The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
complexity of motives demanding attention. Nominally undertaken though
intervention was on behalf of Shāh Beg, and certainly so at his request,
the Persian officers seem to have been less anxious on his account than
for their own position in Khurāsān, their master's position at the time
being weakened by ill-success against the Sulṯān of Rūm. To Bābur, Shāh
Beg is written of as though he were an insubordinate vassal whom Bābur
was reducing to order for the Shāh, but when Amīr Khān heard that Shāh
Beg was hard pressed, he was much distressed because he feared a
victorious Bābur might move on Khurāsān. Nothing indicates however that
Bābur had Khurāsān in his thoughts; Hindūstān was his objective, and
Qandahār a help on the way; but as Amīr Khān had this fear about him, a
probable ground for it is provided by the presence with Bābur of
Bāī-qarā exiles whose ambition it must have been to recover their former
seat. Whether for Harāt, Kābul, or Hindūstān, Qandahār was strength.
Another matter not fitting the avowed purpose of the diplomatic
intervention is the death of Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn because an ally of Bābur;
this makes Amīr Khān seem to count Bābur as Ismā`īl's enemy.
Shāh Beg's requests for intervention began in 926 AH. (1520 AD.), as
also did the remonstrance of the Persian officers with Bābur; his
couriers followed one another with entreaty that the Amīrs would
contrive for Bābur to retire, with promise of obeisance and of yearly
tribute. The Amīrs set forth to Bābur that though Shāh Shujā` Beg had
offended and had been deserving of wrath and chastisement, yet, as he
was penitent and had promised loyalty and tribute, it was now proper for
Bābur to raise the siege (of 926 AH.) and go back to Kābul. To this
Bābur answered that Shāh Beg's promise was a vain thing, on which no
reliance could be placed; please God!, said he, he himself would take
Qandahār and send Shāh Beg a prisoner to Harāt; and that he should be
ready then to give the keys of the town and the possession of the
Garm-sīr to any-one appointed to receive them.
This correspondence suits an assumption that Bābur acted for Shāh
Ismā`īl, a diplomatic assumption merely, the verbal veil, on one side,
for anxiety lest Bābur or those with him should attack Harāt,—on the
other, for Bābur's resolve to hold Qandahār himself.
Amīr Khān was not satisfied with Bābur's answer, but had his attention
distracted by another matter, presumably `Ubaidu'l-lāh Khān's attack on
Harāt in the spring of the year (March-April 1521 AD.). Negociations
appear to have been resumed later, since Khwānd-amīr claims it as their
result that Bābur left Qandahār this year.
_e. The Tārīkh-i-sind account._
Mīr Ma`ṣūm is very brief; he says that in this year (his 922 AH.), Bābur
went down to Qandahār before the year's tribute in grain had been
collected, destroyed the standing crops, encompassed the town, and
reduced it to extremity; that Shāh Beg, wearied under reiterated attack
and pre-occupied by operations in Sind, proposed terms, and that these
were made with stipulation for the town to be his during one year more
and then to be given over to Bābur. These terms settled, Bābur went to
Kābul, Shāh Beg to Sīwī.
The Arghūn families were removed to Shāl and Sīwī, so that the year's
delay may have been an accommodation allowed for this purpose.
_f. Concerning dates._
There is much discrepancy between the dates of the two historians.
Khwānd-amīr's agree with the few fixed ones of the period and with the
course of events; several of Ma`ṣūm's, on the contrary, are _seriatim_
five (lunar) years earlier. For instance, events Khwānd-amīr places
under 927 AH. Ma`ṣūm places under 922 AH. Again, while Ma`ṣūm correctly
gives 913 AH. (1507 AD.) as the year of Bābur's first capture of
Qandahār, he sets up a discrepant series later, from the success Shāh
Beg had at Kāhān; this he allots to 921 AH. (1515 AD.) whereas Bābur
received news of it (f. 233_b_) in the beginning of 925 AH. (1519 AD.).
