Kitabı oku: «The Bābur-nāma», sayfa 23
914 AH. – MAY 2nd 1508 to APRIL 21st 1509 AD.1315
This spring a body of Mahmand Afghāns was over-run near Muqur.1316
(a. A Mughūl rebellion.)
A few days after our return from that raid, Qūj Beg, Faqīr-i-‘alī, Karīm-dād and Bābā chuhra were thinking about deserting, but their design becoming known, people were sent who took them below Astarghach. As good-for-nothing words of theirs had been reported to me, even during Jahāngīr M.’s life-time,1317 I ordered that they should be put to death at the top of the bāzār. They had been taken to the place; the ropes had been fixed; and they were about to be hanged when Qāsim Beg sent Khalīfa to me with an urgent entreaty that I would pardon their offences. To please him I gave them their lives, but I ordered them kept in custody.
What there was of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers from Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz, together with the head-men of the Mughūls, Chilma, ‘Alī Sayyid,1318 Sakma (?), Sher-qulī and Aīkū-sālam (?), and also Khusrau Shāh’s favourite Chaghatāī retainers under Sl. ‘Alī chuhra and Khudabakhsh, with also 2 or 3000 serviceable Turkmān braves led by Sīūndūk and Shāh Naz̤ar,1319 the whole of these, after consultation, took up a bad position towards me. They were all seated in front of Khwāja Riwāj, from the Sūng-qūrghān meadow to the Chālāk; ‘Abdu’r-razzāq Mīrzā, come in from Nīng-nahār, being in Dih-i-afghān.1320
Earlier on Muḥibb-i-‘alī the armourer had told Khalīfa and Mullā Bābā once or twice of their assemblies, and both had given me a hint, but the thing seeming incredible, it had had no attention. One night, towards the Bed-time Prayer, when I was sitting in the Audience-hall of the Chār-bāgh, Mūsa Khwāja, coming swiftly up with another man, said in my ear, “The Mughūls are really rebelling! We do not know for certain whether they have got ‘Abdu’r-razzāq M. to join them. They have not settled to rise to-night.” I feigned disregard and a little later went towards the ḥarams which at the time were in the Yūrūnchqa-garden1321 and the Bāgh-i-khilwat, but after page, servitor and messenger (yasāwal) had turned back on getting near them, I went with the chief-slave towards the town, and on along the ditch. I had gone as far as the Iron-gate when Khwāja Muḥ. ‘Alī1322 met me, he coming by the bāzār road from the opposite direction. He joined me … of the porch of the Hot-bath (ḥammām)…1323
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE ON 914 to 925 AH. – 1508 to 1519 AD
From several references made in the Bābur-nāma and from a passage in Gul-badan’s Humāyūn-nāma (f. 15), it is inferrible that Bābur was composing the annals of 914 AH. not long before his last illness and death.1324
Before the diary of 925 AH. (1519 AD.) takes up the broken thread of his autobiography, there is a lacuna of narrative extending over nearly eleven years. The break was not intended, several references in the Bābur-nāma shewing Bābur’s purpose to describe events of the unchronicled years.1325 Mr. Erskine, in the Leyden and Erskine Memoirs, carried Bābur’s biography through the major lacunæ, but without firsthand help from the best sources, the Habību’s-siyar and Tārīkh-i-rashīdī. He had not the help of the first even in his History of India. M. de Courteille working as a translator only, made no attempt to fill the gaps.
Bābur’s biography has yet to be completed; much time is demanded by the task, not only in order to exhaust known sources and seek others further afield, but to weigh and balance the contradictory statements of writers deep-sundered in sympathy and outlook. To strike such a balance is essential when dealing with the events of 914 to 920 AH. because in those years Bābur had part in an embittered conflict between Sunni and Shī‘a. What I offer below, as a stop-gap, is a mere summary of events, mainly based on material not used by Mr. Erskine, with a few comments prompted by acquaintance with Bāburiana.
USEFUL SOURCES
Compared with what Bābur could have told of this most interesting period of his life, the yield of the sources is scant, a natural sequel from the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity.
Of all known sources the best are Khwānd-amīr’s Ḥabību’s-siyar and Ḥaidar Mīrzā Dūghlāt’s Tārīkh-i-rashīdī. The first was finished nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Bābur’s death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Bābur after its author went to Hindūstān in 934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a life of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī is especially valuable for the years of this lacuna. Ḥaidar’s book was finished under Humāyūn in 953 AH. (1547 AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmīr. It is the most valuable of all the sources for those interested in Bābur himself, both because of Ḥaidar’s excellence as a biographer, and through his close acquaintance with Bābur’s family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he lived under Bābur’s protection, followed this by 19 years service under Sa‘īd Khān, the cousin of both, in Kāshghar, and after that Khān’s death, went to Bābur’s sons Kāmrān and Humāyūn in Hindūstān.
