Kitabı oku: «The Bābur-nāma», sayfa 17

Nāṣir Mīrzā, hearing these various items of news and spurred on by the instigation of a few silly, short-sighted persons to covet Badakhshān, marched along the Shibr-tū and Āb-dara road, driving like sheep before him the families of the men who had come into Kābul from the other side of the Amū.⁹²³

(p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh.)

At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for Khurāsān,⁹²⁴ they meeting in with Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū’n-nūn Beg, all went on together to the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Herī. All had long been foes of his; all had behaved unmannerly to him; what brands had they not set on his heart! Yet all now went to him in their distress, and all went through me. For it is not likely they would have seen him if I had not made Khusrau Shāh helpless by parting him from his following, and if I had not taken Kābul from Ẕū’n’nūn’s son, Muqīm. Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā himself was as dough in the hands of the rest; beyond their word he could not go. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took up a gracious attitude towards one and all, mentioned no-one’s misdeeds, even made them gifts.

Shortly after their arrival Khusrau Shāh asked for leave to go to his own country, saying, “If I go, I shall get it all into my hands.” As he had reached Herī without equipment and without resources, they finessed a little about his leave. He became importunate. Muḥammad Barandūq retorted roundly on him with, “When you had 30,000 men behind you and the whole country in your hands, what did you effect against the Aūzbeg? What will you do now with your 500 men and the Aūzbegs in possession?” He added a little good advice in a few sensible words, but all was in vain because the fated hour of Khusrau Shāh’s death was near. Leave was at last given because of his importunity; Khusrau Shāh with his 3 or 400 followers, went straight into the borders of Dahānah. There as Nāṣir Mīrzā had just gone across, these two met.

Now the Badakhshī chiefs had invited only the Mīrzā; they had not invited Khusrau Shāh. Try as the Mīrzā did to persuade Khusrau Shāh to go into the hill-country,⁹²⁵ the latter, quite understanding the whole time, would not consent to go, his own idea being that if he marched under the Mīrzā, he would get the country into his own hands. In the end, unable to agree, each of them, near Ishkīmīsh, arrayed his following, put on mail, drew out to fight, and – departed. Nāṣir Mīrzā went on for Badakhshān; Khusrau Shāh after collecting a disorderly rabble, good and bad of some 1,000 persons, went, with the intention of laying siege to Qūndūz, to Khwāja Chār-tāq, one or two yīghāch outside it.

(q. Death of Khusrau Shāh.)

At the time Shaibāq Khān, after overcoming Sult̤ān Aḥmad Taṃbal and Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh⁹²⁶ flung away his country (Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār) without a blow struck, and saved himself. Thereupon Shaibāq Khān went to Ḥiṣār in which were Sherīm the page and a few good braves. They did not surrender Ḥiṣār, though their honourable beg had flung his country away and gone off; they made Ḥiṣār fast. The siege of Ḥiṣār Shaibāq Khān entrusted to Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sult̤ān,⁹²⁷ went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān and betook himself without delay to Khwārizm against Chīn Ṣūfī. But as, before he reached Samarkand on his way to Khwārizm, he heard of the death in Qūndūz of his brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān, he gave that place to Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.⁹²⁸

Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the others Shaibāq Khān had left behind. Ḥamza Sl. came himself as far as the sarāī on the Amū bank where he put his sons and begs in command of a force which went direct against Khusrau Shāh. There was neither fight nor flight for that fat, little man; Ḥamza Sult̤ān’s men unhorsed him, killed his sister’s son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim, Sherīm the page and several good braves. Him they took into Qūndūz, there struck his head off and from there sent it to Shaibāq Khān in Khwārizm.⁹²⁹

(r. Conduct in Kābul of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers.)

Just as Khusrau Shāh had said they would do, his former retainers and followers, no sooner than he marched against Qūndūz, changed in their demeanour to me,⁹³⁰ most of them marching off to near Khwāja-i-riwāj.⁹³¹ The greater number of the men in my service had been in his. The Mughūls behaved well, taking up a position of adherence to me.⁹³² On all this the news of Khusrau Shāh’s death fell like water on fire; it put his men out.

911 AH. – JUNE 4th 1505 to MAY 24th 1506 AD.⁹³³

(a. Death of Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm.)