Again, Ma`ṣūm makes Shāh Ḥasan go to Bābur in 921 AH. and stay two
years; but Ḥasan spent the whole of 925 AH. with Bābur and is not
mentioned as having left before the second month of 926 AH. Again,
Ma`ṣūm makes Shāh Beg surrender the keys of Qandahār in 923 AH. (1517
AD.), but 928 AH. (1522 AD.) is shewn by Khwānd-amīr's dates and
narrative, and is inscribed at Chihil-zīna.[1554]
928 AH.-DEC. 1ST 1521 TO NOV. 20TH 1522 AD.
_a. Bābur visits Badakhshān._
Either early in this year or late in the previous one, Bābur and Māhīm
went to visit Humāyūn in his government, probably to Faizābād, and
stayed with him what Gul-badan calls a few days.
_b. Expedition to Qandahār._
This year saw the end of the duel for possession of Qandahār.
Khwānd-amīr's account of its surrender differs widely from Ma`ṣūm's. It
claims that Bābur's retirement in 927 AH. was due to the remonstrances
from Harāt, and that Shāh Beg, worn out by the siege, relied on the
arrangement the Amīrs had made with Bābur and went to Sīwī, leaving one
`Abdu'l-bāqī in charge of the place. This man, says Khwānd-amīr, drew
the line of obliteration over his duty to his master, sent to Bābur,
brought him down to Qandahār, and gave him the keys of the town—by the
hand of Khwānd-amīr's nephew Ghiyāṣu'd-dīn, specifies the
_Tarkhān-nāma_. In this year messengers had come and gone between Bābur
and Harāt; two men employed by Amīr Khān are mentioned by name; of them
the last had not returned to Harāt when a courier of Bābur's, bringing a
tributary gift, announced there that the town was in his master's hands.
Khwānd-amīr thus fixes the year 928 AH. as that in which the town passed
into Bābur's hands; this date is confirmed by the one inscribed in the
monument of victory at Chihil-zīna which Bābur ordered excavated on the
naze of the limestone ridge behind the town. The date there given is
Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 6th 1522 AD.).
Ma`ṣūm's account, dated 923 AH. (1517 AD.), is of the briefest:—Shāh Beg
fulfilled his promise, much to Bābur's approval, by sending him the keys
of the town and royal residence.
Although Khwānd-amīr's account has good claim to be accepted, it must be
admitted that several circumstances can be taken to show that Shāh Beg
had abandoned Qandahār, _e.g._ the removal of the families after Bābur's
retirement last year, and his own absence in a remote part of Sind this
year.
_c. The year of Shāh Beg's death._
Of several variant years assigned for the death of Shāh Beg in the
sources, two only need consideration.[1555] There is consensus of
opinion about the month and close agreement about the day, Sha`bān 22nd
or 23rd. Ma`ṣūm gives a chronogram, _Shahr-Sha`bān_, (month of Sha`bān)
which yields 928, but he does not mention where he obtained it, nor does
anything in his narrative shew what has fixed the day of the month.
Two objections to 928 are patent: (1) the doubt engendered by Ma`ṣūm's
earlier ante-dating; (2) that if 928 be right, Shāh Beg was already dead
over two months when Qandahār was surrendered. This he might have been
according to Khwānd-amīr's narrative, but if he died on Sha`bān 22nd 928
(July 26th 1522), there was time for the news to have reached Qandahār,
and to have gone on to Harāt before the surrender. Shāh Beg's death at
that time could not have failed to be associated in Khwānd-amīr's
narrative with the fate of Qandahār; it might have pleaded some excuse
with him for `Abdu'l-bāqī, who might even have had orders from Shāh
Ḥasan to make the town over to Bābur whose suzerainty he had
acknowledged at once on succession by reading the _khuṯba_ in his name.
Khwānd-amīr however does not mention what would have been a salient
point in the events of the siege; his silence cannot but weigh against
the 928 AH.
The year 930 AH. is given by Niẕāmu'd-dīn Aḥmad's _T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī_
(lith. ed. p. 637), and this year has been adopted by Erskine, Beale,
and Ney Elias, perhaps by others. Some light on the matter may be
obtained incidentally as the sources are examined for a complete history
of India, perhaps coming from the affairs of Multān, which was attacked
by Shāh Ḥasan after communication with Bābur.
