The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
_EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS_
914 AH.-MAY 2ND 1508 TO APRIL 21ST 1509 AD.
The mutiny, of which an account begins in the text, was crushed by the
victory of 500 loyalists over 3,000 rebels, one factor of success being
Bābur's defeat in single combat of five champions of his
adversaries.[1334] The disturbance was not of long duration; Kābul was
tranquil in Sha`bān (November) when Sl. Sa`īd Khān _Chaghatāī_, then 21,
arrived there seeking his cousin's protection, after defeat by his
brother Manṣūr at Almātū, escape from death, commanded by Shaibānī, in
Farghāna, a winter journey through Qarā-tīgīn to Mīrzā Khān in
Qilā'-i-ẓafar, refusal of an offer to put him in that feeble Mīrzā's
place, and so on to Kābul, where he came a destitute fugitive and
enjoyed a freedom from care never known by him before (f. 200_b_; T.R.
p. 226). The year was fatal to his family and to Ḥaidar's; in it
Shaibānī murdered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and his six sons, Muḥammad Ḥusain
Mīrzā and other Dūghlāt sulṯāns.
915 AH.-APRIL 21ST 1509 TO APRIL 11TH 1510 AD.
In this year hostilities began between Shāh Ismā`īl _Ṣafawī_ and Muḥ.
Shaibānī Khān _Aūzbeg_, news of which must have excited keen interest in
Kābul.
In it occurred also what was in itself a minor matter of a child's
safety, but became of historical importance, namely, the beginning of
personal acquaintance between Bābur and his sympathetic biographer
Ḥaidar Mīrzā _Dūghlāt_. Ḥaidar, like Sa`īd, came a fugitive to the
protection of a kinsman; he was then eleven, had been saved by servants
from the death commanded by Shaibānī, conveyed to Mīrzā Khān in
Badakhshān, thence sent for by Bābur to the greater security of Kābul
(f. 11; Index _s.n._; T.R. p. 227).
916 AH.-APRIL 11TH 1510 TO MARCH 31ST 1510 AD.
_a. News of the battle of Merv._
Over half of this year passed quietly in Kābul; Ramẓān (December)
brought from Mīrzā Khān (Wāis) the stirring news that Ismā`īl had
defeated Shaibānī near Merv.[1335] "It is not known," wrote the Mīrzā,
"whether Shāhī Beg Khān has been killed or not. All the Aūzbegs have
crossed the Amū. Amīr Aūrūs, who was in Qūndūz, has fled. About 20,000
Mughūls, who left the Aūzbeg at Merv, have come to Qūndūz. I have come
there." He then invited Bābur to join him and with him to try for the
recovery of their ancestral territories (T.R. p. 237).
_b. Bābur's campaign in Transoxiana begun._
The Mīrzā's letter was brought over passes blocked by snow; Bābur, with
all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Āb-dara, kept the
Ramẓān Feast in Bāmīān, and reached Qūndūz in Shawwāl (Jan. 1511 AD.).
Ḥaidar's detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded
because he had read Bābur's own remark, made in Ramẓān 933 AH. (June
1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sīkrī, he had not since
his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330).
_c. Mughūl affairs._
Outside Qūndūz lay the Mughūls mentioned by Mīrzā Khān as come from Merv
and so mentioned, presumably, as a possible reinforcement. They had been
servants of Bābur's uncles Maḥmūd and Aḥmad, and when Shaibānī defeated
those Khāns at Akhsī in 908 AH., had been compelled by him to migrate
into Khurāsān to places remote from Mughūlistān. Many of them had served
in Kāshghar; none had served a Tīmūrid Mīrzā. Set free by Shaibānī's
death, they had come east, a Khān-less 20,000 of armed and fully
equipped men and they were there, as Ḥaidar says, in their strength
while of Chaghatāīs there were not more than 5,000. They now, and with
them the Mughūls from Kābul, used the opportunity offering for return to
a more congenial location and leadership, by the presence in Qūndūz of a
legitimate Khāqān and the clearance in Andijān, a threshold of
Mughūlistān, of its Aūzbeg governors (f. 200_b_). The chiefs of both
bodies of Mughūls, Sherīm Taghāī at the head of one, Ayūb _Begchīk_ of
the other, proffered the Mughūl Khānship to Sa`īd with offer to set
Bābur aside, perhaps to kill him. It is improbable that in making their
offer they contemplated locating themselves in the confined country of
Kābul; what they seem to have wished was what Bābur gave, Sa`īd for
their Khāqān and permission to go north with him.
