The Bābur-nāma

When we had deposited in Ajar what had come with us of hungry train (aj aūrūq) and household (awī-aīl), together with the families of Bāqī Beg, his son, Muḥ. Qāsim, his soldiers and his tribesmen, with all their goods, we moved out with our men.

(e. Increase of Bābur’s following.)

One man after another came in from Khusrau Shāh’s Mughūls and said, “We of the Mughūl horde, desiring the royal welfare, have drawn off from T̤āīkhān (T̤ālīkān) towards Ishkīmīsh and Fūlūl. Let the Pādshāh advance as fast as possible, for the greater part of Khusrau Shāh’s force has broken up and is ready to take service with him.” Just then news arrived that Shaibāq Khān, after taking Andijān,683 was getting to horse again against Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz. On hearing this, Khusrau Shāh, unable to stay in Qūndūz, marched out with all the men he had, and took the road for Kābul. No sooner had he left than his old servant, the able and trusted Mullā Muḥammad Turkistānī made Qūndūz fast for Shaibāq Khān.

Three or four thousand heads-of-houses in the Mughūl horde, former dependants of Khusrau Shāh, brought their families and joined us when, going by way of Sham-tū, we were near the Qīzīl-sū.684

(f. Qaṃbar-‘alī, the Skinner, dismissed.)

Qaṃbar-‘alī Beg’s foolish talk has been mentioned several times already; his manners were displeasing to Bāqī Beg; to gratify Bāqī Beg, he was dismissed. Thereafter his son, ‘Abdu’l-shukūr, was in Jahāngīr Mīrzā’s service.

(g. Khusrau Shāh waits on Bābur.)

Khusrau Shāh was much upset when he heard that the Mughūl horde had joined me; seeing nothing better to do for himself, he sent his son-in-law, Ayūb’s Yaq‘ūb, to make profession of well-wishing and submission to me, and respectfully to represent that he would enter my service if I would make terms and compact with him. His offer was accepted, because Bāqī Chaghānīānī was a man of weight, and, however steady in his favourable disposition to me, did not overlook his brother’s side in this matter. Compact was made that Khusrau Shāh’s life should be safe, and that whatever amount of his goods he selected, should not be refused him. After giving Yaq‘ūb leave to go, we marched down the Qīzīl-sū and dismounted near to where it joins the water of Andar-āb.

Next day, one in the middle of the First Rabī‘ (end of August, 1504 AD.), riding light, I crossed the Andar-āb water and took my seat under a large plane-tree near Dūshī, and thither came Khusrau Shāh, in pomp and splendour, with a great company of men. According to rule and custom, he dismounted some way off and then made his approach. Three times he knelt when we saw one another, three times also on taking leave; he knelt once when asking after my welfare, once again when he offered his tribute, and he did the same with Jahāngīr Mīrzā and with Mīrzā Khān (Wais). That sluggish old mannikin who through so many years had just pleased himself, lacking of sovereignty one thing only, namely, to read the Khut̤ba in his own name, now knelt 25 or 26 times in succession, and came and went till he was so wearied out that he tottered forward. His many years of begship and authority vanished from his view. When we had seen one another and he had offered his gift, I desired him to be seated. We stayed in that place for one or two garīs,685 exchanging tale and talk. His conversation was vapid and empty, presumably because he was a coward and false to his salt. Two things he said were extraordinary for the time when, under his eyes, his trusty and trusted retainers were becoming mine, and when his affairs had reached the point that he, the sovereign-aping mannikin, had had to come, willy-nilly, abased and unhonoured, to what sort of an interview! One of the things he said was this: – When condoled with for the desertion of his men, he replied, “Those very servants have four times left me and returned.” The other was said when I had asked him where his brother Walī would cross the Amū and when he would arrive. “If he find a ford, he will soon be here, but when waters rise, fords change; the (Persian) proverb has it, ‘The waters have carried down the fords.’” These words God brought to his tongue in that hour of the flowing away of his own authority and following!

