The Bābur-nāma

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 Sult̤āns, 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 khut̤ba, 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 sult̤āns 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.1329

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 felt neglect and made report of Bābur as arrogant, in opposition, and unwilling to fulfil his compact, – later when he eagerly attempted success unaided against ‘Ubaid Khān, and was then worsted. It illustrates the Shāh’s view of his suzerain relation to Bābur that on hearing Muḥammad Jān’s report, he ordered Najm S̤ānī to bring the offender to order.

Meantime the Shāh’s conditions seem to have been carried out in Samarkand and Bābur’s subservience clearly shewn.1330 Of this there are the indications, – that Bābur had promised and was a man of his word; that Sunnī irritation against him waxed and did not wane as it might have done without food to nourish it; that Bābur knew himself impotent against the Aūzbegs unless he had foreign aid, expected attack, knew it was preparing; that he would hear of Muḥammad Jān’s report and of Najm S̤ānī’s commission against himself. Honesty, policy and necessity combined to enforce the fulfilment of his agreement. What were the precise terms of that agreement beyond the two as to the khut̤ba and the coins, it needs close study of the wording of the sources to decide, lest metaphor be taken for fact. Great passions, – ambition, religious fervour, sectarian bigotry and fear confronted him. His problem was greater than that of Henry of Navarre and of Napoleon in Egypt; they had but to seem what secured their acceptance; he had to put on a guise that brought him hate.

Khān-zāda was not the only member of Bābur’s family who now rejoined him after marriage with an Aūzbeg. His half-sister Yādgār-sult̤ān had fallen to the share of Ḥamza Sult̤ān’s son ‘Abdu’l-lat̤īf in 908 AH. when Shaibānī defeated the Khāns near Akhsī. Now that her half-brother had defeated her husband’s family, she returned to her own people (f. 9).

918 AH. – MARCH 19th 1512 to MARCH 9th 1513 AD

a. Return of the Aūzbegs.

Emboldened by the departure of the Persian troops, the Aūzbegs, in the spring of the year, came out of Turkistān, their main attack being directed on Tāshkīnt, then held for Bābur.1331 ‘Ubaid Khān moved for Bukhārā. He had prefaced his march by vowing that, if successful, he would thenceforth strictly observe Musalmān Law. The vow was made in Ḥaẓrat Turkistān at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad Yasawī, a saint revered in Central Asia through many centuries; he had died about 1120 AD.; Tīmūr had made pilgrimage to his tomb, in 1397 AD., and then had founded the mosque still dominating the town, still the pilgrim’s land-mark.1332 ‘Ubaid’s vow, like Bābur’s of 933 AH., was one of return to obedience. Both men took oath in the Ghāzī’s mood, Bābur’s set against the Hindū whom he saw as a heathen, ‘Ubaid’s set against Bābur whom he saw as a heretic.

b. Bābur’s defeat at Kul-i-malik.

In Ṣafar (April-May) ‘Ubaid moved swiftly down and attacked the Bukhārā neighbourhood. Bābur went from Samarkand to meet him. Several details of what followed, not given by Ḥaidar and, in one particular, contradicting him, are given by Khwānd-amīr. The statement in which the two historians contradict one another is Ḥaidar’s that ‘Ubaid had 3000 men only, Bābur 40,000. Several considerations give to Khwānd-amīr’s opposed statement that Bābur’s force was small, the semblance of being nearer the fact. Ḥaidar, it may be said, did not go out on this campaign; he was ill in Samarkand and continued ill there for some time; Khwānd-amīr’s details have the well-informed air of things learned at first-hand, perhaps from some-one in Hindūstān after 934 AH.

