The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Hormuz or to Hindūstān. It is five or [Sidenote: Fol. 4b.] six
_yīghāch_[84] east of Khujand.
Between Kand-i-badām and Khujand lies the waste known as Hā Darwesh. In
this there is always (_hamesha_) wind; from it wind goes always
(_hameshā_) to Marghīnān on its east; from it wind comes continually
(_dā'im_) to Khujand on its west.[85] It has violent, whirling winds.
People say that some darweshes, encountering a whirlwind in this
desert,[86] lost one another and kept crying, "Hāy Darwesh! Hāy
Darwesh!" till all had perished, and that the waste has been called Hā
Darwesh ever since.
Of the townships on the north of the Saiḥūn River one is Akhsī. In books
they write it Akhsīkīt[87] and for this reason the poet As̤iru-d-dīn is
known as _Akhsīkītī_. After Andijān no township in Farghāna is larger
than Akhsī. It is nine _yīghāch_[88] by road to the west of Andijān.
`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital.[89] The Saiḥūn River flows below
its walled town (_qūrghān_). This stands above a great ravine (_buland
jar_) and it has deep ravines (_`uṃiq jarlār_) in place of a moat. When
`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā made it his capital, he once or twice cut other
ravines from the outer ones. In all Farghāna no fort is so strong as
Akhsī. *Its suburbs extend some two miles further [Sidenote: Fol. 5.]
than the walled town.* People seem to have made of Akhsī the saying
(_mis̤al_), "Where is the village? Where are the trees?" (_Dih kujā?
Dirakhtān kujā?_) Its melons are excellent; they call one kind Mīr
Tīmūrī; whether in the world there is another to equal it is not known.
The melons of Bukhārā are famous; when I took Samarkand, I had some
brought from there and some from Akhsī; they were cut up at an
entertainment and nothing from Bukhārā compared with those from Akhsī.
The fowling and hunting of Akhsī are very good indeed; _āq kīyīk_ abound
in the waste on the Akhsī side of the Saihūn; in the jungle on the
Andijān side _būghū-marāl_,[90] pheasant and hare are had, all in very
good condition.
Again there is Kāsān, rather a small township to the north of Akhsī.
From Kāsān the Akhsī water comes in the same way as the Andijān water
comes from Aūsh. Kāsān has excellent air and beautiful little gardens
(_bāghcha_). As these gardens all lie along the bed of the torrent
(_sā'ī_) people call them the "fine front of the coat."[91] Between
Kāsānīs and Aūshīs there is rivalry about the beauty and climate of
their townships.
In the mountains round Farghāna are excellent summer-pastures (_yīlāq_).
There, and nowhere else, the _tabalghū_[92]grows, a tree (_yīghāch_)
with red bark; they make staves of it; they [Sidenote: Fol. 5b.] make
bird-cages of it; they scrape it into arrows;[93] it is an excellent
wood (_yīghāch_) and is carried as a rarity[94] to distant places. Some
books write that the mandrake[95] is found in these mountains but for
this long time past nothing has been heard of it. A plant called _Āyīq
aūtī_[96] and having the qualities of the mandrake (_mihr-giyāh_), is
heard of in Yītī-kīnt;[97] it seems to be the mandrake (_mihr-giyāh_)
the people there call by this name (_i.e._ _āyīq aūtī_). There are
turquoise and iron mines in these mountains.
If people do justly, three or four thousand men[98] may be maintained by
the revenues of Farghāna.
(_b. Historical narrative resumed._)[99]
As `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā was a ruler of high ambition and great pretension,
he was always bent on conquest. On several occasions he led an army
against Samarkand; sometimes he was beaten, sometimes retired against
his will.[100] More than once he asked his father-in-law into the
country, that is to say, my grandfather, Yūnas Khān, the then Khān of
the Mughūls in the camping ground (_yūrt_) of his ancestor, Chaghatāī
Khān, the second son of Chīngīz Khān. Each time the Mīrzā brought The
Khān into the Farghāna country he gave him lands, but, partly owing to
his misconduct, partly to the thwarting of the [Sidenote: Fol. 6.]