After sitting a garī or two, I mounted and rode back to camp, he for his part returning to his halting-place. On that day his begs, with their servants, great and small, good and bad, and tribe after tribe began to desert him and come, with their families, to me. Between the two Prayers of the next afternoon not a man remained in his presence.

“Say, – O God! who possessest the kingdom! Thou givest it to whom Thou wilt and Thou takest it from whom Thou wilt! In Thy hand is good, for Thou art almighty.”686

Wonderful is His power! This man, once master of 20 or 30,000 retainers, once owning Sl. Maḥmūd’s dominions from Qaḥlūgha, – known also as the Iron-gate, – to the range of Hindū-kush, whose old mannikin of a tax-gatherer, Ḥasan Barlās by name, had made us march, had made us halt, with all the tax-gatherer’s roughness, from Aīlāk to Aūbāj,687 that man He so abased and so bereft of power that, with no blow struck, no sound made, he stood, without command over servants, goods, or life, in the presence of a band of 200 or 300 men, defeated and destitute as we were.

In the evening of the day on which we had seen Khusrau Shāh and gone back to camp, Mīrzā Khān came to my presence and demanded vengeance on him for the blood of his brothers.688 Many of us were at one with him, for truly it is right, both by Law and common justice, that such men should get their desserts, but, as terms had been made, Khusrau Shāh was let go free. An order was given that he should be allowed to take whatever of his goods he could convey; accordingly he loaded up, on three or four strings of mules and camels, all jewels, gold, silver, and precious things he had, and took them with him.689 Sherīm T̤aghāī was told off to escort him, who after setting Khusrau Shāh on his road for Khurāsān, by way of Ghūrī and Dahānah, was to go to Kāhmard and bring the families after us to Kābul.

(h. Bābur marches for Kābul.)

Marching from that camp for Kābul, we dismounted in Khwāja Zaid.

On that day, Ḥamza Bī Mangfīt,690 at the head of Aūzbeg raiders, was over-running round about Dūshī. Sayyid Qāsim, the Lord of the Gate, and Aḥmad-i-qāsim Kohbur were sent with several braves against him; they got up with him, beat his Aūzbegs well, cut off and brought in a few heads.

In this camp all the armour (jība) of Khusrau Shāh’s armoury was shared out. There may have been as many as 7 or 800 coats-of-mail (joshan) and horse accoutrements (kūhah);691 these were the one thing he left behind; many pieces of porcelain also fell into our hands, but, these excepted, there was nothing worth looking at.

With four or five marches we reached Ghūr-bund, and there dismounted in Ushtur-shahr. We got news there that Muqīm’s chief beg, Sherak (var. Sherka) Arghūn, was lying along the Bārān, having led an army out, not through hearing of me, but to hinder ‘Abdu’r-razzāq Mīrzā from passing along the Panjhīr-road, he having fled from Kābul692 and being then amongst the Tarkalānī Afghāns towards Lamghān. On hearing this we marched forward, starting in the afternoon and pressing on through the dark till, with the dawn, we surmounted the Hūpīān-pass.693

I had never seen Suhail;694 when I came out of the pass I saw a star, bright and low. “May not that be Suhail?” said I. Said they, “It is Suhail.” Bāqī Chaghānīānī recited this couplet; —695

“How far dost thou shine, O Suhail, and where dost thou rise?A sign of good luck is thine eye to the man on whom it may light.”

The Sun was a spear’s-length high696 when we reached the foot of the Sanjid (Jujube) – valley and dismounted. Our scouting braves fell in with Sherak below the Qarā-bāgh,697 near Aīkarī-yār, and straightway got to grips with him. After a little of some sort of fighting, our men took the upper hand, hurried their adversaries off, unhorsed 70-80 serviceable braves and brought them in. We gave Sherak his life and he took service with us.

(i. Death of Walī of Khusrau.)