In the month of Muḥarram my mother had fever. Blood was let without effect and a Khurāsānī doctor, known as Sayyid T̤abīb, in accordance with the Khurāsān practice, gave her water-melon, but her time to die must have come, for on the Saturday after six days of illness, she went to God’s mercy.

On Sunday I and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh conveyed her to the New-year’s Garden on the mountain-skirt⁹³⁴ where Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had built a house, and there, with the permission of his heirs,⁹³⁵ we committed her to the earth. While we were mourning for her, people let me know about (the death of) my younger Khān dādā Alacha Khān, and my grandmother Aīsān-daulat Begīm.⁹³⁶ Close upon Khānīm’s Fortieth⁹³⁷ arrived from Khurāsān Shāh Begīm the mother of the Khāns, together with my maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm, formerly of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā’s ḥaram, and Muḥammad Ḥusain Kūrkān Dūghlāt.⁹³⁸ Lament broke out afresh; the bitterness of these partings was extreme. When the mourning-rites had been observed, food and victuals set out for the poor and destitute, the Qorān recited, and prayers offered for the departed souls, we steadied ourselves and all took heart again.

(b. A futile start for Qandahār.)

When set free from these momentous duties, we got an army to horse for Qandahār under the strong insistance of Bāqī Chaghānīānī. At the start I went to Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar) where on dismounting I got fever. It was a strange sort of illness for whenever with much trouble I had been awakened, my eyes closed again in sleep. In four or five days I got quite well.

(c. An earthquake.)

At that time there was a great earthquake⁹³⁹ such that most of the ramparts of forts and the walls of gardens fell down; houses were levelled to the ground in towns and villages and many persons lay dead beneath them. Every house fell in Paghmān-village, and 70 to 80 strong heads-of-houses lay dead under their walls. Between Pagh-mān and Beg-tūt⁹⁴⁰ a piece of ground, a good stone-throw⁹⁴¹ wide may-be, slid down as far as an arrow’s-flight; where it had slid springs appeared. On the road between Istarghach and Maidān the ground was so broken up for 6 to 8 yīghāch (36-48 m.) that in some places it rose as high as an elephant, in others sank as deep; here and there people were sucked in. When the Earth quaked, dust rose from the tops of the mountains. Nūru’l-lāh the t̤ambourchī⁹⁴² had been playing before me; he had two instruments with him and at the moment of the quake had both in his hands; so out of his own control was he that the two knocked against each other. Jahāngīr Mīrzā was in the porch of an upper-room at a house built by Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā in Tīpa; when the Earth quaked, he let himself down and was not hurt, but the roof fell on some-one with him in that upper-room, presumably one of his own circle; that this person was not hurt in the least must have been solely through God’s mercy. In Tīpa most of the houses were levelled to the ground. The Earth quaked 33 times on the first day, and for a month afterwards used to quake two or three times in the 24 hours. The begs and soldiers having been ordered to repair the breaches made in the towers and ramparts of the fort (Kābul), everything was made good again in 20 days or a month by their industry and energy.

(d. Campaign against Qalāt-i-ghilzāī.)

Owing to my illness and to the earthquake, our plan of going to Qandahār had fallen somewhat into the background. The illness left behind and the fort repaired, it was taken up again. We were undecided at the time we dismounted below Shniz⁹⁴³ whether to go to Qandahār, or to over-run the hills and plains. Jahāngīr Mīrzā and the begs having assembled, counsel was taken and the matter found settlement in a move on Qalāt. On this move Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī Chaghānīānī insisted strongly.

At Tāzī⁹⁴⁴ there was word that Sher-i-‘alī the page with Kīchīk Bāqī Diwāna and others had thoughts of desertion; all were arrested; Sher-i-‘alī was put to death because he had given clear signs of disloyalty and misdoing both while in my service and not in mine, in this country and in that country.⁹⁴⁵ The others were let go with loss of horse and arms.

