The Bābur-nāma

1013

yakhshīlār bārīb tūr; lit. good things went (on); cf. f. 156b and note.

1014

Badī‘u’z-zamān’s son, drowned at Chausa in 946 AH. (1539 AD.) A.N. (H. Beveridge, i, 344).

1015

Qalāt-i-nādirī, in Khurāsān, the birth-place of Nādir Shāh (T.R. p. 209).

1016

bīr gīna qīz, which on f. 86b can fitly be read to mean daughterling, Töchterchen, fillette, but here and i. a. f. 168, must have another meaning than diminutive and may be an equivalent of German Stück and mean one only. Gul-badan gives an account of Shād’s manly pursuits (H.N. f. 25b).

1017

He was the son of Mahdī Sl. (f. 320b) and the father of ‘Āqil Sl. Aūzbeg (A.N. index s. n.). Several matters suggest that these men were of the Shabān Aūzbegs who intermarried with Ḥusain Bāī-qarā’s family and some of whom went to Bābur in Hindūstān. One such matter is that Kābul was the refuge of dispossessed Harātīs, after the Aūzbeg conquest; that there ‘Āqil married Shād Bāī-qarā and that ‘Ādil went on to Bābur. Moreover Khāfī Khān makes a statement which (if correct) would allow ‘Ādil’s father Mahdī to be a grandson of Ḥusain Bāī-qarā; this statement is that when Bābur defeated the Aūzbegs in 916 AH. (1510 AD.), he freed from their captivity two sons (descendants) of his paternal uncle, named Mahdī Sl. and Sult̤ān Mīrzā. [Leaving the authenticity of the statement aside for a moment, it will be observed that this incident is of the same date and place as another well-vouched for, namely that Bābur then and there killed Mahdī Sl. Aūzbeg and Ḥamza Sl. Aūzbeg after defeating them.] What makes in favour of Khāfī Khān’s correctness is, not only that Bābur’s foe Mahdī is not known to have had a son ‘Ādil, but also that his “Sulṯān Mīrzā” is not a style so certainly suiting Ḥamza as it does a Shabān sult̤ān, one whose father was a Shabān sult̤ān, and whose mother was a Mīrzā’s daughter. Moreover this point of identification is pressed by the correctness, according to oriental statement of relationship, of Khāfī Khān’s “paternal uncle” (of Bābur), because this precisely suits Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā with whose family these Shabān sult̤āns allied themselves. On the other hand it must be said that Khāfī Khān’s statement is not in the English text of the Tārīkh-i-rashīdī, the book on which he mostly relies at this period, nor is it in my husband’s MS. [a copy from the Rampūr Codex]; and to this must be added the verbal objection that a modicum of rhetoric allows a death to be described both in Turkī and Persian, as a release from the captivity of a sinner’s own acts (f. 160). Still Khāfī Khān may be right; his statement may yet be found in some other MS. of the T. R. or some different source; it is one a scribe copying the T. R. might be led to omit by reason of its coincidences. The killing and the release may both be right; ‘Ādil’s Mahdī may be the Shabān sult̤ān inference makes him seem. This little crux presses home the need of much attention to the lacunæ in the Bābur-nāma, since in them are lost some exits and some entries of Bābur’s dramatis personæ, pertinently, mention of the death of Mahdī with Ḥamza in 916 AH., and possibly also that of ‘Ādil’s Mahdī’s release.

1018

A chār-t̤āq may be a large tent rising into four domes or having four porches.

1019

Ḥ.S. iii, 367.

1020

This phrase, common but not always selected, suggests unwillingness to leave the paternal roof.

1021

Abū’l-ghāzī’s History of the Mughūls, Désmaisons, p. 207.

1022

The appointment was made in 933 AH. (1527 AD.) and seems to have been held still in 934 AH. (ff. 329, 332).

1023

This grandson may have been a child travelling with his father’s household, perhaps Aūlūgh Mīrzā, the oldest son of Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā (A. A. Blochmann, p. 461). No mention is made here of Sult̤ānīm Begīm’s marriage with ‘Abdu’l-bāqī Mīrzā (f. 175).

