The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur). Emperor of Hindustan Babur
people used to call Mā warā’u’n-nahr (Transoxania).
They used to call it Baldat-i-maḥfūẓa because no foe laid hands on it with storm and sack.347 It must have become348 Musalmān in the time of the Commander of the Faithful, his Highness ‘Usmān. Qus̤am ibn ‘Abbās, one of the Companions349 must have gone there; his burial-place, known as the Tomb of Shāh-i-zinda (The Living Shāh, i.e., Fāqīr) is outside the Iron Gate. Iskandar must have founded Samarkand. The Turk and Mughūl hordes call it Sīmīz-kīnt.350 Tīmūr Beg made it his capital; no ruler so great will ever have made it a capital before (qīlghān aīmās dūr). I ordered people to pace round the ramparts of the walled-town; it came out at 10,000 steps.351 Samarkandīs are all orthodox (sunnī), pure-in-the Faith, law-abiding and religious. The number of LeadersFol. 45. of Islām said to have arisen in Mā warā’u’n-nahr, since the days of his Highness the Prophet, are not known to have arisen in any other country.352 From the Mātarīd suburb of Samarkand came Shaikh Abū’l-manṣūr, one of the Expositors of the Word.353 Of the two sects of Expositors, the Mātarīdiyah and the Ash‘ariyah,354 the first is named from this Shaikh Abū’l-manṣūr. Of Mā warā’u’n-nahr also was Khwāja Ismā‘īl Khartank, the author of the Ṣāḥiḥ-i-bukhārī.355 From the Farghāna district, Marghīnān—Farghāna, though at the limit of settled habitation, is included in Mā warā’u’n-nahr—came the author of the Hidāyat,356 a book than which few on Jurisprudence are more honoured in the sect of Abū Ḥanīfa.
On the east of Samarkand are Farghāna and Kāshghar; on the west, Bukhārā and Khwārizm; on the north, Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya—in books written Shāsh and Banākat; and on the south, Balkh and Tīrmīẕ.
The Kohik Water flows along the north of Samarkand, at the distance of some 4 miles (2 kuroh); it is so-called because it comes out from under the upland of the Little Hill (Kohik)357 lying between it and the town. The Dar-i-gham Water (canal) flows along the south, at the distance of some two miles (1 sharī‘). This is a large and swift torrent,358 indeed it is like a large river, cut off from the Kohik Water. All the gardens and suburbs and some of the tūmāns of Samarkand are cultivated by it. By the Kohik Water a stretch of from 30 to 40 yīghāch,359 by road, is made habitable and cultivated, as far as Bukhārā and Qarā-kūl. Large as the river is, it is not too large for its dwellings and its culture; during three or four months of theFol. 45b. year, indeed, its waters do not reach Bukhārā.360 Grapes, melons, apples and pomegranates, all fruits indeed, are good in Samarkand; two are famous, its apple and its ṣāḥibī (grape).361 Its winter is mightily cold; snow falls but not so much as in Kābul; in the heats its climate is good but not so good as Kābul’s.
