Kitabı oku: «The Bābur-nāma», sayfa 42

936 AH. – SEP. 5th 1529 to AUGUST 25th 1530 AD

(a. Raḥīm-dād’s affairs.)

(Sep. 7th) On Wednesday the 3rd of Muḥarram, Shaikh Muḥammad Ghaus̤²⁶⁸⁴ came in from Gūālīār with Khusrau’s (son) Shihābu’d-dīn to plead for Raḥīm-dād. As Shaikh Muḥammad Ghaūṣ was a pious and excellent person, Raḥīm-dād’s faults were forgiven for his sake. Shaikh Gūran and Nūr Beg were sent off for Gūālīār, so that the place having been made over to their charge…²⁶⁸⁵

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE ON 936 to 937 AH. -1529 to 1530 AD

It is difficult to find material for filling the lacuna of some 15 months, which occurs in Bābur’s diary after the broken passage of Muḥarram 3rd 936 AH. (Sept. 7th 1529 AD.) and down to the date of his death on Jumāda 1. 6th 937 AH. (Dec. 26th 153O AD.). The known original sources are few, their historical matter scant, their contents mainly biographical. Gleanings may yet be made, however, in unexpected places, such gleanings as are provided by Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s interpolation of Tīmūrid history amongst his lives of Afghān Sult̤āns.

The earliest original source which helps to fill the gap of 936 AH. is Ḥaidar Mīrzā’s Tārīkh-i-rashīdī, finished as to its Second Part which contains Bābur’s biography, in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), 12 years therefore after the year of the gap 936 AH. It gives valuable information about the affairs of Badakhshān, based on its author’s personal experience at 30 years of age, and was Abū’l-faẓl’s authority for the Akbar-nāma.

The next in date of the original sources is Gul-badan Begīm’s Humāyūn-nāma, a chronicle of family affairs, which she wrote in obedience to her nephew Akbar’s command, given in about 995 AH. (1587 AD.), some 57 years after her Father’s death, that whatever any person knew of his father (Humāyūn) and grandfather (Bābur) should be written down for Abū’l-faẓl’s use. It embodies family memories and traditions, and presumably gives the recollections of several ladies of the royal circle.²⁶⁸⁶

The Akbar-nāma derives much of its narrative for 936-937 AH. from Ḥaidar Mīrzā and Gul-badan Begīm, but its accounts of Bābur’s self-surrender and of his dying address to his chiefs presuppose the help of information from a contemporary witness. It is noticeable that the Akbar-nāma records no public events as occurring in Hindūstān during 936-937 AH., nothing of the sequel of rebellion by Raḥīm-dād²⁶⁸⁷ and ‘Abdu’l-‘azīz, nothing of the untiring Bīban and Bāyazīd. That something could have been told is shown by what Aḥmad-i-yādgār has preserved (vide post); but 50 years had passed since Bābur’s death and, manifestly, interest in filling the lacunæ in his diary was then less keen than it is over 300 years later. What in the Akbar-nāma concerns Bābur is likely to have been written somewhat early in the cir. 15 years of its author’s labours on it,²⁶⁸⁸ but, even so, the elder women of the royal circle had had rest after the miseries Humāyūn had wrought, the forgiveness of family affection would veil his past, and certainly has provided Abū’l-faẓl with an over-mellowed estimate of him, one ill-assorting with what is justified by his Bābur-nāma record.

The contribution made towards filling the gap of 936-937 AH. in the body of Niz̤āmu-’d-dīn Aḥmad’s T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī is limited to a curious and doubtfully acceptable anecdote about a plan for the supersession of Humāyūn as Pādshāh, and about the part played by Khwāja Muqīm Harāwī in its abandonment. A further contribution is made, however, in Book VII which contains the history of the Muḥammadan Kings of Kashmīr, namely, that Bābur despatched an expedition into that country. As no such expedition is recorded or referred to in surviving Bābur-nāma writings, it is likely to have been sent in 936 AH. during Bābur’s tour to and from Lāhor. If it were made with the aim of extending Tīmūrid authority in the Himālayan borderlands, a hint of similar policy elsewhere may be given by the ceremonious visit of the Rāja of Kahlūr to Bābur, mentioned by Aḥmad-i-yādgār (vide post).²⁶⁸⁹ The T̤. – i-A. was written within the term of Abū’l-faẓl’s work on the Akbar-nāma, being begun later, and ended about 9 years earlier, in 1002 AH. -1593 AD. It appears to have been Abū'-l-faẓl’s authority for his account of the campaign carried on in Kashmīr by Bābur’s chiefs (Āyīn-i-akbarī vol. ii, part i, Jarrett’s trs. p. 389).