_d. Bābur's literary work in 928 AH. and earlier._
1. The _Mubīn_. This year, as is known from a chronogram within the
work, Bābur wrote the Turkī poem of 2000 lines to which Abū'l-faẓl and
Badāyūnī give the name _Mubīn_ (The Exposition), but of which the true
title is said by the _Nafā'isu'l-ma`āsir_ to be _Dar fiqa mubaiyan_ (The
Law expounded). Sprenger found it called also _Fiqa-i-bāburī_ (Bābur's
Law). It is a versified and highly orthodox treatise on Muḥammadan Law,
written for the instruction of Kāmrān. A Commentary on it, called also
_Mubīn_, was written by Shaikh Zain. Bābur quotes from it (f. 351_b_)
when writing of linear measures. Berézine found and published a large
portion of it as part of his _Chrestomathie Turque_ (Kazan 1857); the
same fragment may be what was published by Ilminsky. Teufel remarks that
the MS. used by Berézine may have descended direct from one sent by
Bābur to a distinguished legist of Transoxiana, because the last words
of Berézine's imprint are Bābur's _Begleitschreiben_ (_envoi_); he adds
the expectation that the legist's name might be learned. Perhaps this
recipient was the Khwāja Kalān, son of Khwāja Yaḥya, a Samarkandī to
whom Bābur sent a copy of his Memoirs on March 7th 1520 (935 AH. f.
363).[1556]
2. The _Bābur-nāma_ diary of 925-6 AH. (1519-20 AD.). This is almost
contemporary with the _Mubīn_ and is the earliest part of the
_Bābur-nāma_ writings now known. It was written about a decade earlier
than the narrative of 899 to 914 AH. (1494 to 1507 AD.), carries later
annotations, and has now the character of a draft awaiting revision.
3. A _Dīwān_ (Collection of poems). By dovetailing a few fragments of
information, it becomes clear that by 925 AH. (1519 AD.) Bābur had made
a Collection of poetical compositions distinct from the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_;
it is what he sent to Pūlād Sulṯan in 925 AH. (f. 238). Its date
excludes the greater part of the Rāmpūr one. It may have contained those
verses to which my husband drew attention in the Asiatic Quarterly
Review of 1911, as quoted in the _Abūshqa_; and it may have contained,
in agreement with its earlier date, the verses Bābur quotes as written
in his earlier years. None of the quatrains found in the _Abūshqa_ and
there attributed to "Bābur Mīrzā", are in the Rāmpūr _Dīwān_; nor are
several of those early ones of the _Bābur-nāma_. So that the Dīwān sent
to Pūlād Sulṯān may be the source from which the _Abūshqa_ drew its
examples.
On first examining these verses, doubt arose as to whether they were
really by Bābur _Mīrānshāhī_; or whether they were by "Bābur Mīrzā"
_Shāhrukhī_. Fortunately my husband lighted on one of them quoted in the
_Sanglakh_ and there attributed to Bābur Pādshāh. The _Abūshqa_
quatrains are used as examples in de Courteille's _Dictionary_, but
without an author's name; they can be traced there through my husband's
articles.[1557]
929 AH.—NOV. 20TH 1522 TO NOV. 10TH 1523 AD.
_a. Affairs of Hindūstān._
The centre of interest in Bābur's affairs now moves from Qandahār to a
Hindūstān torn by faction, of which faction one result was an appeal
made at this time to Bābur by Daulat Khān _Lūdī_ (_Yūsuf-khail_) and
`Alāu'd-dīn `Ālam Khān _Lūdī_ for help against Ibrāhīm.[1558]
The following details are taken mostly from Aḥmad Yādgār's
_Tārīkh-i-salāṯīn-i-afāghana_[1559]:—Daulat Khān had been summoned to
Ibrāhīm's presence; he had been afraid to go and had sent his son
Dilāwar in his place; his disobedience angering Ibrāhīm, Dilāwar had a
bad reception and was shewn a ghastly exhibit of disobedient commanders.