Sa`īd, in words worth reading, rejected their offer to injure Bābur,
doing so on the grounds of right and gratitude, but, the two men
agreeing that it was now expedient for them to part, asked to be sent to
act for Bābur where their friendship could be maintained for their
common welfare. The matter was settled by Bābur's sending him into
Andijān in response to an urgent petition for help there just arrived
from Ḥaidar's uncle. He "was made Khān" and started forth in the
following year, on Ṣafar 14th 917 AH. (May 13th 1511 AD.); with him went
most of the Mughūls but not all, since even of those from Merv, Ayūb
_Begchīk_ and others are found mentioned on several later occasions as
being with Bābur.
Bābur's phrase "I made him Khān" (f. 200_b_) recalls his earlier mention
of what seems to be the same appointment (f. 10_b_), made by Abū-sa`īd
of Yūnas as Khān of the Mughūls; in each case the meaning seems to be
that the Tīmūrid Mīrzā made the Chaghatāī Khān Khāqān of the Mughūls.
_d. First attempt on Ḥiṣār._
After spending a short time in Qūndūz, Bābur moved for Ḥiṣār in which
were the Aūzbeg sulṯāns Mahdī and Ḥamza. They came out into Wakhsh to
meet him but, owing to an imbroglio, there was no encounter and each
side retired (T.R. p. 238).
_e. Intercourse between Bābur and Ismā`īl Ṣafawī._
While Bābur was now in Qūndūz his sister Khān-zāda arrived there,
safe-returned under escort of the Shāh's troops, after the death in the
battle of Merv of her successive husbands Shaibānī and Sayyid Hādī, and
with her came an envoy from Ismā`īl proffering friendship, civilities
calculated to arouse a hope of Persian help in Bābur. To acknowledge his
courtesies, Bābur sent Mīrzā Khān with thanks and gifts; Ḥaidar says
that the Mīrzā also conveyed protestations of good faith and a request
for military assistance. He was well received and his request for help
was granted; that it was granted under hard conditions then stated later
occurrences shew.
917 AH.-MARCH 31ST 1511 TO MARCH 19TH 1512 AD.
_a. Second attempt on Ḥiṣār._
In this year Bābur moved again on Ḥiṣār. He took post, where once his
forbear Tīmūr had wrought out success against great odds, at the
Pul-i-sangīn (Stone-bridge) on the Sūrkh-āb, and lay there a month
awaiting reinforcement. The Aūzbeg sulṯāns faced him on the other side
of the river, they too, presumably, awaiting reinforcement. They moved
when they felt themselves strong enough to attack, whether by addition
to their own numbers, whether by learning that Bābur had not largely
increased his own. Concerning the second alternative it is open to
surmise that he hoped for larger reinforcement than he obtained; he
appears to have left Qūndūz before the return of Mīrzā Khān from his
embassy to Ismā`īl, to have expected Persian reinforcement with the
Mīrzā, and at Pul-i-sangīn, where the Mīrzā joined him in time to fight,
to have been strengthened by the Mīrzā's own following, and few, if any,
foreign auxiliaries. These surmises are supported by what Khwānd-amīr
relates of the conditions [specified later] on which the Shāh's main
contingent was despatched and by his shewing that it did not start until
after the Shāh had had news of the battle at Pul-i-sangīn.