In the town and suburbs of Samarkand are many fine buildings and gardens of Tīmur Beg and Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā.362
In the citadel,363 Tīmūr Beg erected a very fine building, the great four-storeyed kiosque, known as the Gūk Sarāī.364 In the walled-town, again, near the Iron Gate, he built a Friday Mosque365 of stone (sangīn); on this worked many stone-cutters, brought from Hindūstān. Round its frontal arch is inscribed in letters large enough to be read two miles away, the Qu’rān verse, Wa az yerfa‘ Ibrāhīm al Qawā‘id alī akhara.366 This also is a very fine building. Again, he laid out two gardens, on the east of the town, one, the more distant, the Bāgh-i-bulandī,367 the other and nearer, the Bāgh-i-dilkushā.368 From Dilkushā to the Turquoise Gate, he planted an Avenue of White Poplar,369 and in the garden itself erected a great kiosque, painted inside Fol. 46.with pictures of his battles in Hindūstān. He made another garden, known as the Naqsh-i-jahān (World’s Picture), on the skirt of Kohik, above the Qarā-sū or, as people also call it, the Āb-i-raḥmat (Water-of-mercy) of Kān-i-gil.370 It had gone to ruin when I saw it, nothing remaining of it except its name. His also are the Bāgh-i-chanār,371 near the walls and below the town on the south,372 also the Bāgh-i-shamāl (North Garden) and the Bāgh-i-bihisht (Garden of Paradise). His own tomb and those of his descendants who have ruled in Samarkand, are in a College, built at the exit (chāqār) of the walled-town, by Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā, the son of Tīmūr Beg’s son, Jahāngīr Mīrzā.373
Amongst Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s buildings inside the town are a College and a monastery (Khānqāh). The dome of the monastery is very large, few so large are shown in the world. Near these two buildings, he constructed an excellent Hot Bath (ḥammām) known as the Mīrzā’s Bath; he had the pavements in this made of all sorts of stone (? mosaic); such another bath is not known in Khurāsān or in Samarkand.374 Again;—to the south of the College is his mosque, known as the Fol. 46b.Masjid-i-maqat̤a‘ (Carved Mosque) because its ceiling and its walls are all covered with islīmī375 and Chinese pictures formed of segments of wood.376 There is great discrepancy between the qibla of this mosque and that of the College; that of the mosque seems to have been fixed by astronomical observation.
Another of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s fine buildings is an observatory, that is, an instrument for writing Astronomical Tables.377 This stands three storeys high, on the skirt of the Kohik upland. By its means the Mīrzā worked out the Kūrkānī Tables, now used all over the world. Less work is done with any others. Before these were made, people used the Aīl-khānī Tables, put together at Marāgha, by Khwāja Naṣīr Tūsī,378 in the time of Hulākū Khān. Hulākū Khān it is, people call Aīl-khānī.379
(Author’s note.) Not more than seven or eight observatories seem to have been constructed in the world. Māmūm Khalīfa380 (Caliph) made one with which the Mamūmī Tables were written. Batalmūs (Ptolemy) constructed another. Another was made, in Hindūstān, in the time of Rājā Vikramāditya Hīndū, in Ujjain and Dhar, that is, the Mālwa country, now known as Māndū. The Hindūs of Hindūstān use the Tables of this Observatory. They were put together 1,584 years ago.381Fol. 47. Compared with others, they are somewhat defective.
Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā again, made the garden known as the Bāgh-i-maidān (Garden of the Plain), on the skirt of the Kohik upland. In the middle of it he erected a fine building they call Chihil Sitūn (Forty Pillars). On both storeys are pillars, all of stone (tāshdīn).382 Four turrets, like minarets, stand on its four corner-towers, the way up into them being through the towers. Everywhere there are stone pillars, some fluted, some twisted, some many-sided. On the four sides of the upper storey are open galleries enclosing a four-doored hall (chār-dara); their pillars also are all of stone. The raised floor of the building is all paved with stone.
He made a smaller garden, out beyond Chihil Sitūn and towards Kohik, also having a building in it. In the open gallery of this building he placed a great stone throne, some 14 or 15 yards (qārī) long, some 8 yards wide and perhaps 1 yard high. They brought a stone so large by a very long road.383 There is a crack in the middle of it which people say must have come after it was brought here. In the same Fol. 47b.garden he also built a four-doored hall, know as the Chīnī-khāna (Porcelain House) because its īzāra384 are all of porcelain; he sent to China for the porcelain used in it. Inside the walls again, is an old building of his, known as the Masjid-i-laqlaqa (Mosque of the Echo). If anyone stamps on the ground under the middle of the dome of this mosque, the sound echoes back from the whole dome; it is a curious matter of which none know the secret.
In the time also of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā the great and lesser begs laid out many gardens, large and small.385 For beauty, and air, and view, few will have equalled Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān’s Chār-bāgh (Four Gardens).386 It lies overlooking the whole of Qulba Meadow, on the slope below the Bāgh-i-maidān. Moreover it is arranged symmetrically, terrace above terrace, and is planted with beautiful nārwān387 and cypresses and white poplar. A most agreeable sojourning place, its one defect is the want of a large stream.
Samarkand is a wonderfully beautified town. One of its specialities, perhaps found in few other places,388 is that the different trades are not mixed up together in it but each has its own bāzār, a good sort of plan. Its bakers and its cooks are good.