The various clans and tribes whom Khusrau Shāh, without troubling himself about them, had left in Qūndūz, and also the Mughūl horde, were in five or six bodies (būlāk). One of those belonging to Badakhshān, – it was the Rūstā-hazāra,: – came, with Sayyidīm ‘Alī darbān,698 across the Panjhīr-pass to this camp, did me obeisance and took service with me. Another body came under Ayūb’s Yūsuf and Ayūb’s Bihlūl; it also took service with me. Another came from Khutlān, under Khusrau Shāh’s younger brother, Walī; another, consisting of the (Mughūl) tribesmen (aīmāq) who had been located in Yīlānchaq, Nikdiri (?), and the Qūndūz country, came also. The last-named two came by Andar-āb and Sar-i-āb,699 meaning to cross by the Panjhīr-pass; at Sar-i-āb the tribesmen were ahead; Walī came up behind; they held the road, fought and beat him. He himself fled to the Aūzbegs,700 and Shaibāq Khān had his head struck off in the Square (Chār-sū) of Samarkand; his followers, beaten and plundered, came on with the tribesmen, and like these, took service with me. With them came Sayyid Yūsuf Beg (the Grey-wolfer).

(j. Kābul gained.)

From that camp we marched to the Āq-sarāī meadow of the Qarā-bāgh and there dismounted. Khusrau Shāh’s people were well practised in oppression and violence; they tyrannized over one after another till at last I had up one of Sayyidīm ‘Alī’s good braves to my Gate701 and there beaten for forcibly taking a jar of oil. There and then he just died under the blows; his example kept the rest down.

We took counsel in that camp whether or not to go at once against Kābul. Sayyid Yūsuf and some others thought that, as winter was near, our first move should be into Lamghān, from which place action could be taken as advantage offered. Bāqī Beg and some others saw it good to move on Kābul at once; this plan was adopted; we marched forward and dismounted in Ābā-qūrūq.

My mother and the belongings left behind in Kāhmard rejoined us at Ābā-qūrūq. They had been in great danger, the particulars of which are these: – Sherīm T̤aghāī had gone to set Khusrau Shāh on his way for Khurāsān, and this done, was to fetch the families from Kāhmard. When he reached Dahānah, he found he was not his own master; Khusrau Shāh went on with him into Kāhmard, where was his sister’s son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim. These two took up an altogether wrong position towards the families in Kāhmard. Hereupon a number of Bāqī Beg’s Mughūls, who were with the families, arranged secretly with Sherīm T̤aghāī to lay hands on Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim. The two heard of it, fled along the Kāhmard-valley on the Ajar side702 and made for Khurāsān. To bring this about was really what Sherīm T̤aghāī and the Mughūls wanted. Set free from their fear of Khusrau Shāh by his flight, those in charge of the families got them out of Ajar, but when they reached Kāhmard, the Sāqānchī (var. Asīqanchī) tribe blocked the road, like an enemy, and plundered the families of most of Bāqī Beg’s men.703 They made prisoner Qul-i-bāyazīd’s little son, Tīzak; he came into Kābul three or four years later. The plundered and unhappy families crossed by the Qībchāq-pass, as we had done, and they rejoined us in Ābā-qūrūq.

Leaving that camp we went, with one night’s halt, to the Chālāk-meadow, and there dismounted. After counsel taken, it was decided to lay siege to Kābul, and we marched forward. With what men of the centre there were, I dismounted between Ḥaidar Tāqī’s704 garden and the tomb of Qul-i-bāyazīd, the Taster (bakāwal);705 Jahāngīr Mīrzā, with the men of the right, dismounted in my great Four-gardens (Chār-bāgh), Nāṣir Mīrzā, with the left, in the meadow of Qūtlūq-qadam’s tomb. People of ours went repeatedly to confer with Muqīm; they sometimes brought excuses back, sometimes words making for agreement. His tactics were the sequel of his dispatch, directly after Sherak’s defeat, of a courier to his father and elder brother (in Qandahār); he made delays because he was hoping in them.

