The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
elder brother Manṣūr's.
Shāh Shujā' Beg _Arghūn_, who, during the period, at various times held
Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang, Sīwīstān, and part of Sind. He died in 930 AH.
(1524 AD.) and was succeeded by his son Ḥasan who read the _khuṯba_ for
Bābur.
Khān Mīrzā _Mīrānshāhī_, who held Badakhshān from Bābur, with
head-quarters in Qūndūz; he died in 927 AH. (1520 AD.) and was succeeded
in his appointment by Humāyūn _aet._ 13.
Muḥammad-i-zamān _Bāī-qarā_ who held Balkh perhaps direct from Bābur,
perhaps from Ismā`īl through Bābur.
`Alā'u'd-dīn `Ālam Khān _Lūdī_, brother of the late Sulṯān Sikandar
_Lūdī_ and now desiring to supersede his nephew Ibrāhīm.
Daulat Khān _Yūsuf-khail_ (as Bābur uniformly describes him), or _Lūdī_
(as other writers do), holding Lāhor for Ibrāhīm _Lūdī_ at the beginning
of the period.
_SOURCES FOR THE EVENTS OF THIS GAP_
A complete history of the events the _Bābur-nāma_ leaves unrecorded has
yet to be written. The best existing one, whether Oriental or European,
is Erskine's _History of India_, but this does not exhaust the
sources—notably not using the _Ḥabību's-siyar_—and could be revised here
and there with advantage.
Most of the sources enumerated as useful for filling the previous gap
are so here; to them must be added, for the affairs of Qandahār,
Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_. This Mīr Ma`ṣūm's _Tārīkh-i-sind_
supplements usefully, but its brevity and its discrepant dates make it
demand adjustment; in some details it is expanded by Sayyid Jamāl's
_Tarkhān-_ or _Arghūn-nāma_.
For the affairs of Hindūstān the main sources are enumerated in Elliot
and Dowson's _History of India_ and in Nassau Lees' _Materials for the
history of India_. Doubtless all will be exhausted for the coming
_Cambridge History of India_.
_EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS_
926 AH.-DEC. 23RD 1519 TO DEC. 12TH 1520 AD.
The question of which were Bābur's "Five expeditions" into Hindūstān has
been often discussed; it is useful therefore to establish the dates of
those known as made. I have entered one as made in this year for the
following reasons;—it broke short because Shāh Beg made incursion into
Bābur's territories, and that incursion was followed by a siege of
Qandahār which several matters mentioned below show to have taken place
in 926 AH.
_a. Expedition into Hindūstān._
The march out from Kābul may have been as soon as muster and equipment
allowed after the return from Lamghān chronicled in the diary. It was
made through Bajaur where refractory tribesmen were brought to order.
The Indus will have been forded at the usual place where, until the last
one of 932 AH. (1525 AD.), all expeditions crossed on the outward march.
Bhīra was traversed in which were Bābur's own Commanders, and advance
was made, beyond lands yet occupied, to Sīālkot, 72 miles north of Lāhor
and in the Rechna _dū-āb_. It was occupied without resistance; and a
further move made to what the MSS. call Sayyidpūr; this attempted
defence, was taken by assault and put to the sword. No place named
Sayyidpūr is given in the Gazetteer of India, but the _Āyīn-i-akbarī_
mentions a Sidhpūr which from its neighbourhood to Sīālkot may be what
Bābur took.
Nothing indicates an intention in Bābur to join battle with Ibrāhīm at
this time; Lāhor may have been his objective, after he had made a
demonstration in force to strengthen his footing in Bhīra. Whatever he
may have planned to do beyond Sidhpūr(?) was frustrated by the news
which took him back to Kābul and thence to Qandahār, that an incursion
into his territory had been made by Shāh Beg.