1024

Abū’l-qāsim Bābur Shāhrukhī presumably.

1025

The time may have been 902 AH. when Mas‘ūd took his sister Bega Begīm to Herī for her marriage with Ḥaidar (Ḥ.S. iii, 260).

1026

Khwāja Aḥmad Yāsawī, known as Khwāja Ātā, founder of the Yāsawī religious order.

1027

Not finding mention of a daughter of Abū-sa‘id named Rābī‘a-sult̤ān, I think she may be the daughter styled Āq Begīm who is No. 3 in Gul-badan’s guest-list for the Mystic Feast.

1028

This man I take to be Ḥusain’s grandfather and not brother, both because ‘Abdu’l-lāh was of Ḥusain’s and his brother’s generation, and also because of the absence here of Bābur’s usual defining words “elder brother” (of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā). In this I have to differ from Dr. Rieu (Pers. Cat. p. 152).

1029

So-named after his ancestor Sayyid Barka whose body was exhumed from Andikhūd for reburial in Samarkand, by Tīmūr’s wish and there laid in such a position that Tīmūr’s body was at its feet (Z̤afar-nāma ii, 719; Ḥ.S. iii, 82). (For the above interesting detail I am indebted to my husband.)

1030

Qīzīl-bāsh, Persians wearing red badges or caps to distinguish them as Persians.

1031

Yādgār-i-farrukh Mīrān-shāhī (Ḥ.S. iii, 327). He may have been one of those Mīrān-shāhīs of ‘Irāq from whom came Ākā’s and Sult̤ānīm’s husbands, Aḥmad and ‘Abdu’l-bāqī (ff. 164, 175b).

1032

This should be four (f. 169b). The Ḥ.S. (iii, 327) also names three only when giving Pāpā Āghācha’s daughters (the omission linking it with the B.N.), but elsewhere (iii, 229) it gives an account of a fourth girl’s marriage; this fourth is needed to make up the total of 11 daughters. Bābur’s and Khwānd-amīr’s details of Pāpā Āghācha’s quartette are defective; the following may be a more correct list: – (1) Begīm Sult̤ān (a frequent title), married to Abā-bikr Mīrān-shāhī (who died 884 AH.) and seeming too old to be the one [No. 3] who married Mas‘ūd (Ḥ.S. iii, 229); (2) Sult̤ān-nizhād, married to Iskandar Bāī-qarā; (3) Sa‘ādat-bakht also known as Begīm Sult̤ān, married to Mas’ūd Mīrān-shāhī (Ḥ.S. iii, 327); (4) Manauwar-sult̤ān, married to a son of Aūlūgh Beg Kābulī (Ḥ.S. iii, 327).

1033

This “after” seems to contradict the statement (f. 58) that Mas‘ūd was made to kneel as a son-in-law (kūyādlīk-kā yūkūndūrūb) at a date previous to his blinding, but the seeming contradiction may be explained by considering the following details; he left Herī hastily (f. 58), went to Khusrau Shāh and was blinded by him, – all in the last two months of 903 AH. (1498 AD.), after the kneeling on Ẕū’l-qa‘da 3rd, (June 23rd) in the Ravens'-garden. Here what Bābur says is that the Begīm was given (bīrīb) after the blinding, the inference allowed being that though Mas‘ūd had kneeled before the blinding, she had remained in her father’s house till his return after the blinding.

1034

The first W. – i-B. writes “Apāq Begīm” (I.O. 215 f. 136) which would allow Sayyid Mīrzā to be a kinsman of Apāq Begīm, wife of Ḥusain Bāī-qarā.

1035

This brief summary conveys the impression that the Begīm went on her pilgrimage shortly after Mas‘ūd’s death (913 AH. ?), but may be wrong: – After Mas‘ūd’s murder, by one Bīmāsh Mīrzā, dārogha of Sarakhs, at Shaibāq Khān’s order, she was married by Bīmāsh M. (Ḥ.S. iii, 278). How long after this she went to Makka is not said; it was about 934 AH. when Bābur heard of her as there.