Mughūls,[101] things did not go as he wished and Yūnas Khān, not being
able to remain, went out again into Mughūlistān. When the Mīrzā last
brought The Khān in, he was in possession of Tāshkīnt, which in books
they write Shash, and sometimes Chāch, whence the term, a Chāchī,
bow.[102] He gave it to The Khān, and from that date (890AH.-1485AD.)
down to 908AH. (1503AD.) it and the Shāhrukhiya country were held by the
Chaghatāī Khāns.
At this date (_i.e._, 899AH.-1494AD.) the Mughūl Khānship was in Sl.
Maḥ=mūd Khān, Yūnas Khān's younger son and a half-brother of my mother.
As he and `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's elder brother, the then ruler of
Samarkand, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā were offended by the Mīrzā's behaviour, they
came to an agreement together; Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā had already given a
daughter to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān;[103] both now led their armies against
`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, the first advancing along the south of the Khujand
Water, the second along its north.
Meantime a strange event occurred. It has been mentioned [Sidenote: Fol.
6b] that the fort of Akhsī is situated above a deep ravine;[104] along
this ravine stand the palace buildings, and from it, on Monday, Ramẓān
4, (June 8th.) `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā flew, with his pigeons and their
house, and became a falcon.[105]
He was 39 (lunar) years old, having been born in Samarkand, in 860AH.
(1456AD.) He was Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā's fourth son,[106] being younger
than Sl. Aḥmad M. and Sl. Muḥammad M. and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. His father,
Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, was the son of Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, son of Tīmūr
Beg's third son, Mīrān-shāh M. and was younger than `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā,
(the elder) and Jahāngīr M. but older than Shāhrukh Mīrzā.
_c. `Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's country._
His father first gave him Kābul and, with Bābā-i-Kābulī[107] for his
guardian, had allowed him to set out, but recalled him from the Tamarisk
Valley[108] to Samarkand, on account of the Mīrzās' Circumcision Feast.
When the Feast was over, he gave him Andijān with the appropriateness
that Tīmūr Beg had given Farghāna (Andijān) to his son, the elder `Umar
Shaikh Mīrzā. This done, he sent him off with Khudāī-bīrdī _Tūghchī
Tīmūr-tāsh_[109] for his guardian.
_d. His appearance and characteristics._
He was a short and stout, round-bearded and fleshy-faced [Sidenote: Fol.
7.] person.[110] He used to wear his tunic so very tight that to fasten
the strings he had to draw his belly in and, if he let himself out after
tying them, they often tore away. He was not choice in dress or food. He
wound his turban in a fold (_dastar-pech_); all turbans were in four
folds (_chār-pech_) in those days; people wore them without twisting
and let the ends hang down.[111] In the heats and except in his Court,
he generally wore the Mughūl cap.
_e. His qualities and habits._
He was a true believer (_Ḥanafī maẕhablīk_) and pure in the Faith, not
neglecting the Five Prayers and, his life through, making up his
Omissions.[112] He read the Qur'ān very frequently and was a disciple of
his Highness Khwāja `Ubaidu'l-lāh (_Aḥrārī_) who honoured him by visits
and even called him son. His current readings[113] were the two Quintets
and the _Mas̤nawī_;[114] of histories he read chiefly the _Shāh-nāma_.
He had a poetic nature, but no taste for composing verses. He was so
just that when he heard of a caravan returning from Khitāī as
overwhelmed by snow in the mountains of Eastern Andijān,[115] and that
of its thousand heads of houses (_awīlūq_) two only had escaped, he sent
his overseers to take charge of all goods and, though no heirs were
[Sidenote: Fol. 7b.] near and though he was in want himself, summoned
the heirs from Khurāsān and Samarkand, and in the course of a year or
two had made over to them all their property safe and sound.