_b. Shāh Shujā` Beg's position._
Shāh Beg was now holding Qandahār, Shāl, Mustang and Sīwīstān.[1550] He
knew that he held Qandahār by uncertain tenure, in face of its
desirability for Bābur and his own lesser power. His ground was further
weakened by its usefulness for operations on Harāt and the presence with
Bābur of Bāī-qarā refugees, ready to seize a chance, if offered by
Ismā`īl's waning fortunes, for recovery of their former seat. Knowing
his weakness, he for several years had been pushing his way out into
Sind by way of the Bolān-pass.
His relations with Bābur were ostensibly good; he had sent him envoys
twice last year, the first time to announce a success at Kāhān had in
the end of 924 AH. (Nov. 1519 AD.). His son Ḥasan however, with whom he
was unreconciled, had been for more than a year in Bābur's company,—a
matter not unlikely to stir under-currents of unfriendliness on either
side.
His relations with Shāh Ismā`īl were deferential, in appearance even
vassal-like, as is shewn by Khwānd-amīr's account of his appeal for
intervention against Bābur to the Shāh's officers in Harāt. Whether he
read the _khuṯba_ for any suzerain is doubtful; his son Ḥasan, it may be
said, read it later on for Bābur.
_c. The impelling cause of this siege of Qandahār._
Precisely what Shāh Beg did to bring Bābur back from the Panj-āb and
down upon Qandahār is not found mentioned by any source. It seems likely
to have been an affair of subordinates instigated by or for him. Its
immediate agents may have been the Nīkdīrī (Nūkdīrī) and Hazāra tribes
Bābur punished on his way south. Their location was the western
border-land; they may have descended on the Great North Road or have
raided for food in that famine year. It seems certain that Shāh Beg made
no serious attempt on Kābul; he was too much occupied in Sind to allow
him to do so. Some unused source may throw light on the matter
incidentally; the offence may have been small in itself and yet
sufficient to determine Bābur to remove risk from his rear.[1551]
_d. Qandahār._
The Qandahār of Bābur's sieges was difficult of capture; he had not
taken it in 913 AH. (f. 208_b_) by siege or assault, but by default
after one day's fight in the open. The strength of its position can be
judged from the following account of its ruins as they were seen in 1879
AD., the military details of which supplement Bellew's description
quoted in Appendix J.
The fortifications are of great extent with a treble line of bastioned
walls and a high citadel in the centre. The place is in complete ruin
and its locality now useful only as a grazing ground.... "The town is in
three parts, each on a separate eminence, and capable of mutual
defence. The mountain had been covered with towers united by curtains,
and the one on the culminating point may be called impregnable. It
commanded the citadel which stood lower down on the second eminence, and
this in turn commanded the town which was on a table-land elevated above
the plain. The triple walls surrounding the city were at a considerable
distance from it. After exploring the citadel and ruins, we mounted by
the gorge to the summit of the hill with the impregnable fort. In this
gorge are the ruins of two tanks, some 80 feet square, all destroyed,
with the pillars fallen; the work is _pukka_ in brick and _chunām_
(cement) and each tank had been domed in; they would have held about
400,000 gallons each." (Le Messurier's _Kandahar in 1879 AD._ pp. 223,
245.)
_e. Bābur's sieges of Qandahār._
The term of five years is found associated with Bābur's sieges of
Qandahār, sometimes suggesting a single attempt of five years' duration.
This it is easy to show incorrect; its root may be Mīr Ma`ṣūm's
erroneous chronology.
The day on which the keys of Qandahār were made over to Bābur is known,
from the famous inscription which commemorates the event (Appendix J),
as Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. Working backwards from this, it is known that in
927 AH. terms of surrender were made and that Bābur went back to Kābul;
he is besieging it in 926 AH.—the year under description; his annals of
925 AH. are complete and contain no siege; the year 924 AH. appears to
have had no siege, Shāh Beg was on the Indus and his son was for at
least part of it with Bābur; 923 AH. was a year of intended siege,
frustrated by Bābur's own illness; of any siege in 922 AH. there is as
yet no record known. So that it is certain there was no unremitted
beleaguerment through five years.