1036

This clause is in the Ḥai. MS. but not in the Elph. MS. (f. 131), or Kehr’s (Ilminsky, p. 210), or in either Persian translation. The boy may have been 17 or 18.

1037

This appears a mistake (f. 168 foot, and note on Pāpā’s daughters).

1038

f. 171b.

1039

933 AH. -1527 AD. (f. 329).

1040

Presumably this was a yīnkālīk marriage; it differs from some of those chronicled and also from a levirate marriage in not being made with a childless wife. (Cf. index s. n. yīnkālīk.)

1041

Khwānd-amīr says that Bega Begīm was jealous, died of grief at her divorce, and was buried in a College, of her own erection, in 893 AH. (1488 AD. ḤS. iii, 245).

1042

Gulistān Cap. II, Story 31 (Platts, p. 114).

1043

i. e. did not get ready to ride off if her husband were beaten by her brother (f. 11 and note to Ḥabība).

1044

Khadīja Begī Āghā (Ḥ.S. ii, 230 and iii, 327); she would be promoted probably after Shāh-i-gharīb’s birth.

1045

He was a son of Badī‘u’z-zamān.

1046

It is singular that this honoured woman’s parentage is not mentioned; if it be right on f. 168b (q. v. with note) to read Sayyid Mīrzā of Apāq Begīm, she may be a sayyida of Andikhūd.

1047

As Bābur left Kābul on Ṣafar 1st (Nov. 17th 1525 AD.), the Begīm must have arrived in Muḥarram 932 AH. (Oct. 18th to Nov. 17th).

1048

f. 333. As Chandīrī was besieged in Rabī‘u’l-ākhar 934 AH. this passage shews that, as a minimum estimate, what remains of Bābur’s composed narrative (i. e. down to f. 216b) was written after that date (Jan. 1528).

1049

Chār-shambalār. Mention of another inhabitant of this place with the odd name, Wednesday (Chār-shamba), is made on f. 42b.

1050

Mole-marked Lady; most MSS. style her Bī but Ḥ.S. iii, 327, writes Bībī; it varies also by calling her a Turk. She was a purchased slave of Shahr-bānū’s and was given to the Mīrzā by Shahr-bānū at the time of her own marriage with him.

1051

As noted already, f. 168b enumerates three only.

1052

The three were almost certainly Badī‘u’z-zamān, Ḥaidar, son of a Tīmūrid mother, and Muz̤affar-i-ḥusain, born after his mother had been legally married.

1053

Seven sons predeceased him: – Farrukh, Shāh-i-gharīb, Muḥ. Ma‘ṣūm, Ḥaidar, Ibrāhīm-i-ḥusain, Muḥ. Ḥusain and Abū-turāb. So too five daughters: – Āq, Bega, Āghā, Kīchīk and Fāt̤ima-sult̤ān Begīms. So too four wives: – Bega-sult̤ān and Chūlī Begīms, Zubaida and Lat̤īf-sult̤ān Āghāchas (Ḥ.S. iii, 327).

1054

Chākū, a Barlās, as was Tīmūr, was one of Tīmūr’s noted men.

At this point some hand not the scribe’s has entered on the margin of the Ḥai. MS. the descendants of Muḥ. Barandūq down into Akbar’s reign: – Muḥ. Farīdūn, bin Muḥ. Qulī Khān, bin Mīrzā ‘Alī, bin Muḥ. Barandūq Barlās. Of these Farīdūn and Muḥ. Qulī are amīrs of the Āyīn-i-akbarī list (Blochmann, pp. 341, 342; Ḥ.S. iii, 233).

1055

Enforced marches of Mughūls and other nomads are mentioned also on f. 154b and f. 155.

1056

Ḥ.S. iii, 228, 233, 235.

1057

beg kīshī, beg-person.