Matters which make against Bābur’s having a large effective force at Kul-i-malik, and favour Khwānd-amīr’s statement about the affair are these: – ‘Ubaid must have formed some estimate of what he had to meet, and he brought 3000 men. Where could Bābur have obtained 40,000 men worth reckoning in a fight? In several times of crisis his own immediate and ever-faithful troop is put at 500; as his cause was now unpopular, local accretions may have been few. Some Mughūls from Merv and from Kābul were near Samarkand (T.R. pp. 263, 265); most were with Sa‘īd in Andijān; but however many Mughūls may have been in his neighbourhood, none could be counted on as resolute for his success. If too, he had had more than a small effective force, would he not have tried to hold Samarkand with the remnant of defeat until Persian help arrived? All things considered, there is ground for accepting Khwānd-amīr’s statement that Bābur met ‘Ubaid with a small force.

Following his account therefore: – Bābur in his excess of daring, marched to put the Aūzbeg down with a small force only, against the advice of the prudent, of whom Muḥammad Mazīd Tarkhān was one, who all said it was wrong to go out unprepared and without reinforcement. Paying them no attention, Bābur marched for Bukhārā, was rendered still more daring by news had when he neared it, that the enemy had retired some stages, and followed him up almost to his camp. ‘Ubaid was in great force; many Aūzbegs perished but, in the end, they were victors and Bābur was compelled to take refuge in Bukhārā. The encounter took place near Kul-i-malik (King’s-lake) in Ṣafar 918 AH. (April-May 1512 AD.).

c. Bābur leaves Samarkand.

It was not possible to maintain a footing in Samarkand; Bābur therefore collected his family and train1333 and betook himself to Ḥiṣār. There went with him on this expedition Māhīm and her children Humāyūn, Mihr-jahān and Bārbūl, – the motherless Ma‘ṣūma, – Gul-rukh with her son Kāmrān (Gulbadan f. 7). I have not found any account of his route; Ḥaidar gives no details about the journey; he did not travel with Bābur, being still invalided in Samarkand. Perhaps the absence of information is a sign that the Aūzbegs had not yet appeared on the direct road for Ḥiṣār. A local tradition however would make Bābur go round through Farghāna. He certainly might have gone into Farghāna hoping to co-operate with Sa‘īd Khān; Tāshkīnt was still holding out under Aḥmad-i-qāsim Kohbur and it is clear that all activity in Bābur’s force had not been quenched because during the Tāshkīnt siege, Dost Beg broke through the enemy’s ranks and made his way into the town. Sairām held out longer than Tāshkīnt. Of any such move by Bābur into Andijān the only hint received is given by what may be a mere legend.1334

d. Bābur in Ḥiṣār.

After experiencing such gains and such losses, Bābur was still under 30 years of age.

The Aūzbegs, after his departure, re-occupied Bukhārā and Samarkand without harm done to the towns-people, and a few weeks later, in Jumāda I (July-August) followed him to Ḥiṣār. Meantime he with Mīrzā Khān’s help, had so closed the streets of the town by massive earth-works that the sult̤āns were convinced its defenders were ready to spend the last drop of their blood in holding it, and therefore retired without attack.1335 Some sources give as their reason for retirement that Bābur had been reinforced from Balkh; Bairām Beg, it is true, had sent a force but one of 300 men only; so few cannot have alarmed except as the harbinger of more. Greater precision as to dates would shew whether they can have heard of Najm S̤ānī’s army advancing by way of Balkh.

e. Qarshī and Ghaj-davān.

Meantime Najm S̤ānī, having with him some 11,000 men, had started on his corrective mission against Bābur. When he reached the Khurāsān frontier, he heard of the defeat at Kul-i-malik and the flight to Ḥiṣār, gathered other troops from Harāt and elsewhere, and advanced to Balkh. He stayed there for 20 days with Bairām Beg, perhaps occupied, in part, by communications with the Shāh and Bābur. From the latter repeated request for help is said to have come; help was given, some sources say without the Shāh’s permission. A rendezvous was fixed, Najm S̤ānī marched to Tīrmīẕ, there crossed the Amū and in Rajab (Sep. – Oct.) encamped near the Darband-i-ahanīn. On Bābur’s approach through the Chak-chaq pass, he paid him the civility of going several miles out from his camp to give him honouring reception.