On arriving at Qalāt we attacked at once and from all sides, without our mail and without siege-appliances. As has been mentioned in this History, Kīchīk Khwāja, the elder brother of Khwāja Kalān, was a most daring brave; he had used his sword in my presence several times; he now clambered up the south-west tower of Qalāt, was pricked in the eye with a spear when almost up, and died of the wound two or three days after the place was taken. Here that Kīchīk Bāqī Dīwāna who had been arrested when about to desert with Sher-i-‘alī the page, expiated his baseness by being killed with a stone when he went under the ramparts. One or two other men died also. Fighting of this sort went on till the Afternoon Prayer when, just as our men were worn-out with the struggle and labour, those in the fort asked for peace and made surrender. Qalāt had been given by Ẕū’n-nūn Arghūn to Muqīm, and in it now were Muqīm’s retainers, Farrukh Arghūn and Qarā Bīlūt (Afghān). When they came out with their swords and quivers hanging round their necks, we forgave their offences.⁹⁴⁶ It was not my wish to reduce this high family⁹⁴⁷ to great straits; for why? Because if we did so when such a foe as the Aūzbeg was at our side, what would be said by those of far and near, who saw and heard?

As the move on Qalāt had been made under the insistance of Jahāngīr Mīrzā and Bāqī Chaghānīānī, it was now made over to the Mīrzā’s charge. He would not accept it; Bāqī also could give no good answer in the matter. So, after such a storming and assaulting of Qalāt, its capture was useless.

We went back to Kābul after over-running the Afghāns of Sawā-sang and Ālā-tāgh on the south of Qalāt.

The night we dismounted at Kābul I went into the fort; my tent and stable being in the Chār-bāgh, a Khirilchī thief going into the garden, fetched out and took away a bay horse of mine with its accoutrements, and my khachar.⁹⁴⁸

(e. Death of Bāqī Chaghānīānī.)

From the time Bāqī Chaghānīanī joined me on the Amū-bank, no man of mine had had more trust and authority.⁹⁴⁹ If a word were said, if an act were done, that word was his word, that act, his act. Spite of this, he had not done me fitting service, nor had he shewn me due civility. Quite the contrary! he had done things bad and unmannerly. Mean he was, miserly and malicious, ill-tongued, envious and cross-natured. So miserly was he that although when he left Tīrmīẕ, with his family and possessions, he may have owned 30 to 40,000 sheep, and although those masses of sheep used to pass in front of us at every camping-ground, he did not give a single one to our bare braves, tortured as they were by the pangs of hunger; at last in Kāh-mard, he gave 50!

Spite of acknowledging me for his chief (pādshāh), he had nagarets beaten at his own Gate. He was sincere to none, had regard for none. What revenue there is from Kābul (town) comes from the t̤amghā⁹⁵⁰; the whole of this he had, together with the dārogha-ship in Kābul and Panjhīr, the Gadai (var. Kidī) Hazāra, and kūshlūk⁹⁵¹ and control of the Gate.⁹⁵² With all this favour and finding, he was not in the least content; quite the reverse! What medley of mischief he planned has been told; we had taken not the smallest notice of any of it, nor had we cast it in his face. He was always asking for leave, affecting scruple at making the request. We used to acknowledge the scruple and excuse ourselves from giving the leave. This would put him down for a few days; then he would ask again. He went too far with his affected scruple and his takings of leave! Sick were we too of his conduct and his character. We gave the leave; he repented asking for it and began to agitate against it, but all in vain! He got written down and sent to me, “His Highness made compact not to call me to account till nine⁹⁵³ misdeeds had issued from me.” I answered with a reminder of eleven successive faults and sent this to him through Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar. He submitted and was allowed to go towards Hindūstān, taking his family and possessions. A few of his retainers escorted him through Khaibar and returned; he joined Bāqī Gāgīānī’s caravan and crossed at Nīl-āb.

Daryā Khān’s son, Yār-i-ḥusain was then in Kacha-kot,⁹⁵⁴ having drawn into his service, on the warrant of the farmān taken from me in Kohāt, a few Afghāns of the Dilazāk (var. Dilah-zāk) and Yūsuf-zāī and also a few Jats and Gujūrs.⁹⁵⁵ With these he beat the roads, taking toll with might and main. Hearing about Bāqī, he blocked the road, made the whole party prisoner, killed Bāqī and took his wife.

We ourselves had let Bāqī go without injuring him, but his own misdeeds rose up against him; his own acts defeated him.

Leave thou to Fate the man who does thee wrong;

For Fate is an avenging servitor.

(f. Attack on the Turkmān Hazāras.)

That winter we just sat in the Chār-bāgh till snow had fallen once or twice.

The Turkmān Hazāras, since we came into Kābul, had done a variety of insolent things and had robbed on the roads. We thought therefore of over-running them, went into the town to Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā’s house at the Būstān-sarāī, and thence rode out in the month of Sha‘bān (Feb. 1506 AD.).

