The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
appointed to Multān (f. 359) when `Askarī was summoned to Āgra (f. 339),
but whether he actually went there is not assured; some months later
(Ẕū'l-ḥijja 10th 935 AH.) he is described by Abū'l-faẓl as coming to
Kābul from Qandahār. He took both Multān[2711] and Lāhor by force from
his (half-)brother Humāyūn in 935 AH. (1531 AD.) the year after their
Father's death. That he should wait upon his Father in Lāhor would be
natural, Hind-āl did so, coming from Kābul. Hind-āl will have come to
Lāhor after making over charge of Qila`-i-ẕafar to Sulaimān, and he went
back at the end of the cold season, going perhaps just before his Father
started from Lāhor on his return journey, the gifts he received before
leaving being 2 elephants, 4 horses, belts and jewelled daggers.[2712]
Bābur is said to have left Lāhor on Rajab 4th (936 AH.)-(March 4th, 1530
AD.). From Aḥmad-i-yādgār's outline of Bābur's doings in Lāhor, he, or
his original, must be taken as ill-informed or indifferent about them.
His interest becomes greater when he writes of Samāna.
_d. Punishment of the Mundāhirs._
When Bābur, on his return journey, reached Sihrind, he received a
complaint from the Qāẓī of Samāna against one Mohan _Mundāhir_ (or
_Mundhār_)[2713] _Rājpūt_ who had attacked his estates, burning and
plundering, and killed his son. Here-upon `Alī-qulī of Hamadān[2714] was
sent with 3000 horse to avenge the Qāzī's wrongs, and reached Mohan's
village, in the Kaithal _pargana_, early in the morning when the cold
was such that the archers "could not pull their bows."[2715] A marriage
had been celebrated over-night; the villagers, issuing from warm houses,
shot such flights of arrows that the royal troops could make no stand;
many were killed and nothing was effected; they retired into the jungle,
lit fires, warmed themselves(?), renewed the attack and were again
repulsed. On hearing of their failure, Bābur sent off, perhaps again
from Sihrind, Tarsam Bahādur and Naurang Beg with 6000 horse and many
elephants. This force reached the village at night and when marriage
festivities were in progress. Towards morning it was formed into three
divisions,[2716] one of which was ordered to go to the west of the
village and show itself. This having been done, the villagers advanced
towards it, in the pride of their recent success. The royal troops, as
ordered beforehand, turned their backs and fled, the Mundāhirs pursuing
them some two miles. Meantime Tarsam Bahādur had attacked and fired the
village, killing many of its inhabitants. The pursuers on the west saw
the flames of their burning homes, ran back and were intercepted on
their way. About 1000 men, women and children were made prisoner; there
was also great slaughter, and a pillar of heads was raised. Mohan was
captured and later on was buried to the waist and shot to death with
arrows.[2717] News of the affair was sent to the Pādshāh.[2718]
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.
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.
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. 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.
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_.
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.
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:—
(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.
(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