Advancing thence for Bukhārā, the combined armies took Khuzār and moved on to Qarshī. This town Bābur wished to pass by, as it had been passed by on his previous march for Bukhārā; each time perhaps he wished to spare its people, formerly his subjects, whom he desired to rule again, and who are reputed to have been mostly his fellow Turks. Najm S̤ānī refused to pass on; he said Qarshī must be taken because it was ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Khān’s nest; in it was ‘Ubaid’s uncle Shaikhīm Mīrzā; it was captured; the Aūzbeg garrison was put to the sword and, spite of Bābur’s earnest entreaties, all the towns-people, 15,000 persons it is said, down to the “suckling and decrepit”, were massacred. Amongst the victims was Banā’ī who happened to be within it. This action roused the utmost anger against Najm S̤ānī; it disgusted Bābur, not only through its merciless slaughter but because it made clear the disregard in which he was held by his magnificent fellow-general.

From murdered Qarshī Najm S̤ānī advanced for Bukhārā. On getting within a few miles of it, he heard that an Aūzbeg force was approaching under Tīmūr and Abū-sa‘īd, presumably from Samarkand therefore. He sent Bairām Beg to attack them; they drew off to the north and threw themselves into Ghaj-davān, the combined armies following them. This move placed Najm S̤ānī across the Zar-afshān, on the border of the desert with which the Aūzbegs were familiar, and with ‘Ubaid on his flank in Bukhārā.

As to what followed the sources vary; they are brief; they differ less in statement of the same occurrence than in their choice of details to record; as Mr. Erskine observes their varying stories are not incompatible. Their widest difference is a statement of time but the two periods named, one a few days, the other four months, may not be meant to apply to the same event. Four months the siege is said to have lasted; this could not have been said if it had been a few days only. The siege seems to have been of some duration.

At first there were minor engagements, ending with varying success; provisions and provender became scarce; Najm S̤ānī’s officers urged retirement, so too did Bābur. He would listen to none of them. At length ‘Ubaid Khān rode out from Bukhārā at the head of excellent troops; he joined the Ghaj-davān garrison and the united Aūzbegs posted themselves in the suburbs where walled lanes and gardens narrowed the field and lessened Najm S̤ānī’s advantage in numbers. On Tuesday Ramẓān 3rd (Nov. 12th)1336 a battle was fought in which his army was routed and he himself slain.

f. Bābur and Yār-i-aḥmad Najm Sānī.

Some writers say that Najm S̤ānī’s men did not fight well; it must be remembered that they may have been weakened by privation and that they had wished to retire. Of Bābur it is said that he, who was the reserve, did not fight at all; it is difficult to see good cause why, under all the circumstances, he should risk the loss of his men. It seems likely that Ḥaidar’s strong language about this defeat would suit Bābur’s temper also. “The victorious breezes of Islām overturned the banners of the schismatics… Most of them perished on the field; the rents made by the sword at Qarshī were sewn up at Ghaj-davān by the arrow-stitches of vengeance. Najm S̤ānī and all the Turkmān amīrs were sent to hell.”

The belief that Bābur had failed Najm S̤ānī persisted at the Persian Court, for his inaction was made a reproach to his son Humāyūn in 951 AH. (1544 AD.), when Humāyūn was a refugee with Ismā‘īl’s son T̤ahmāsp. Badāyūnī tells a story which, with great inaccuracy of name and place, represents the view taken at that time. The part of the anecdote pertinent here is that Bābur on the eve of the battle at Ghaj-davān, shot an arrow into the Aūzbeg camp which carried the following couplet, expressive of his ill-will to the Shāh and perhaps also of his rejection of the Shī‘a guise he himself had worn.

I made the Shāh’s Najm road-stuff for the Aūzbegs;

If fault has been mine, I have now cleansed the road.1337

g. The Mughūls attack Bābur.