He was very generous; in truth, his character rose altogether to the
height of generosity. He was affable, eloquent and sweet-spoken, daring
and bold. Twice out-distancing all his braves,[116] he got to work with
his own sword, once at the Gate of Akhsī, once at the Gate of
Shāhrukhiya. A middling archer, he was strong in the fist,—not a man but
fell to his blow. Through his ambition, peace was exchanged often for
war, friendliness for hostility.
In his early days he was a great drinker, later on used to have a party
once or twice a week. He was good company, on occasions reciting verses
admirably. Towards the last he rather preferred intoxicating
confects[117] and, under their sway, used to lose his head. His
disposition[118] was amorous, and he bore many a lover's mark.[119] He
played draughts a good deal, sometimes even threw the dice.
_f. His battles and encounters._
He fought three ranged battles, the first with Yūnas Khān, [Sidenote:
Fol. 8.] on the Saiḥūn, north of Andijān, at the Goat-leap,[120] a
village so-called because near it the foot-hills so narrow the flow of
the water that people say goats leap across.[121] There he was beaten
and made prisoner. Yūnas Khān for his part did well by him and gave him
leave to go to his own district (Andijān). This fight having been at
that place, the Battle of the Goat-leap became a date in those parts.
His second battle was fought on the Urūs,[122] in Turkistān, with
Aūzbegs returning from a raid near Samarkand. He crossed the river on
the ice, gave them a good beating, separated off all their prisoners and
booty and, without coveting a single thing for himself, gave everything
back to its owners.
His third battle he fought with (his brother) Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā at a
place between Shāhrukhiya and Aūrā-tīpā, named Khwāṣ.[123] Here he was
beaten.
_g. His country._
The Farghāna country his father had given him; Tāshkīnt and Sairām, his
elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā gave, and they were in his possession for
a time; Shāhrukhiya he took by a ruse and held awhile. Later on,
Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya passed out of his hands; there then remained
the Farghāna country and Khujand,—some do not include Khujand in
[Sidenote: Fol. 8b.] Farghāna,—and Aūrā-tīpā, of which the original name
was Aūrūshnā and which some call Aūrūsh. In Aūrā-tīpā, at the time Sl.
Aḥmad Mīrzā went to Tāshkīnt against the Mughūls, and was beaten on the
Chīr[124] (893AH.-1488AD.) was Ḥafiẓ Beg _Dūldāī_; he made it over to
`Umar Shaikh M. and the Mīrzā held it from that time forth.
_h. His children._
Three of his sons and five of his daughters grew up. I, Z̤ahīru'd-dīn
Muḥammad Bābur,[125] was his eldest son; my mother was Qūtlūq-nigār
Khānīm. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was his second son, two years younger than I; his
mother, Fāṯima-sulṯān by name, was of the Mughūl _tūmān_-begs.[126]
Nāṣir Mīrzā was his third son; his mother was an Andijānī, a
mistress,[127] named Umīd. He was four years younger than I.
`Umar Shaikh Mīrzā's eldest daughter was Khān-zāda Begīm,[128] my full
sister, five years older than I. The second time I took Samarkand
(905AH.-1500AD.), spite of defeat at Sar-i-pul,[129] I went back and
held it through a five months' siege, but as no sort of help or
reinforcement came from any beg or ruler thereabouts, I left it in
despair and got away; in that throneless time (_fatrat_) Khān-zāda Begīm
fell[130] to Muḥammad _Shaibānī_ Khān. She had one child by him, a
pleasant boy,[131] [Sidenote: Fol. 9.] named Khurram Shāh. The Balkh
country was given to him; he went to God's mercy a few years after the
death of his father (916AH.-1510AD.). Khān-zāda Begīm was in Merv when
Shāh Ismā`īl (_Ṣafawī_) defeated the Aūzbegs near that town
(916AH.-1510AD.); for my sake he treated her well, giving her a
sufficient escort to Qūndūz where she rejoined me. We had been apart for
some ten years; when Muḥammadī _kūkūldāsh_ and I went to see her,
neither she nor those about her knew us, although I spoke. They
recognized us after a time.