We raided a few Hazāras at Janglīk, at the mouth of the Dara-i-khūsh (Happy-valley).⁹⁵⁶ Some were in a cave near the valley-mouth, hiding perhaps. Shaikh Darwīsh Kūkūldāsh went incautiously right (auq) up to the cave-mouth, was shot (aūqlāb) in the nipple by a Hazāra inside and died there and then (aūq).⁹⁵⁷

(Author’s note on Shaikh Darwīsh.) He had been with me in the guerilla-times, was Master-armourer (qūr-begī), drew a strong bow and shot a good shaft.

As most of the Turkmān Hazāras seemed to be wintering inside the Dara-i-khūsh, we marched against them.

The valley is shut in,⁹⁵⁸ by a mile-long gully stretching inwards from its mouth. The road engirdles the mountain, having a straight fall of some 50 to 60 yards below it and above it a precipice. Horsemen go along it in single-file. We passed the gully and went on through the day till between the Two Prayers (3 p.m.) without meeting a single person. Having spent the night somewhere, we found a fat camel⁹⁵⁹ belonging to the Hazāras, had it killed, made part of its flesh into kabābs⁹⁶⁰ and cooked part in a ewer (aftāb). Such good camel-flesh had never been tasted; some could not tell it from mutton.

Next day we marched on for the Hazāra winter-camp. At the first watch (9 a.m.) a man came from ahead, saying that the Hazāras had blocked a ford in front with branches, checked our men and were fighting. That winter the snow lay very deep; to move was difficult except on the road. The swampy meadows (tuk-āb) along the stream were all frozen; the stream could only be crossed from the road because of snow and ice. The Hazāras had cut many branches, put them at the exit from the water and were fighting in the valley-bottom with horse and foot or raining arrows down from either side.

Muḥammad ‘Alī Mubashshir⁹⁶¹ Beg, one of our most daring braves, newly promoted to the rank of beg and well worthy of favour, went along the branch-blocked road without his mail, was shot in the belly and instantly surrendered his life. As we had gone forward in haste, most of us were not in mail. Shaft after shaft flew by and fell; with each one Yūsuf’s Aḥmad said anxiously, “Bare⁹⁶² like this you go into it! I have seen two arrows go close to your head!” Said I, “Don’t fear! Many as good arrows as these have flown past my head!” So much said, Qāsim Beg, his men in full accoutrement,⁹⁶³ found a ford on our right and crossed. Before their charge the Hazāras could make no stand; they fled, swiftly pursued and unhorsed one after the other by those just up with them.

In guerdon for this feat Bangash was given to Qāsim Beg. Ḥātim the armourer having been not bad in the affair, was promoted to Shaikh Darwīsh’s office of qūr-begī. Bābā Qulī’s Kīpik (sic) also went well forward in it, so we entrusted Muḥ. ‘Alī Mubashshir’s office to him.

Sl. Qulī Chūnāq (one-eared) started in pursuit of the Hazāras but there was no getting out of the hollow because of the snow. For my own part I just went with these braves.

Near the Hazāra winter-camp we found many sheep and herds of horses. I myself collected as many as 4 to 500 sheep and from 20 to 25 horses. Sl. Qulī Chūnāq and two or three of my personal servants were with me. I have ridden in a raid twice⁹⁶⁴; this was the first time; the other was when, coming in from Khurāsān (912 AH.), we raided these same Turkmān Hazāras. Our foragers brought in masses of sheep and horses. The Hazāra wives and their little children had gone off up the snowy slopes and stayed there; we were rather idle and it was getting late in the day; so we turned back and dismounted in their very dwellings. Deep indeed was the snow that winter! Off the road it was up to a horse’s qāptāl,⁹⁶⁵ so deep that the night-watch was in the saddle all through till shoot of dawn.

Going out of the valley, we spent the next night just inside the mouth, in the Hazāra winter-quarters. Marching from there, we dismounted at Janglīk. At Janglīk Yārak T̤aghāī and other late-comers were ordered to take the Hazāras who had killed Shaikh Darwīsh and who, luckless and death-doomed, seemed still to be in the cave. Yārak T̤aghāī and his band by sending smoke into the cave, took 70 to 80 Hazāras who mostly died by the sword.

(g. Collection of the Nijr-aū tribute.)

