marching across the Indian frontier.¹²³