An important contribution, seeming to be authentic, is found interpolated in Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s Tārīkh-i-salāt̤īn-i-afāghana, one which outlines a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor in 936 AH. and gives circumstantial details of a punitive expedition sent by him from Sihrind at the complaint of the Qāẓī of Samāna against a certain Mundāhir Rājpūt. The whole contribution dovetails into matters found elsewhere. Its precision of detail bespeaks a closely-contemporary written source.²⁶⁹⁰ As its fullest passage concerns the Samāna Qāẓī’s affair, its basis of record may have been found in Samāna. Some considerations about the date of Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s own book and what Niamatu’l-lāh says of Haibat Khān of Samāna, his own generous helper in the Tārīkhi-Khan-i-jahān Lūdī, point towards Haibat Khān as providing the details of the Qāẓī’s wrongs and avenging. The indication is strengthened by the circumstance that what precedes and what follows the account of the punitive expedition is outlined only.²⁶⁹¹ Aḥmad-i-yādgār interpolates an account of Humāyūn also, which is a frank plagiarism from the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī. He tells too a story purporting to explain why Bābur “selected” Humāyūn to succeed him, one parallel with Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s about what led Khalīfa to abandon his plan of setting the Mīrzā aside. Its sole value lies in its testimony to a belief, held by its first narrator whoever he was, that choice was exercised in the matter by Bābur. Reasons for thinking Niz̤āmu’d-dīn’s story, as it stands, highly improbable, will be found later in this note.

Muḥammad Qāsim Hindū Shāh Firishta’s Tārīkh-i-firishta contains an interesting account of Bābur but contributes towards filling the gap in the events of 936-937 AH. little that is not in the earlier sources. In M. Jules Mohl’s opinion it was under revision as late as 1623 AD. (1032-3 AH.).

(a. Humāyūn and Badakhshān.)

An occurrence which had important results, was the arrival of Humāyūn in Āgra, unsummoned by his Father, from the outpost station of Badakhshān. It will have occurred early in 936 AH. (autumn 1529 AD.), because he was in Kābul in the first ten days of the last month of 935 AH. (vide post). Curiously enough his half-sister Gul-badan does not mention his coming, whether through avoidance of the topic or from inadvertence; the omission may be due however to the loss of a folio from the only known MS. of her book (that now owned by the British Museum), and this is the more likely that Abū’l-faẓl writes, at some length, about the arrival and its motive, what the Begīm might have provided, this especially by his attribution of filial affection as Humāyūn’s reason for coming to Āgra.

Ḥaidar Mīrzā is the authority for the Akbar-nāma account of Humāyūn’s departure from Qila‘-i-z̤afar and its political and military sequel. He explains the departure by saying that when Bābur had subdued Hindūstān, his sons Humāyūn and Kāmrān were grown-up; and that wishing to have one of them at hand in case of his own death, he summoned Humāyūn, leaving Kāmrān in Qandahār. No doubt these were the contemporary impressions conveyed to Ḥaidar, and strengthened by the accomplished fact before he wrote some 12 years later; nevertheless there are two clear indications that there was no royal order for Humāyūn to leave Qila‘-i-z̤afar, viz. that no-one had been appointed to relieve him even when he reached Āgra, and that Abū’l-faẓl mentions no summons but attributes the Mīrzā’s departure from his post to an overwhelming desire to see his Father. What appears probable is that Māhīm wrote to her son urging his coming to Āgra, and that this was represented as Bābur’s wish. However little weight may be due to the rumour, preserved in anecdotes recorded long after 935 AH., that any-one, Bābur or Khalīfa, inclined against Humāyūn’s succession, that rumour she would set herself to falsify by reconciliation.²⁶⁹²