On the way back from the Hazāra expedition we went to the Āī-tūghdī neighbourhood below Bārān⁹⁶⁶ in order to collect the revenue of Nijr-aū. Jahāngīr Mīrzā, come up from Ghaznī, waited on me there. At that time, on Ramẓān 13th (Feb. 7th) such sciatic-pain attacked me that for 40 days some-one had to turn me over from one side to the other.

Of the (seven) valleys of the Nijr-water the Pīchkān-valley, – and of the villages in the Pīchkān-valley Ghain, – and of Ghain its head-man Ḥusain Ghainī in particular, together with his elder and younger brethren, were known and notorious for obstinacy and daring. On this account a force was sent under Jahāngīr Mīrzā, Qāsim Beg going too, which went to Sar-i-tūp (Hill-top), stormed and took a sangur and made a few meet their doom.

Because of the sciatic pain, people made a sort of litter for me in which they carried me along the bank of the Bārān and into the town to the Būstān-sarāī. There I stayed for a few days; before that trouble was over a boil came out on my left cheek; this was lanced and for it I also took a purge. When relieved, I went out into the Chār-bāgh.

(h. Misconduct of Jahāngīr Mīrzā.)

At the time Jahāngīr Mīrzā waited on me, Ayūb’s sons Yūsuf and Buhlūl, who were in his service, had taken up a strifeful and seditious attitude towards me; so the Mīrzā was not found to be what he had been earlier. In a few days he marched out of Tīpa in his mail,⁹⁶⁷ hurried back to Ghaznī, there took Nānī, killed some of its people and plundered all. After that he marched off with whatever men he had, through the Hazāras,⁹⁶⁸ his face set for Bāmīān. God knows that nothing had been done by me or my dependants to give him ground for anger or reproach! What was heard of later on as perhaps explaining his going off in the way he did, was this; – When Qāsim Beg went with other begs, to give him honouring meeting as he came up from Ghaznī, the Mīrzā threw a falcon off at a quail. Just as the falcon, getting close, put out its pounce to seize the quail, the quail dropped to the ground. Hereupon shouts and cries, “Taken! is it taken?” Said Qāsim Beg, “Who looses the foe in his grip?” Their misunderstanding of this was their sole reason for going off, but they backed themselves on one or two other worse and weaker old cronish matters.⁹⁶⁹ After doing in Ghaznī what has been mentioned, they drew off through the Hazāras to the Mughūl clans.⁹⁷⁰ These clans at that time had left Nāṣir Mīrzā but had not joined the Aūzbeg, and were in Yāī, Astar-āb and the summer-pastures thereabouts.

(i. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā calls up help against Shaibāq Khān.)

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, having resolved to repel Shaibāq Khān, summoned all his sons; me too he summoned, sending to me Sayyid Afẓal, son of Sayyid ‘Alī Khwāb-bīn (Seer-of-dreams). It was right on several grounds for us to start for Khurāsān. One ground was that when a great ruler, sitting, as Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā sat, in Tīmūr Beg’s place, had resolved to act against such a foe as Shaibāq Khān and had called up many men and had summoned his sons and his begs, if there were some who went on foot it was for us to go if on our heads! if some took the bludgeon, we would take the stone! A second ground was that, since Jahāngīr Mīrzā had gone to such lengths and had behaved so badly,⁹⁷¹ we had either to dispel his resentment or to repel his attack.

(j. Chīn Ṣūfī’s death.)

This year Shaibāq Khān took Khwārizm after besieging Chīn Sūfī in it for ten months. There had been a mass of fighting during the siege; many were the bold deeds done by the Khwārizmī braves; nothing soever did they leave undone. Again and again their shooting was such that their arrows pierced shield and cuirass, sometimes the two cuirasses.⁹⁷² For ten months they sustained that siege without hope in any quarter. A few bare braves then lost heart, entered into talk with the Aūzbeg and were in the act of letting him up into the fort when Chīn Ṣūfī had the news and went to the spot. Just as he was beating and forcing down the Aūzbegs, his own page, in a discharge of arrows, shot him from behind. No man was left to fight; the Aūzbegs took Khwārizm. God’s mercy on Chīn Ṣūfī, who never for one moment ceased to stake his life for his chief!⁹⁷³

Shaibāq Khān entrusted Khwārizm to Kūpuk (sic) Bī and went back to Samarkand.

(k. Death of Sultān Ḥusain Mīrzā.)

Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā having led his army out against Shaibāq Khān as far as Bābā Ilāhī⁹⁷⁴ went to God’s mercy, in the month of Ẕū’l-ḥijja (Ẕū’l-ḥijja 11th 911 AH. – May 5th 1506 AD.).

SULT̤ĀN ḤUSAIN MĪRZĀ AND HIS COURT.⁹⁷⁵

(a.) His birth and descent.

He was born in Herī (Harāt), in (Muḥarram) 842 (AH. – June-July, 1438 AD.) in Shāhrukh Mīrzā’s time⁹⁷⁶ and was the son of Manṣūr Mīrzā, son of Bāī-qarā Mīrzā, son of ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, son of Amīr Tīmūr. Manṣūr Mīrzā and Bāī-qarā Mīrzā never reigned.

His mother was Fīrūza Begīm, a (great-)grandchild (nabīra) of Tīmūr Beg; through her he became a grandchild of Mīrān-shāh also.⁹⁷⁷ He was of high birth on both sides, a ruler of royal lineage.⁹⁷⁸ Of the marriage (of Manṣūr with Fīrūza) were born two sons and two daughters, namely, Bāī-qarā Mīrzā and Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, Ākā Begīm and another daughter, Badka Begīm whom Aḥmad Khān took.⁹⁷⁹

Bāī-qarā Mīrzā was older than Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā; he was his younger brother’s retainer but used not to be present as head of the Court;⁹⁸⁰ except in Court, he used to share his brother’s divan (tūshak). He was given Balkh by his younger brother and was its Commandant for several years. He had three sons, Sl. Muḥammad Mīrzā, Sl. Wais Mīrzā and Sl. Iskandar Mīrzā.⁹⁸¹

Ākā Begīm was older than the Mīrzā; she was taken by Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā,⁹⁸² a grandson (nabīra) of Mīrān-shāh; by him she had a son (Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā), known as Kīchīk (Little) Mīrzā, who at first was in his maternal-uncle’s service, but later on gave up soldiering to occupy himself with letters. He is said to have become very learned and also to have taste in verse.⁹⁸³ Here is a Persian quatrain of his: —

 
For long on a life of devotion I plumed me,
As one of the band of the abstinent ranged me;
Where when Love came was devotion? denial?
By the mercy of God it is I have proved me!
 

This quatrain recalls one by the Mullā.⁹⁸⁴ Kīchīk Mīrzā made the circuit of the ka‘ba towards the end of his life.

Badka (Badī‘u’l-jamāl) Begīm also was older⁹⁸⁵ than the Mīrzā. She was given in the guerilla times to Aḥmad Khān of Ḥājī-tarkhān;⁹⁸⁶ by him she had two sons (Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Bahādur Sl.) who went to Herī and were in the Mīrzā’s service.

(b.) His appearance and habits.

He was slant-eyed (qīyik gūzlūq) and lion-bodied, being slender from the waist downwards. Even when old and white-bearded, he wore silken garments of fine red and green. He used to wear either the black lambskin cap (būrk) or the qālpāq,⁹⁸⁷ but on a Feast-day would sometimes set up a little three-fold turban, wound broad and badly,⁹⁸⁸ stick a heron’s plume in it and so go to Prayers.

When he first took Herī, he thought of reciting the names of the Twelve Imāms in the khut̤ba,⁹⁸⁹ but ‘Alī-sher Beg and others prevented it; thereafter all his important acts were done in accordance with orthodox law. He could not perform the Prayers on account of a trouble in the joints,⁹⁹⁰ and he kept no fasts. He was lively and pleasant, rather immoderate in temper, and with words that matched his temper. He shewed great respect for the law in several weighty matters; he once surrendered to the Avengers of blood a son of his own who had killed a man, and had him taken to the Judgment-gate (Dāru’l-qaẓā). He was abstinent for six or seven years after he took the throne; later on he degraded himself to drink. During the almost 40 years of his rule⁹⁹¹ in Khurāsān, there may not have been one single day on which he did not drink after the Mid-day prayer; earlier than that however he did not drink. What happened with his sons, the soldiers and the town was that every-one pursued vice and pleasure to excess. Bold and daring he was! Time and again he got to work with his own sword, getting his own hand in wherever he arrayed to fight; no man of Tīmūr Beg’s line has been known to match him in the slashing of swords. He had a leaning to poetry and even put a dīwān

together, writing in Turkī with Ḥusainī for his pen-name.⁹⁹²

Many couplets in his dīwān are not bad; it is however in one and the same metre throughout. Great ruler though he was, both by the length of his reign (yāsh) and the breadth of his dominions, he yet, like little people kept fighting-rams, flew pigeons and fought cocks.