1058

Khwānd-amīr says he died a natural death (Ḥ.S. iii, 235).

1059

f. 21. For a fuller account of Nawā’i, J. Asiatique xvii, 175, M. Belin’s article.

1060

i. e. when he was poor and a beg’s dependant. He went back to Herī at Sl. Ḥusain M.’s request in 873 AH.

1061

Niz̤āmī’s (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. s.n.).

1062

Farīdu’d-dīn-‘at̤t̤ar’s (Rieu l.c. and Ency. Br.).

1063

Gharā’ibu’ṣ-ṣighar, Nawādiru’sh-shahāb, Badā’i‘u’l-wasat̤ and Fawā’idu’l-kibr.

1064

Every Persian poet has a takhalluṣ (pen-name) which he introduces into the last couplet of each ode (Erskine).

1065

The death occurred in the First Jumāda 906 AH. (Dec. 1500 AD.).

1066

Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad bin Tawakkal Barlās (Ḥ.S. iii, 229).

1067

This may be that uncle of Tīmūr who made the Ḥaj (T. R. p. 48, quoting the Z̤afar-nāma).

1068

Some MSS. omit the word “father” here but to read it obviates the difficulty of calling Walī a great beg of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā although he died when that mīrzā took the throne (973 AH.) and although no leading place is allotted to him in Bābur’s list of Herī begs. Here as in other parts of Bābur’s account of Herī, the texts vary much whether Turkī or Persian, e. g. the Elph. MS. appears to call Walī a blockhead (dūnkūz dūr), the Ḥai. MS. writing n: kūz dūr(?).

1069

He had been Bābur Shāhrukhī’s yasāwal (Court-attendant), had fought against Ḥusain for Yādgār-i-muḥammad and had given a daughter to Ḥusain (Ḥ.S. iii, 206, 228, 230-32; D.S. in Not. et Ex. de Saçy p. 265).

1070

f. 29b.

1071

Sic, Elph. MS. and both Pers. trss. but the Ḥai. MS. omits “father”. To read it, however, suits the circumstance that Ḥasan of Ya‘qūb was not with Ḥusain and in Harāt but was connected with Maḥmūd Mīrānshāhī and Tīrmīẕ (f. 24). Nuyān is not a personal name but is a title; it implies good-birth; all uses of it I have seen are for members of the religious family of Tīrmīẕ.

1072

He was the son of Ibrāhīm Barlās and a Badakhshī begīm (T.R. p. 108).

1073

He will have been therefore a collateral of Daulat-shāh whose relation to Fīrūz-shāh is thus expressed by Nawā’i: —Mīr Daulat-shāh Fīrūz-shāh Beg-nīng ‘amm-zāda-sī Amīr ‘Alā’u’d-daula Isfārayīnī-nīng aūghūlī dur, i. e. Mīr Daulat-shāh was the son of Fīrūz-shāh Beg’s paternal uncle’s son, Amir ‘Alā’u’d-daula Isfārayīnī. Thus, Fīrūz-shāh and Isfārayīnī were first cousins; Daulat-shāh and ‘Abdu’l-khalīq’s father were second cousins; while Daulat-shāh and Fīrūz-shāh were first cousins, once removed (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 534; Browne’s D.S. English preface p. 14 and its reference to the Pers. preface).

1074

Tarkhān-nāma, E. & D.’s History of India i, 303; Ḥ.S. iii, 227.

1075

f. 41 and note.

1076

Both places are in the valley of the Herī-rūd.

1077

Badī‘u’z-zamān married a daughter of Ẕū’n-nūn; she died in 911 AH. (E. & D. i, 305; Ḥ.S. iii, 324).

1078

This indicates, both amongst Musalmāns and Hindūs, obedience and submission. Several instances occur in Macculloch’s Bengali Household Stories.

1079

T.R. p. 205.

1080

This is an idiom expressive of great keenness (Erskine).

1081

Ḥ.S. iii, 250, kitābdār, librarian; so too Ḥai. MS. f. 174b.