When the Mīrzā’s intention to leave Qila‘-i-z̤afar became known there, the chiefs represented that they should not be able to withstand the Aūzbeg on their frontier without him (his troops implied).²⁶⁹³ With this he agreed, said that still he must go, and that he would send a Mīrzā in his place as soon as possible. He then rode, in one day, to Kābul, an item of rapid travel preserved by Abū’l-faẓl.

Humāyūn’s departure caused such anxiety in Qila‘-i-z̤afar that some (if not all) of the Badakhshī chiefs hurried off an invitation to Sa‘īd Khān Chaghatāī, the then ruler in Kāshghar in whose service Ḥaidar Mīrzā was, to come at once and occupy the fort. They said that Faqīr-i-‘alī who had been left in charge, was not strong enough to cope with the Aūzbeg, begged Sa‘īd to come, and strengthened their petition by reminding him of his hereditary right to Badakhshān, derived from Shāh Begīm Badakhshī. Their urgency convincing the Khān that risk threatened the country, he started from Kāshghar in Muḥarram 936 AH. (Sept-Oct. 1529 AD.). On reaching Sārīgh-chūpān which by the annexation of Abā-bakr Mīrzā Dūghlāt was now his own most western territory²⁶⁹⁴ but which formerly was one of the upper districts of Badakhshān, he waited while Ḥaidar went on towards Qila‘-i-z̤afar only to learn on his road, that Hind-āl (æt. 10) had been sent from Kābul by Humāyūn and had entered the fort 12 days before.

The Kāshgharīs were thus placed in the difficulty that the fort was occupied by Bābur’s representative, and that the snows would prevent their return home across the mountains till winter was past. Winter-quarters were needed and asked for by Ḥaidar, certain districts being specified in which to await the re-opening of the Pāmīr routes. He failed in his request, “They did not trust us,” he writes, “indeed suspected us of deceit.” His own account of Sa‘īd’s earlier invasion of Badakhshān (925 AH. -1519 AD.) during Khān Mīrzā’s rule, serves to explain Badakhshī distrust of Kāshgharīs. Failing in his negotiations, he scoured and pillaged the country round the fort, and when a few days later the Khān arrived, his men took what Ḥaidar’s had left.

Sa‘īd Khān is recorded to have besieged the fort for three months, but nothing serious seems to have been attempted since no mention of fighting is made, none of assault or sally, and towards the end of the winter he was waited on by those who had invited his presence, with apology for not having admitted him into the fort, which they said they would have done but for the arrival of Hind-āl Mīrzā. To this the Khān replied that for him to oppose Bābur Pādshāh was impossible; he reminded the chiefs that he was there by request, that it would be as hurtful for the Pādshāh as for himself to have the Aūzbeg in Badakhshān and, finally, he gave it as his opinion that, as matters stood, every man should go home. His view of the general duty may include that of Badakhshī auxiliaries such as Sult̤ān Wais of Kūl-āb who had reinforced the garrison. So saying, he himself set out for Kāshghar, and at the beginning of Spring reached Yārkand.

b. Humāyūn’s further action.

Humāyūn will have reached Kābul before Ẕū’l-ḥijja 10th 935 AH. (Aug. 26th 1529 AD.) because it is on record that he met Kāmrān on the Kābul ‘Īd-gāh, and both will have been there to keep the ‘Īdu’l-kabīr, the Great Festival of Gifts, which is held on that day. Kāmrān had come from Qandahār, whether to keep the Feast, or because he had heard of Humāyūn’s intended movement from Badakhshān, or because changes were foreseen and he coveted Kābul, as the Bābur-nāma and later records allow to be inferred. He asked Humāyūn, says Abū’l-faẓl, why he was there and was told of his brother’s impending journey to Āgra under overwhelming desire to see their Father.²⁶⁹⁵ Presumably the two Mīrzās discussed the position in which Badakhshān had been left; in the end Hind-āl was sent to Qila‘-i-z̤afar, notwithstanding that he was under orders for Hindūstān.