(c.) His wars and encounters.⁹⁹³

He swam the Gurgān-water⁹⁹⁴ in his guerilla days and gave a party of Aūzbegs a good beating.

Again, – with 60 men he fell on 3000 under Pay-master Muḥammad ‘Alī, sent ahead by Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, and gave them a downright good beating (868 AH.). This was his one fine, out-standing feat-of-arms.⁹⁹⁵

Again, – he fought and beat Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā near Astarābād (865 AH.).⁹⁹⁶

Again, – this also in Astarābād, he fought and beat Sa‘īdlīq Sa‘īd, son of Ḥusain Turkmān (873 AH.?).

Again, – after taking the throne (of Herī in Ramẓān 873 AH. – March 1469 AD.), he fought and beat Yādgār-i-muḥammad Mīrzā at Chanārān (874 AH.).⁹⁹⁷

Again, – coming swiftly⁹⁹⁸ from the Murgh-āb bridge-head (Sar-i-pul), he fell suddenly on Yādgār-i-muḥammad Mīrzā where he lay drunk in the Ravens'-garden (875 AH.), a victory which kept all Khurāsān quiet.

Again, – he fought and beat Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā at Chīkmān-sarāī in the neighbourhood of Andikhūd and Shibrghān (876 AH.).⁹⁹⁹

Again, – he fell suddenly on Abā-bikr Mīrzā¹⁰⁰⁰ after that Mīrzā, joined by the Black-sheep Turkmāns, had come out of ‘Irāq, beaten Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā (Kābulī) in Takāna and Khimār (var. Ḥimār), taken Kābul, left it because of turmoil in ‘Irāq, crossed Khaibar, gone on to Khūsh-āb and Multān, on again to Sīwī,¹⁰⁰¹ thence to Karmān and, unable to stay there, had entered the Khurāsān country (884 AH.).¹⁰⁰²

Again, – he defeated his son Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā at Pul-i-chirāgh (902 AH.); he also defeated his sons Abū’l-muḥsin Mīrzā and Kūpuk (Round-shouldered) Mīrzā at Ḥalwā-spring (904 AH.).¹⁰⁰³

Again, – he went to Qūndūz, laid siege to it, could not take it, and retired; he laid siege to Ḥiṣār, could not take that either, and rose from before it (901 AH.); he went into Ẕū’n-nūn’s country, was given Bast by its dārogha, did no more and retired (903 AH.).¹⁰⁰⁴ A ruler so great and so brave, after resolving royally on these three movements, just retired with nothing done!

Again, – he fought his son Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā in the Nīshīn-meadow, who had come there with Ẕū’n-nūn’s son, Shāh Beg (903 AH.). In that affair were these curious coincidences: – The Mīrzā’s force will have been small, most of his men being in Astarābād; on the very day of the fight, one force rejoined him coming back from Astarābād, and Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā arrived to join Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā after letting Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā take Ḥiṣār, and Ḥaidar Mīrzā came back from reconnoitring Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā at Sabzawār.

(d.) His countries.

His country was Khurāsān, with Balkh to the east, Bistām and Damghān to the west, Khwārizm to the north, Qandahār and Sīstān to the south. When he once had in his hands such a town as Herī, his only affair, by day and by night, was with comfort and pleasure; nor was there a man of his either who did not take his ease. It followed of course that, as he no longer tolerated the hardships and fatigue of conquest and soldiering, his retainers and his territories dwindled instead of increasing right down to the time of his departure.¹⁰⁰⁵

(e.) His children.

Fourteen sons and eleven daughters were born to him.¹⁰⁰⁶ The oldest of all his children was Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā; (Bega Begīm) a daughter of Sl. Sanjar of Marv, was his mother.

Shāh-i-gharīb Mīrzā was another; he had a stoop (būkūrī); though ill to the eye, he was of good character; though weak of body, he was powerful of pen. He even put a dīwān together, using Gharbatī (Lowliness) for his pen-name and writing both Turkī and Persian verse. Here is a couplet of his: —