A work issuing from a Sunnī Aūzbeg centre, Faẓl bin Ruzbahān Isfahānī’s Sūlūku’l-mulūk, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Māwarā’u’n-nahr through Bābur’s invasions. The book itself is a Treatise on Musalmān Law, and was prepared by order of ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Khān Aūzbeg for his help in fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Bābur in 918 AH., at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad Yasawī [in Ḥaẓrat Turkistān], that, if he were victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it in Māwarā’u’n-nahr (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. ii, 448).
The Tārīkh-i Ḥājī Muḥammad ‘Ārif Qandahārī appears, from the frequent use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author was a native of Qandahār, a place much occupying Bābur’s activities, and because he was a servant of Bairām Khān-i-khānān, whose assassination under Akbar he witnessed.1326 Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar survives no copy is now known of the section of his General History which deals with Bābur’s.
An early source is Yahya Kazwīnī’s Lubbu’t-tawārīkh, written in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), but brief only in the Bābur period. It issued from a Shī‘a source, being commanded by Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī’s son Bahrām.
Another work issuing also from a Ṣafawī centre is Mīr Sikandar’s Tārīkh-i-‘ālam-arāī, a history of Shāh ‘Abbas I, with an introduction treating of his predecessors which was completed in 1025 AH. (1616 AD.). Its interest lies in its outlook on Bābur’s dealings with Shāh Ismā‘īl.
A later source, brief only, is Firishta’s Tārīkh-i-firishta, finished under Jahāngīr in the first quarter of the 17th century.
Mr. Erskine makes frequent reference to Kh(w)āfī Khān’s Tārīkh, a secondary authority however, written under Aurangzīb, mainly based on Firishta’s work, and merely summarizing Bābur’s period. References to detached incidents of the period are found in Shaikh ‘Abdu’l-qādir’s Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī and Mīr Ma‘ṣūm’s Tārīkh-i-sind.
EVENTS OF THE UNCHRONICLED YEARS
914 AH. – MAY 2nd 1508 to APRIL 21st 1509 AD
The mutiny, of which an account begins in the text, was crushed by the victory of 500 loyalists over 3,000 rebels, one factor of success being Bābur’s defeat in single combat of five champions of his adversaries.1327 The disturbance was not of long duration; Kābul was tranquil in Sha‘bān (November) when Sl. Sa‘īd Khān Chaghatāī, then 21, arrived there seeking his cousin’s protection, after defeat by his brother Manṣūr at Almātū, escape from death, commanded by Shaibānī, in Farghāna, a winter journey through Qarā-tīgīn to Mīrzā Khān in Qilā'-i-z̤afar, refusal of an offer to put him in that feeble Mīrzā’s place, and so on to Kābul, where he came a destitute fugitive and enjoyed a freedom from care never known by him before (f. 200b; T.R. p. 226). The year was fatal to his family and to Ḥaidar’s; in it Shaibānī murdered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and his six sons, Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā and other Dūghlāt sult̤āns.
915 AH. – APRIL 21st 1509 to APRIL 11th 1510 AD
In this year hostilities began between Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī and Muḥ. Shaibānī Khān Aūzbeg, news of which must have excited keen interest in Kābul.
In it occurred also what was in itself a minor matter of a child’s safety, but became of historical importance, namely, the beginning of personal acquaintance between Bābur and his sympathetic biographer Ḥaidar Mīrzā Dūghlāt. Ḥaidar, like Sa‘īd, came a fugitive to the protection of a kinsman; he was then eleven, had been saved by servants from the death commanded by Shaibānī, conveyed to Mīrzā Khān in Badakhshān, thence sent for by Bābur to the greater security of Kābul (f. 11; Index s. n.; T.R. p. 227).
916 AH. – APRIL 11th 1510 to MARCH 31st 1510 AD
a. News of the battle of Merv.
Over half of this year passed quietly in Kābul; Ramẓān (December) brought from Mīrzā Khān (Wāis) the stirring news that Ismā‘īl had defeated Shaibānī near Merv.1328 “It is not known,” wrote the Mīrzā, “whether Shāhī Beg Khān has been killed or not. All the Aūzbegs have crossed the Amū. Amīr Aūrūs, who was in Qūndūz, has fled. About 20,000 Mughūls, who left the Aūzbeg at Merv, have come to Qūndūz. I have come there.” He then invited Bābur to join him and with him to try for the recovery of their ancestral territories (T.R. p. 237).
b. Bābur’s campaign in Transoxiana begun.