1082

mutaiyam (f. 7b and note). Mīr Mughūl Beg was put to death for treachery in ‘Irāq (Ḥ.S. iii, 227, 248).

1083

Bābur speaks as an eye-witness (f. 187b). For a single combat of Sayyid Badr, Ḥ. S. iii, 233.

1084

f. 157 and note to bātmān.

1085

A level field in which a gourd (qabaq) is set on a pole for an archer’s mark to be hit in passing at the gallop (f. 18b and note).

1086

Or possibly during the gallop the archer turned in the saddle and shot backwards.

1087

Junaid was the father of Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī, Bābur’s Khalīfa (Vice-gerent). That Khalīfa was of a religious house on his mother’s side may be inferred from his being styled both Sayyid and Khwāja neither of which titles could have come from his Turkī father. His mother may have been a sayyida of one of the religious families of Marghīnān (f. 18 and note), since Khalīfa’s son Muḥibb-i-‘alī writes his father’s name “Niz̤āmu’d-din ‘Alī Marghīlānī” (Marghīnānī) in the Preface of his Book on Sport (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 485).

1088

This northward migration would take the family into touch with Bābur’s in Samarkand and Farghāna.

1089

He was left in charge of Jaunpūr in Rabī‘ I, 933 AH. (Jan. 1527 AD.) but exchanged for Chunār in Ramẓān 935 AH. (June 1529 AD.); so that for the writing of this part of the Bābur-nāma we have the major and minor limits of Jan. 1527 and June 1529.

1090

Ḥ.S. iii, 227.

1091

See Appendix H, On the counter-mark Bih-būd on coins.

1092

Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Amīr Shaikh Aḥmadu’s-suhailī was surnamed Suhailī through a fāl (augury) taken by his spiritual guide, Kamālu’d-dīn Ḥusain Gāzur-gāhī; it was he induced Ḥusain Kashīfī to produce his Anwār-i-suhailī (Lights of Canopus) (f. 125 and note; Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 756; and for a couplet of his, Ḥ.S. iii, 242 l. 10).

1093

Index s. n.

1094

Did the change complete an analogy between ‘Alī Jalāīr and his (perhaps) elder son with ‘Alī Khalīfa and his elder son Ḥasan?

1095

The Qūsh-begī is, in Central Asia, a high official who acts for an absent ruler (Shaw); he does not appear to be the Falconer, for whom Bābur’s name is Qūshchī (f. 15 n.).

1096

He received this sobriquet because when he returned from an embassy to the Persian Gulf, he brought, from Bahrein, to his Tīmūrid master a gift of royal pearls (Sām Mīrzā). For an account of Marwārīd see Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 1094 and (re portrait) p. 787.

1097

Sām Mīrzā specifies this affliction as ābla-i-farang, thus making what may be one of the earliest Oriental references to morbus gallicus [as de Saçy here translates the name], the foreign or European pox, the “French disease of Shakespeare” (H.B.).

1098

Index s. n. Yūsuf.

1099

Ramẓān 3rd 918 AH. – Nov. 12th 1512.

1100

i. e. of the White-sheep Turkmāns.

1101

His paternal line was, ‘Abdu’l-bāqī, son of ‘Us̤mān, son of Sayyidī Aḥmad, son of Mīrān-shāh. His mother’s people were begs of the White-sheep (Ḥ.S. iii, 290).

1102

Sult̤ānīm had married Wais (f. 157) not later than 895 or 896 AH. (Ḥ. S. iii, 253); she married ‘Abdu’l-bāqī in 908 AH. (1502-3 AD.).

1103

Sayyid Shamsu’d-dīn Muḥammad, Mīr Sayyid Sar-i-barahna owed his sobriquet of Bare-head to love-sick wanderings of his youth (Ḥ.S. iii, 328). The Ḥ.S. it is clear, recognizes him as a sayyid.

1104

Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 760; it is immensely long and “filled with tales that shock all probability” (Erskine).