One day our centre, right, and left were ordered to put on their mail and their horses’ mail, to go close to the town, and to display their equipment so as to strike terror on those within. Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the right went straight forward by the Kūcha-bāgh;706 I, with the centre, because there was water, went along the side of Qūtlūq-qadam’s tomb to a mound facing the rising-ground;707 the van collected above Qūtlūq-qadam’s bridge, – at that time, however, there was no bridge. When the braves, showing themselves off, galloped close up to the Curriers'-gate,708 a few who had come out through it fled in again without making any stand. A crowd of Kābulīs who had come out to see the sight raised a great dust when they ran away from the high slope of the glacis of the citadel (i. e. Bālā-ḥiṣār). A number of pits had been dug up the rise between the bridge and the gate, and hidden under sticks and rubbish; Sl. Qulī Chūnāq and several others were thrown as they galloped over them. A few braves of the right exchanged sword-cuts with those who came out of the town, in amongst the lanes and gardens, but as there was no order to engage, having done so much, they retired.

Those in the fort becoming much perturbed, Muqīm made offer through the begs, to submit and surrender the town. Bāqī Beg his mediator, he came and waited on me, when all fear was chased from his mind by our entire kindness and favour. It was settled that next day he should march out with retainers and following, goods and effects, and should make the town over to us. Having in mind the good practice Khusrau Shāh’s retainers had had in indiscipline and longhandedness, we appointed Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Nāṣir Mīrzā with the great and household begs, to escort Muqīm’s family out of Kābul709 and to bring out Muqīm himself with his various dependants, goods and effects. Camping-ground was assigned to him at Tīpa.710 When the Mīrzās and the Begs went at dawn to the Gate, they saw much mobbing and tumult of the common people, so they sent me a man to say, “Unless you come yourself, there will be no holding these people in.” In the end I got to horse, had two or three persons shot, two or three cut in pieces, and so stamped the rising down. Muqīm and his belongings then got out, safe and sound, and they betook themselves to Tīpa.

It was in the last ten days of the Second Rabī‘ (Oct. 1504 AD.)711 that without a fight, without an effort, by Almighty God’s bounty and mercy, I obtained and made subject to me Kābul and Ghaznī and their dependent districts.

DESCRIPTION OF KĀBUL712

The Kābul country is situated in the Fourth climate and in the midst of cultivated lands.713 On the east it has the Lamghānāt,714 Parashāwar (Pashāwar), Hash(t) – nagar and some of the countries of Hindūstān. On the west it has the mountain region in which are Karnūd (?) and Ghūr, now the refuge and dwelling-places of the Hazāra and Nikdīrī (var. Nikudārī) tribes. On the north, separated from it by the range of Hindū-kush, it has the Qūndūz and Andar-āb countries. On the south, it has Farmūl, Naghr (var. Naghz), Bannū and Afghānistān.715

(a. Town and environs of Kābul.)

The Kābul district itself is of small extent, has its greatest length from east to west, and is girt round by mountains. Its walled-town connects with one of these, rather a low one known as Shāh-of-Kābul because at some time a (Hindū) Shāh of Kābul built a residence on its summit.716 Shāh-of-Kābul begins at the Dūrrīn narrows and ends at those of Dih-i-yaq‘ūb717; it may be 4 miles (2 shar‘ī) round; its skirt is covered with gardens fertilized from a canal which was brought along the hill-slope in the time of my paternal uncle, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā by his guardian, Wais Atāka.718 The water of this canal comes to an end in a retired corner, a quarter known as Kul-kīna719 where much debauchery has gone on. About this place it sometimes used to be said, in jesting parody of Khwāja Ḥāfiẓ720, – “Ah! the happy, thoughtless time when, with our names in ill-repute, we lived days of days at Kul-kīna!”

