The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur). Emperor of Hindustan Babur
sons went with four or five thousand heads-of-houses of the Black Sheep Turkmāns to serve Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā and after the Mīrzā’s defeat (873 AH. by Aūzūn Ḥasan), came down to these countries and took service with Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. This happened after Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā came to Ḥiṣār from Samarkand, and then it was he took Pasha Begīm. She became the mother of one of his sons and three of his daughters. Sult̤ān-nigār Khānīm was another of his ladies; her descent has been mentioned already in the account of the (Chaghatāī) Khāns.Fol. 28b.
He had many concubines and mistresses. His most honoured concubine (mu‘atabar ghūma) was Zuhra Begī Āghā; she was taken in his father’s life-time and became the mother of one son and one daughter. He had many mistresses and, as has been said, two of his daughters were by two of them.
h. His amirs.
Khusrau Shāh was of the Turkistānī Qīpchāqs. He had been in the intimate service of the Tarkhān begs, indeed had been a catamite. Later on he became a retainer of Mazīd Beg (Tarkhān) Arghūn who favoured him in all things. He was favoured by Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā on account of services done by him when, after the ‘Irāq disaster, he joined the Mīrzā on his way to Khurāsān. He waxed very great in his latter days; his retainers, under Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā, were a clear five or six thousand. Not only Badakhshān but the whole country from the Amū to the Hindū-kush Mountains depended on him and he devoured its whole revenue (darobast yīr īdī). His open table was good, so too his open hand; though he was a rough getter,257 what he got, he spent liberally. He waxed exceeding great after Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā’s death, in whose sons’ time his retainers approached 20,000. Although he prayed and abstained from forbidden aliments, yet was he black-souled and vicious, Fol. 29.dunder-headed and senseless, disloyal and a traitor to his salt. For the sake of this fleeting, five-days world,258 he blinded one of his benefactor’s sons and murdered another. A sinner before God, reprobate to His creatures, he has earned curse and execration till the very verge of Resurrection. For this world’s sake he did his evil deeds and yet, with lands so broad and with such hosts of armed retainers, he had not pluck to stand up to a hen. An account of him will come into this history.
Pīr-i-muḥammad Aīlchī-būghā259 Qūchīn was another. In Hazārāspī’s fight260 he got in one challenge with his fists in Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s presence at the Gate of Balkh. He was a brave man, continuously serving the Mīrzā (Maḥmūd) and guiding him by his counsel. Out of rivalry to Khusrau Shāh, he made a night-attack when the Mīrzā was besieging Qūndūz, on Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, with few men, without arming261 and without plan; he could do nothing; what was there he could do against such and so large a force? He was pursued, threw himself into the river and was drowned.
Ayūb (Begchīk Mughūl)262 was another. He had served in Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s Khurāsān Cadet Corps, a brave man, Bāīsunghar Mīrzā’s guardian. He was choice in dress and food; a jester and talkative, nicknamed Impudence, perhaps because the Mīrzā called him so.Fol. 29b.
Walī was another, the younger, full-brother of Khusrau Shāh. He kept his retainers well. He it was brought about the blinding of Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā and the murder of Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā. He had an ill-word for every-one and was an evil-tongued, foul-mouthed, self-pleasing and dull-witted mannikin. He approved of no-one but himself. When I went from the Qūndūz country to near Dūshī (910 AH.−1503 AD.), separated Khusrau Shāh from his following and dismissed him, this person (i.e., Walī) had come to Andar-āb and Sīr-āb, also in fear of the Aūzbegs. The Aīmāqs of those parts beat and robbed him263 then, having let me know, came on to Kābul. Walī went to Shaibānī Khān who had his head struck off in the town of Samarkand.
Shaikh ‘Abdu’l-lāh Barlās264 was another; he had to wife one of the daughters of Shāh Sult̤ān Muḥammad (Badakhshī) i.e., the maternal aunt of Abā-bikr Mīrzā (Mīrān-shāhī) and of Sl. Maḥmūd Khān. He wore his tunic narrow and pur shaqq265; he was a kindly well-bred man.