1105

f. 94 and note. Sl. Ḥusain M. made him curator of Anṣārī’s shrine, an officer represented, presumably, by Col. Yate’s “Mīr of Gāzur-gāh”, and he became Chief Justice in 904 AH. (1498-99 AD.). See Ḥ.S. iii, 330 and 340; JASB 1887, art. On the city of Harāt (C. E. Yate) p. 85.

1106

mutasauwif, perhaps meaning not a professed Ṣūfī.

1107

He was of high birth on both sides, of religious houses of T̤abas and Nishāpūr (D.S. pp. 161, 163).

1108

In agreement with its preface, Dr. Rieu entered the book as written by Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā; in his Addenda, however, he quotes Bābur as the authority for its being by Gāzur-gāhī; Khwānd-amīr’s authority can be added to Bābur’s (Ḥ.S. 340; Pers. Cat. pp. 351, 1085).

1109

Dīwān. The Wazīr is a sort of Minister of Finance; the Dīwān is the office of revenue receipts and issues (Erskine).

1110

a secretary who writes out royal orders (Ḥ.S. iii, 244).

1111

Count von Noer’s words about a cognate reform of later date suit this man’s work, it also was “a bar to the defraudment of the Crown, a stumbling-block in the path of avaricious chiefs” (Emperor Akbar trs. i, 11). The opposition made by ‘Alī-sher to reform so clearly to Ḥusain’s gain and to Ḥusain’s begs’ loss, stirs the question, “What was the source of his own income?” Up to 873 AH. he was for some years the dependant of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg; he took nothing from the Mīrzā, but gave to him; he must have spent much in benefactions. The question may have presented itself to M. Belin for he observes, “‘Alī-sher qui sans doute, à son retour de l’exil, recouvra l’héritage de ses pères, et depuis occupa de hautes positions dans le gouvernement de son pays, avait acquis une grande fortune” (J. Asiatique xvii, 227). While not contradicting M. Belin’s view that vested property such as can be described as “paternal inheritance”, may have passed from father to son, even in those days of fugitive prosperity and changing appointments, one cannot but infer, from Nawā’i’s opposition to Majdu’d-dīn, that he, like the rest, took a partial view of the “rights” of the cultivator.

1112

This was in 903 AH. after some 20 years of service (Ḥ.S. iii, 231; Ethé I.O. Cat. p. 252).

1113

Amīr Jamālu’d-dīn ‘Atā’u’l-lāh, known also as Jamālu’d-dīn Ḥusain, wrote a History of Muhammad (Ḥ.S. iii, 345; Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 147 & (a correction) p. 1081).

1114

Amongst noticeable omissions from Bābur’s list of Herī celebrities are Mīr Khwānd Shāh (“Mirkhond”), his grandson Khwānd-amīr, Ḥusain Kashifī and Muinu’d-dīn al Zamjī, author of a History of Harāt which was finished in 897 AH.

1115

Sa’du‘d-dīn Mas‘ūd, son of ‘Umar, was a native of Taft in Yazd, whence his cognomen (Bahār-i-‘ajam); he died in 792 AH. -1390 AD. (Ḥ.S. iii, 59, 343; T.R. p. 236; Rieu’s Pers. Cat. pp. 352, 453).

1116

These are those connected with grammar and rhetoric (Erskine).

1117

This is one of the four principal sects of Muḥammadanism (Erskine).

1118

T.R. p. 235, for Shāh Ismā‘īl’s murders in Herī.

1119

Superintendent of Police, who examines weights, measures and provisions, also prevents gambling, drinking and so on.

1120

f. 137.

1121

The rank of Mujtahid, which is not bestowed by any individual or class of men but which is the result of slow and imperceptible opinion, finally prevailing and universally acknowledged, is one of the greatest peculiarities of the religion of Persia. The Mujtahid is supposed to be elevated above human fears and human enjoyments, and to have a certain degree of infallibility and inspiration. He is consulted with reverence and awe. There is not always a Mujtahid necessarily existing. See Kæmpfer, Amoenitates Exoticae (Erskine).