East of Shāh-of-Kabūl and south of the walled-town lies a large pool721 about a 2 miles [shar‘ī] round. From the town side of the mountain three smallish springs issue, two near Kul-kīna; Khwāja Shamū’s722 tomb is at the head of one; Khwāja Khiẓr’s Qadam-gāh723 at the head of another, and the third is at a place known as Khwāja Raushānāī, over against Khwāja ‘Abdu’ṣ-ṣamad. On a detached rock of a spur of Shāh-of-Kābul, known as ‘Uqābain,724 stands the citadel of Kābul with the great walled-town at its north end, lying high in excellent air, and overlooking the large pool already mentioned, and also three meadows, namely, Siyāh-sang (Black-rock), Sūng-qūrghān (Fort-back), and Chālāk (Highwayman?), – a most beautiful outlook when the meadows are green. The north-wind does not fail Kābul in the heats; people call it the Parwān-wind725; it makes a delightful temperature in the windowed houses on the northern part of the citadel. In praise of the citadel of Kābul, Mullā Muḥammad T̤ālib Mu‘ammāī (the Riddler)726

used to recite this couplet, composed on Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā’s name: —

Drink wine in the castle of Kābul and send the cup round without pause;

For Kābul is mountain, is river, is city, is lowland in one.727

(b. Kābul as a trading-town.)

Just as ‘Arabs call every place outside ‘Arab (Arabia), ‘Ajam, so Hindūstānīs call every place outside Hindūstān, Khurāsān. There are two trade-marts on the land-route between Hindūstān and Khurāsān; one is Kābul, the other, Qandahār. To Kābul caravans come from Kāshghar,728 Farghāna,Turkistān, Samarkand, Bukhārā, Balkh, Ḥiṣār and Badakhshān. To Qandahār they come from Khurāsān. Kābul is an excellent trading-centre; if merchants went to Khīta or to Rūm,729 they might make no higher profit. Down to Kābul every year come 7, 8, or 10,000 horses and up to it, from Hindūstān, come every year caravans of 10, 15 or 20,000 heads-of-houses, bringing slaves (barda), white cloth, sugar-candy, refined and common sugars, and aromatic roots. Many a trader is not content with a profit of 30 or 40 on 10.730 In Kābul can be had the products of Khurāsān, Rūm, ‘Irāq and Chīn (China); while it is Hindūstān’s own market.

(c. Products and climate of Kābul.)

In the country of Kābul, there are hot and cold districts close to one another. In one day, a man may go out of the town of Kābul to where snow never falls, or he may go, in two sidereal hours, to where it never thaws, unless when the heats are such that it cannot possibly lie.

Fruits of hot and cold climates are to be had in the districts near the town. Amongst those of the cold climate, there are had in the town the grape, pomegranate, apricot, apple, quince, pear, peach, plum, sinjid, almond and walnut.731 I had cuttings of the ālū-bālū732 brought there and planted; they grew and have done well. Of fruits of the hot climate people bring into the town; – from the Lamghānāt, the orange, citron, amlūk (diospyrus lotus), and sugar-cane; this last I had had brought and planted there;733– from Nijr-au (Nijr-water), they bring the jīl-ghūza,734 and, from the hill-tracts, much honey. Bee-hives are in use; it is only from towards Ghaznī, that no honey comes.

The rhubarb735 of the Kābul district is good, its quinces and plums very good, so too its badrang;736 it grows an excellent grape, known as the water-grape.737 Kābul wines are heady, those of the Khwāja Khāwand Sa‘īd hill-skirt being famous for their strength; at this time however I can only repeat the praise of others about them: —738

The flavour of the wine a drinker knows;What chance have sober men to know it?

Kābul is not fertile in grain, a four or five-fold return is reckoned good there; nor are its melons first-rate, but they are not altogether bad when grown from Khurāsān seed.

It has a very pleasant climate; if the world has another so pleasant, it is not known. Even in the heats, one cannot sleep at night without a fur-coat.739 Although the snow in most places lies deep in winter, the cold is not excessive; whereas in Samarkand and Tabrīz, both, like Kābul, noted for their pleasant climate, the cold is extreme.

(d. Meadows of Kābul.)