Maḥmūd Barlās of the Barlāses of Nūndāk (Badakhshān) was another. He had been a beg also of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā and had surrendered Karmān to him when the Mīrzā took the ‘Irāq countries. When Abā-bikr Mīrzā (Mīrān-shāhī) cameFol. 30. against Ḥiṣār with Mazīd Beg Tarkhān and the Black Sheep Turkmāns, and Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went off to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand, Maḥmūd Barlās did not surrender Ḥiṣār but held out manfully.266 He was a poet and put a dīwān together.
(i. Historical narrative resumed).
When Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā died, Khusrau Shāh kept the event concealed and laid a long hand on the treasure. But how could such news be hidden? It spread through the town at once. That was a festive day for the Samarkand families; soldier and peasant, they uprose in tumult against Khusrau Shāh. Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg and the Tarkhānī begs put the rising down and turned Khusrau Shāh out of the town with an escort for Ḥiṣār.
As Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā himself after giving Ḥiṣār to Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā and Bukhārā to Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, had dismissed both to their governments, neither was present when he died. The Ḥiṣār and Samarkand begs, after turning Khusrau Shāh out, agreed to send for Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā from Bukhārā, brought him to Samarkand and seated him on the throne. When he thus became supreme (pādshāh), he was 18 (lunar) years old.
At this crisis, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān (Chaghatāī), acting on the Fol. 30b.word of Junaid Barlās and of some of the notables of Samarkand, led his army out to near Kān-bāī with desire to take that town. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā, on his side, marched out in force. They fought near Kān-bāī. Ḥaidar Kūkūldāsh, the main pillar of the Mughūl army, led the Mughūl van. He and all his men dismounted and were pouring in flights of arrows (shība) when a large body of the mailed braves of Ḥiṣār and Samarkand made an impetuous charge and straightway laid them under their horses’ feet. Their leader taken, the Mughūl army was put to rout without more fighting. Masses (qālīn) of Mughūls were wiped out; so many were beheaded in Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā’s presence that his tent was three times shifted because of the number of the dead.
At this same crisis, Ibrāhīm Sārū entered the fort of Asfara, there read Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā’s name in the Khut̤ba and took up a position of hostility to me.
(Author’s note.) Ibrāhīm Sārū is of the Mīnglīgh people;267 he had served my father in various ways from his childhood but later on had been dismissed for some fault.
Fol. 31.The army rode out to crush this rebellion in the month of Sha’bān (May) and by the end of it, had dismounted round Asfara. Our braves in the wantonness of enterprise, on the very day of arrival, took the new wall268 that was in building outside the fort. That day Sayyid Qāsim, Lord of my Gate, out-stripped the rest and got in with his sword; Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal and Muḥammad-dost T̤aghāī got theirs in also but Sayyid Qāsim won the Champion’s Portion. He took it in Shāhrukhiya when I went to see my mother’s brother, Sl. Maḥmūd Khān.
(Author’s note.) The Championship Portion269 is an ancient usage of the Mughūl horde. Whoever outdistanced his tribe and got in with his own sword, took the portion at every feast and entertainment.
My guardian, Khudāī-bīrdī Beg died in that first day’s fighting, struck by a cross-bow arrow. As the assault was made without armour, several bare braves (yīkīt yīlāng)270 perished and many were wounded. One of Ibrāhīm Sārū’s cross-bowmen was an excellent shot; his equal had never been seen; he it was hit most of those wounded. When Asfara had been taken, he entered my service.
As the siege drew on, orders were given to construct head-strikes271 in two or three places, to run mines and to make everyFol. 31b. effort to prepare appliances for taking the fort. The siege lasted 40 days; at last Ibrāhīm Sārū had no resource but, through the mediation of Khwāja