On his second return to Ḥiṣār Bābur was subjected to great danger by a sudden attack made upon him by the Mughūls where he lay at night in his camp outside the town. Firishta says, but without particulars of their offence, that Bābur had reproached them for their misconduct; the absence of detail connecting the affair with the defeat just sustained, leads to the supposition that their misdeeds were a part of the tyranny over the country-people punished later by ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Khān. Roused from his sleep by the noise of his guards’ resistance to the Mughūl attack, Bābur escaped with difficulty and without a single attendant1338 into the fort. The conspirators plundered his camp and withdrew to Qarā-tīgīn. He was in no position to oppose them, left a few men in Ḥiṣār and went to Mīrzā Khān in Qūndūz.

After he left, Ḥiṣār endured a desolating famine, a phenomenal snowfall and the ravages of the Mughūls. ‘Ubaid Khān avenged Bābur on the horde; hearing of their excesses, he encamped outside the position they had taken up in Wakhsh defended by river, hills and snow, waited till a road thawed, then fell upon them and avenged the year’s misery they had inflicted on the Ḥiṣārīs. Ḥaidar says of them that it was their villainy lost Ḥiṣār to Bābur and gained it for the Aūzbeg.1339

These Mughūls had for chiefs men who when Sa‘īd went to Andijān, elected to stay with Bābur. One of the three named by Ḥaidar was Ayūb Begchīk. He repented his disloyalty; when he lay dying some two years later (920 AH.) in Yāngī-ḥiṣār, he told Sa‘īd Khān who visited him, that what was “lacerating his bowels and killing him with remorse”, was his faithlessness to Bābur in Ḥiṣār, the oath he had broken at the instigation of those “hogs and bears”, the Mughūl chiefs (T.R. p. 315).

In this year but before the Mughūl treachery to Bābur, Ḥaidar left him, starting in Rajab (Sep. – Oct.) to Sa‘id in Andijān and thus making a beginning of his 19 years spell of service.

919 AH. – MARCH 9th 1513 to FEB. 26th 1514 AD

Bābur may have spent this year in Khishm (Ḥ.S. iii, 372). During two or three months of it, he had one of the Shāh’s retainers in his service, Khwāja Kamālu’d-dīn Maḥmūd, who had fled from Ghaj-davān to Balkh, heard there that the Balkhīs favoured an Aūzbeg chief whose coming was announced, and therefore went to Bābur. In Jumāda 11 (August), hearing that the Aūzbeg sultan had left Balkh, he returned there but was not admitted because the Balkhīs feared reprisals for their welcome to the Aūzbeg, a fear which may indicate that he had taken some considerable reinforcement to Bābur. He went on into Khurāsān and was there killed; Balkh was recaptured for the Shāh by Deo Sult̤ān, a removal from Aūzbeg possession which helps to explain how Bābur came to be there in 923 AH.

920 AH. – FEB. 26th 1514 to FEB. 15th 1515 AD

Ḥaidar writes of Bābur as though he were in Qūndūz this year (TR. p. 263), says that he suffered the greatest misery and want, bore it with his accustomed courtesy and patience but, at last, despairing of success in recovering Ḥiṣār, went back to Kābul. Now it seems to be that he made the stay in Khwāst to which he refers later (f. 241b) and during which his daughter Gul-rang was born, as Gul-badan’s chronicle allows known.

It was at the end of the year, after the privation of winter therefore, that he reached Kābul. When he re-occupied Samarkand in 917 AH., he had given Kābul to his half-brother Nāṣir Mīrzā; the Mīrzā received him now with warm welcome and protestations of devotion and respect, spoke of having guarded Kābul for him and asked permission to return to his own old fief Ghaznī. His behaviour made a deep impression on Bābur; it would be felt as a humane touch on the sore of failure.

921 AH. – FEB. 15th 1515 to FEB. 5th 1516 AD

a. Rebellion of chiefs in Ghaznī.