The Mīrzā’s letter was brought over passes blocked by snow; Bābur, with all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Āb-dara, kept the Ramẓān Feast in Bāmīān, and reached Qūndūz in Shawwāl (Jan. 1511 AD.). Ḥaidar’s detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded because he had read Bābur’s own remark, made in Ramẓān 933 AH. (June 1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sīkrī, he had not since his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330).
c. Mughūl affairs.
Outside Qūndūz lay the Mughūls mentioned by Mīrzā Khān as come from Merv and so mentioned, presumably, as a possible reinforcement. They had been servants of Bābur’s uncles Maḥmūd and Aḥmad, and when Shaibānī defeated those Khāns at Akhsī in 908 AH., had been compelled by him to migrate into Khurāsān to places remote from Mughūlistān. Many of them had served in Kāshghar; none had served a Tīmūrid Mīrzā. Set free by Shaibānī’s death, they had come east, a Khān-less 20,000 of armed and fully equipped men and they were there, as Ḥaidar says, in their strength while of Chaghatāīs there were not more than 5,000. They now, and with them the Mughūls from Kābul, used the opportunity offering for return to a more congenial location and leadership, by the presence in Qūndūz of a legitimate Khāqān and the clearance in Andijān, a threshold of Mughūlistān, of its Aūzbeg governors (f. 200b). The chiefs of both bodies of Mughūls, Sherīm Taghāī at the head of one, Ayūb Begchīk of the other, proffered the Mughūl Khānship to Sa‘īd with offer to set Bābur aside, perhaps to kill him. It is improbable that in making their offer they contemplated locating themselves in the confined country of Kābul; what they seem to have wished was what Bābur gave, Sa‘īd for their Khāqān and permission to go north with him.
Sa‘īd, in words worth reading, rejected their offer to injure Bābur, doing so on the grounds of right and gratitude, but, the two men agreeing that it was now expedient for them to part, asked to be sent to act for Bābur where their friendship could be maintained for their common welfare. The matter was settled by Bābur’s sending him into Andijān in response to an urgent petition for help there just arrived from Ḥaidar’s uncle. He “was made Khān” and started forth in the following year, on Ṣafar 14th 917 AH. (May 13th 1511 AD.); with him went most of the Mughūls but not all, since even of those from Merv, Ayūb Begchīk and others are found mentioned on several later occasions as being with Bābur.
Bābur’s phrase “I made him Khān” (f. 200b) recalls his earlier mention of what seems to be the same appointment (f. 10b), made by Abū-sa‘īd of Yūnas as Khān of the Mughūls; in each case the meaning seems to be that the Tīmūrid Mīrzā made the Chaghatāī Khān Khāqān of the Mughūls.
d. First attempt on Ḥiṣār.
After spending a short time in Qūndūz, Bābur moved for Ḥiṣār in which were the Aūzbeg sult̤āns Mahdī and Ḥamza. They came out into Wakhsh to meet him but, owing to an imbroglio, there was no encounter and each side retired (T.R. p. 238).
e. Intercourse between Bābur and Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī.
While Bābur was now in Qūndūz his sister Khān-zāda arrived there, safe-returned under escort of the Shāh’s troops, after the death in the battle of Merv of her successive husbands Shaibānī and Sayyid Hādī, and with her came an envoy from Ismā‘īl proffering friendship, civilities calculated to arouse a hope of Persian help in Bābur. To acknowledge his courtesies, Bābur sent Mīrzā Khān with thanks and gifts; Ḥaidar says that the Mīrzā also conveyed protestations of good faith and a request for military assistance. He was well received and his request for help was granted; that it was granted under hard conditions then stated later occurrences shew.
917 AH. – MARCH 31st 1511 to MARCH 19th 1512 AD
a. Second attempt on Ḥiṣār.
In this year Bābur moved again on Ḥiṣār. He took post, where once his forbear Tīmūr had wrought out success against great odds, at the Pul-i-sangīn (Stone-bridge) on the Sūrkh-āb, and lay there a month awaiting reinforcement. The Aūzbeg sult̤āns faced him on the other side of the river, they too, presumably, awaiting reinforcement. They moved when they felt themselves strong enough to attack, whether by addition to their own numbers, whether by learning that Bābur had not largely increased his own. Concerning the second alternative it is open to surmise that he hoped for larger reinforcement than he obtained; he appears to have left Qūndūz before the return of Mīrzā Khān from his embassy to Ismā‘īl, to have expected Persian reinforcement with the Mīrzā, and at Pul-i-sangīn, where the Mīrzā joined him in time to fight, to have been strengthened by the Mīrzā’s own following, and few, if any, foreign auxiliaries. These surmises are supported by what Khwānd-amīr relates of the conditions [specified later] on which the Shāh’s main contingent was despatched and by his shewing that it did not start until after the Shāh had had news of the battle at Pul-i-sangīn.
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).