At the end of the month of waiting, the Aūzbegs one morning swam the
Sūrkh-āb below the bridge; in the afternoon of the same day, Bābur
retired to better ground amongst the mountain fastnesses of a local
Āb-dara. In the desperate encounter which followed the Aūzbegs were
utterly routed with great loss in men; they were pursued to
Darband-i-ahanīn (Iron-gate) on the Ḥiṣār border, on their way to join a
great force assembled at Qarshī under Kūchūm Khān, Shaibānī's successor
as Aūzbeg Khāqān. The battle is admirably described by Ḥaidar, who was
then a boy of 12 with keen eye watching his own first fight, and that
fight with foes who had made him the last male survivor of his line. In
the evening of the victory Mahdī, Ḥamza and Ḥamza's son Mamak were
brought before Bābur who, says Ḥaidar, did to them what they had done to
the Mughūl Khāqāns and Chaghatāī Sulṯāns, that is, he retaliated in
blood for the blood of many kinsmen.
_b. Persian reinforcement._
After the battle Bābur went to near Ḥiṣār, was there joined by many
local tribesmen, and, some time later, by a large body of Ismā`īl's
troops under Aḥmad Beg _Ṣafawī_, `Alī Khān _Istiljū_ and Shāhrukh Sl.
_Afshār_, Ismā`īl's seal-keeper. The following particulars, given by
Khwānd-amīr, about the despatch of this contingent help to fix the order
of occurrences, and throw light on the price paid by Bābur for his
auxiliaries. He announced his victory over Mahdī and Ḥamza to the Shāh,
and at the same time promised that if he reconquered the rest of
Transoxiana by the Shāh's help, he would read his name in the _khuṯba_,
stamp it on coins together with those of the Twelve Imāms, and work to
destroy the power of the Aūzbegs. These undertakings look like a
response to a demand; such conditions cannot have been proffered; their
acceptance must have been compelled. Khwānd-amīr says that when Ismā`īl
fully understood the purport of Bābur's letter, [by which would seem to
be meant, when he knew that his conditions of help were accepted,] he
despatched the troops under the three Commanders named above.
The Persian chiefs advised a move direct on Bukhārā and Samarkand; and
with this Bābur's councillors concurred, they saying, according to
Ḥaidar, that Bukhārā was then empty of troops and full of fools. `Ubaid
Khān had thrown himself into Qarshī; it was settled not to attack him
but to pass on and encamp a stage beyond the town. This was done; then
scout followed scout, bringing news that he had come out of Qarshī and
was hurrying to Bukhārā, his own fief. Instant and swift pursuit
followed him up the 100 miles of caravan-road, into Bukhārā, and on
beyond, sweeping him and his garrison, plundered as they fled, into the
open land of Turkistān. Many sulṯāns had collected in Samarkand, some no
doubt being, like Tīmūr its governor, fugitives escaped from
Pul-i-sangīn. Dismayed by Bābur's second success, they scattered into
Turkistān, thus leaving him an open road.
_c. Samarkand re-occupied and relations with Ismā`īl Ṣafawī._
He must now have hoped to be able to dispense with his dangerous
colleagues, for he dismissed them when he reached Bukhārā, with gifts
and thanks for their services. It is Ḥaidar, himself present, who fixes
Bukhārā as the place of the dismissal (T.R. p. 246).
From Bukhārā Bābur went to Samarkand. It was mid-Rajab 917 AH. (October
1511 AD.), some ten months after leaving Kābul, and after 9 years of
absence, that he re-entered the town, itself gay with decoration for his
welcome, amidst the acclaim of its people.[1336]
Eight months were to prove his impotence to keep it against the forces
ranged against him,—Aūzbeg strength in arms compacted by Sunnī zeal,
Sunnī hatred of a Shī`a's suzerainty intensified by dread lest that
potent Shī`a should resolve to perpetuate his dominance. Both as a Sunnī
and as one who had not owned a suzerain, the position was unpleasant for
Bābur. That his alliance with Ismā`īl was dangerous he will have known,
as also that his risks grew as Transoxiana was over-spread by news of
Ismā`īl's fanatical barbarism to pious and learned Sunnīs, notably in
Herī. He manifested desire for release both now and later,—now when he
not only dismissed his Persian helpers but so behaved to the Shāh's
envoy Muḥammad Jān,—he was Najm S̤ānī's Lord of the Gate,—that the envoy