Nāṣir Mīrzā died shortly after (dar hamān ayyām) his return to Ghaznī. Disputes then arose amongst the various commanders who were in Ghaznī; Sherīm T̤aghāī was one of them and the main strength of the tumult was given by the Mughūls. Many others were however involved in it, even such an old servant as Bābā of Pashāghar taking part (f. 234b; T.R. p. 356). Ḥaidar did not know precisely the cause of the dispute, or shew why it should have turned against Bābur, since he attributes it to possession taken by Satan of the brains of the chiefs and a consequent access of vain-glory and wickedness. Possibly some question of succession to Nāṣir arose. Dost Beg distinguished himself in the regular battle which ensued; Qāsim Beg’s son Qaṃbar-i-‘alī hurried down from Qūndūz and also did his good part to win it for Bābur. Many of the rioters were killed, others fled to Kāshghar. Sherīm T̤aghāī was one of the latter; as Sa‘īd Khān gave him no welcome, he could not stay there; he fell back on the much injured Bābur who, says Ḥaidar, showed him his usual benevolence, turned his eyes from his offences and looked only at his past services until he died shortly afterwards (T.R. p. 357).1340

922 AH. – FEB. 5th 1516 to JAN. 24th 1517 AD

This year may have been spent in and near Kābul in the quiet promoted by the dispersion of the Mughūls.

In this year was born Bābur’s son Muḥammad known as ‘Askarī from his being born in camp. He was the son of Gulrukh Begchīk and full-brother of Kāmrān.

923 AH. – JAN. 24th 1517 to JAN. 13th 1518 AD

a. Bābur visits Balkh.

Khwānd-amīr is the authority for the little that is known of Bābur’s action in this year (Ḥ.S. iii, 367 et seq.). It is connected with the doings of Badī‘u’z-zamān Bāī-qarā’s son Muḥammad-i-zamān. This Mīrzā had had great wanderings, during a part of which Khwānd-amīr was with him. In 920 AH. he was in Shāh Ismā‘īl’s service and in Balkh, but was not able to keep it. Bābur invited him to Kābul, – the date of invitation will have been later therefore than Bābur’s return there at the end of 920 AH. The Mīrzā was on his way but was dissuaded from going into Kābul by Mahdī Khwāja and went instead into Ghurjistān. Bābur was angered by his non-arrival and pursued him in order to punish him but did not succeed in reaching Ghurjistān and went back to Kābul by way of Fīrūz-koh and Ghūr. The Mīrzā was captured eventually and sent to Kābul. Bābur treated him with kindness, after a few months gave him his daughter Ma‘ṣūma in marriage, and sent him to Balkh. He appears to have been still in Balkh when Khwānd-amīr was writing of the above occurrences in 929 AH. The marriage took place either at the end of 923 or beginning of 924 AH. The Mīrzā was then 21, Ma‘ṣūma 9; she almost certainly did not then go to Balkh. At some time in 923 AH. Bābur is said by Khwānd-amīr to have visited that town.1341

b. Attempt on Qandahār.

In this year Bābur marched for Qandahār but the move ended peacefully, because a way was opened for gifts and terms by an illness which befell him when he was near the town.

The Tārīkh-i-sind gives what purports to be Shāh Beg’s explanation of Bābur’s repeated attempts on Qandahār. He said these had been made and would be made because Bābur had not forgiven Muqīm for taking Kābul 14 years earlier from the Tīmūrid ‘Abdu’r-razzāq; that this had brought him to Qandahār in 913 AH., this had made him then take away Māhchuchak, Muqīm’s daughter; that there were now (923 AH.) many unemployed Mīrzās in Kābul for whom posts could not be found in regions where the Persians and Aūzbegs were dominant; that an outlet for their ambitions and for Bābur’s own would be sought against the weaker opponent he himself was.

Bābur’s decision to attack in this year is said to have been taken while Shāh Beg was still a prisoner of Shāh Ismā‘īl in the Harāt country; he must have been released meantime by the admirable patience of his slave Saṃbhal.

924 AH. – JAN. 13th 1518 to JAN. 3rd 1519 AD

In this year Shāh Beg’s son Shāh Ḥasan came to Bābur after quarrel with his father. He stayed some two years, and during that time was married to Khalīfa’s daughter Gul-barg (Rose-leaf). His return to Qandahār will have taken place shortly before Bābur’s campaign of 926 A.H. against it, a renewed effort which resulted in possession on Shawwāl 13th 928 AH. (Sep. 6th 1522 AD.).1342