_f. The siege of 926 AH. (1520 AD.)._
When Bābur sat down to lay regular siege to Qandahār, with mining and
battering of the walls,[1552] famine was desolating the country round.
The garrison was reduced to great distress; "pestilence," ever an ally
of Qandahār, broke out within the walls, spread to Bābur's camp, and in
the month of Tīr (June) led him to return to Kābul.
In the succeeding months of respite, Shāh Beg pushed on in Sind and his
former slave, now commander, Mehtar Saṃbhal revictualled the town.
927 AH.—DEC. 12TH 1520 TO DEC. 1ST 1521 AD.
_a. The manuscript sources._
Two accounts of the sieges of Qandahār in this and next year are
available, one in Khwānd-amīr's _Ḥabību's-siyar_, the other in Ma`ṣūm
_Bhakkarī's Tārīkh-i-sind_. As they have important differences, it is
necessary to consider the opportunities of their authors for
information.
Khwānd-amīr finished his history in 1524-29 AD. His account of these
affairs of Qandahār is contemporary; he was in close touch with several
of the actors in them and may have been in Harāt through their course;
one of his patrons, Amīr Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn, was put to death in this year in
Harāt because of suspicion that he was an ally of Bābur; his nephew,
another Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn was in Qandahār, the bearer next year of its keys
to Bābur; moreover he was with Bābur himself a few years later in
Hindūstān.
Mīr Ma`ṣūm wrote in 1600 AD. 70 to 75 years after Khwānd-amīr. Of these
sieges he tells what may have been traditional and mentions no
manuscript authorities. Blochmann's biography of him (_Āyīn-i-akbarī_ p.
514) shews his ample opportunity of learning orally what had happened in
the Arghūn invasion of Sind, but does not mention the opportunity for
hearing traditions about Qandahār which his term of office there allowed
him. During that term it was that he added an inscription, commemorative
of Akbar's dominion, to Bābur's own at Chihil-zīna, which records the
date of the capture of Qandahār (928 AH.-1522 AD.).
_b. The Ḥabību's-siyar account_ (lith. ed. iii, part 4, p. 97).
Khwānd-amīr's contemporary narrative allows Ma`ṣūm's to dovetail into it
as to some matters, but contradicts it in the important ones of date,
and mode of surrender by Shāh Beg to Bābur. It states that Bābur was
resolved in 926 AH. (1520 AD.) to uproot Shāh Shujā` Beg from Qandahār,
led an army against the place, and "opened the Gates of war". It gives
no account of the siege of 926 AH. but passes on to the occurrences of
927 AH. (1521 AD.) when Shāh Beg, unable to meet Bābur in the field,
shut himself up in the town and strengthened the defences. Bābur put his
utmost pressure on the besieged, "often riding his piebald horse close
to the moat and urging his men to fiery onset." The garrison resisted
manfully, breaching the "life-fortresses" of the Kābulīs with sword,
arrow, spear and death-dealing stone, but Bābur's heroes were most often
victorious, and drove their assailants back through the Gates.
_c. Death of Khān Mīrzā reported to Bābur._
Meantime, continues Khwānd-amīr, Khān Mīrzā had died in Badakhshān; the
news was brought to Bābur and caused him great grief; he appointed
Humāyūn to succeed the Mīrzā while he himself prosecuted the siege of
Qandahār and the conquest of the Garm-sīr.[1553]
_d. Negociations with Bābur._
The Governor of Harāt at this time was Shāh Ismā`īl's son T̤ahmāsp,
between six and seven years old. His guardian Amīr Khān took chief part
in the diplomatic intervention with Bābur, but associated with him was
Amīr Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn—the patron of Khwānd-amīr already mentioned—until put
to death as an ally of Bābur. The discussion had with Bābur reveals a