There are good meadows on the four sides of Kābul. An excellent one, Sūng-qūrghān, is some 4 miles (2 kuroh) to the north-east; it has grass fit for horses and few mosquitos. To the north-west is the Chālāk meadow, some 2 miles (1 shar‘ī) away, a large one but in it mosquitos greatly trouble the horses. On the west is the Dūrrīn, in fact there are two, Tīpa and Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar), – if two are counted here, there would be five in all. Each of these is about 2 miles from the town; both are small, have grass good for horses, and no mosquitos; Kābul has no others so good. On the east is the Siyāh-sang meadow with Qūtlūq-qadam’s tomb740 between it and the Currier’s-gate; it is not worth much because, in the heats, it swarms with mosquitos. Kamarī741 meadow adjoins it; counting this in, the meadows of Kābul would be six, but they are always spoken of as four.

(e. Mountain-passes into Kābul.)

The country of Kābul is a fastness hard for a foreign foe to make his way into.

The Hindū-kush mountains, which separate Kābul from Balkh, Qūndūz and Badakhshān, are crossed by seven roads.742 Three of these lead out of Panjhīr (Panj-sher), viz. Khawāk, the uppermost, T̤ūl, the next lower, and Bāzārak.743 Of the passes on them, the one on the T̤ūl road is the best, but the road itself is rather the longest whence, seemingly, it is called T̤ūl. Bāzārak is the most direct; like T̤ūl, it leads over into Sar-i-āb; as it passes through Pārandī, local people call its main pass, the Pārandī. Another road leads up through Parwān; it has seven minor passes, known as Haft-bacha (Seven-younglings), between Parwān and its main pass (Bāj-gāh). It is joined at its main pass by two roads from Andar-āb, which go on to Parwān by it. This is a road full of difficulties. Out of Ghūr-bund, again, three roads lead over. The one next to Parwān, known as the Yāngī-yūl pass (New-road), goes through Wālīān to Khinjan; next above this is the Qīpchāq road, crossing to where the water of Andar-āb meets the Sūrkh-āb (Qīzīl-sū); this also is an excellent road; and the third leads over the Shibr-tū pass;744 those crossing by this in the heats take their way by Bāmīān and Saighān, but those crossing by it in winter, go on by Āb-dara (Water-valley).745 Shibr-tū excepted, all the Hindū-kush roads are closed for three or four months in winter,746 because no road through a valley-bottom is passable when the waters are high. If any-one thinks to cross the Hindū-kush at that time, over the mountains instead of through a valley-bottom, his journey is hard indeed. The time to cross is during the three or four autumn months when the snow is less and the waters are low. Whether on the mountains or in the valley-bottoms, Kāfir highwaymen are not few.

The road from Kābul into Khurāsān passes through Qandahār; it is quite level, without a pass.

Four roads lead into Kābul from the Hindūstān side; one by rather a low pass through the Khaibar mountains, another by way of Bangash, another by way of Naghr (var. Naghz),747 and another through Farmūl;748 the passes being low also in the three last-named. These roads are all reached from three ferries over the Sind. Those who take the Nīl-āb749 ferry, come on through the Lamghānāt.750 In winter, however, people ford the Sind-water (at Hāru) above its junction with the Kābul-water,751 and ford this also. In most of my expeditions into Hindūstān, I crossed those fords, but this last time (932 AH. -1525 AD.), when I came, defeated Sl. Ibrāhīm and conquered the country, I crossed by boat at Nīl-āb. Except at the one place mentioned above, the Sind-water can be crossed only by boat. Those again, who cross at Dīn-kot752 go on through Bangash. Those crossing at Chaupāra, if they take the Farmūl road, go on to Ghaznī, or, if they go by the Dasht, go on to Qandahār.753

(f. Inhabitants of Kābul.)

There are many differing tribes in the Kābul country; in its dales and plains are Turks and clansmen754 and ‘Arabs; in its town and in many villages, Sārts; out in the districts and also in villages are the Pashāī, Parājī, Tājīk, Bīrkī and Afghān tribes. In the western mountains are the Hazāra and Nikdīrī tribes, some of whom speak the Mughūlī tongue. In the north-eastern mountains are the places of the Kāfirs, such as Kitūr (Gawār?) and Gibrik. To the south are the places of the Afghān tribes.