Humāyūn may have stayed some weeks in Kābul, how many those familiar with the seasons and the routes between Yārkand and Qila‘-i-z̤afar, might be able to surmise if the date of Hind-āl’s start northward for which Humāyūn is likely to have waited, were found by dovetailing the Muḥarram of Sa‘īd’s start, the approximate length of his journey to Sārīgh-chūpān, and Ḥaidar’s reception of news that Hind-āl had been 12 days in the fort.

Humāyūn’s arrival in Āgra is said by Abū’l-faẓl to have been cheering to the royal family in their sadness for the death of Alwar (end of 935 AH.) and to have given pleasure to his Father. But the time is all too near the date of Bābur’s letter (f.348) to Humāyūn, that of a dissatisfied parent, to allow the supposition that his desertion of his post would fail to displease.

That it was a desertion and not an act of obedience seems clear from the circumstance that the post had yet to be filled. Khalīfa is said to have been asked to take it and to have refused;²⁶⁹⁶ Humāyūn to have been sounded as to return and to have expressed unwillingness. Bābur then did what was an honourable sequel to his acceptance in 926 AH. of the charge of the fatherless child Sulaimān, by sending him, now about 16, to take charge where his father Khān Mīrzā had ruled, and by still keeping him under his own protection.

Sulaimān’s start from Āgra will not have been delayed, and (accepting Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s record,) Bābur himself will have gone as far as Lāhor either with him or shortly after him, an expedition supporting Sulaimān, and menacing Sa‘īd in his winter leaguer round Qila‘-i-z̤afar. Meantime Humāyūn was ordered to his fief of Saṃbhal.

After Sulaimān’s appointment Bābur wrote to Sa‘īd a letter of which Ḥaidar gives the gist: – It expresses surprise at Sa‘īd’s doings in Badakhshān, says that Hind-āl has been recalled and Sulaimān sent, that if Sa‘īd regard hereditary right, he will leave “Sulaimān Shāh Mīrzā”²⁶⁹⁷ in possession, who is as a son to them both,²⁶⁹⁸ that this would be well, that otherwise he (Bābur) will make over responsibility to the heir (Sulaimān);²⁶⁹⁹ and, “The rest you know.”²⁷⁰⁰

c. Bābur visits Lāhor.

If Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s account of a journey made by Bābur to Lāhor and the Panj-āb be accepted, the lacuna of 936 AH. is appropriately filled. He places the expedition in the 3rd year of Bābur’s rule in Hindūstān, which, counting from the first reading of the khut̤ba for Bābur in Dihlī (f. 286), began on Rajab 15th 935 AH. (March 26th 1529 AD.). But as Bābur’s diary-record for 935 AH. is complete down to end of the year, (minor lacunæ excepted), the time of his leaving Āgra for Lāhor is relegated to 936 AH. He must have left early in the year, (1) to allow time, before the occurrence of the known events preceding his own death, for the long expedition Aḥmad-i-yādgār calls one of a year, and (2) because an early start after Humāyūn’s arrival and Sulaimān’s departure would suit the position of affairs and the dates mentioned or implied by Ḥaidar’s and by Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s narratives.

Two reasons of policy are discernible, in the known events of the time, to recommend a journey in force towards the North-west; first, the sedition of ‘Abdu’l-‘azīz in Lāhor (f. 381), and secondly, the invasion of Badakhshān by Sa‘īd Khān with its resulting need of supporting Sulaimān by a menace of armed intervention.²⁷⁰¹

In Sihrind the Rāja of Kahlūr, a place which may be one of the Simla hill-states, waited on Bābur, made offering of 7 falcons and 3 mans²⁷⁰² of gold, and was confirmed in his fief.²⁷⁰³

In Lāhor Kāmrān is said to have received his Father, in a garden of his own creation, and to have introduced the local chiefs as though he were the Governor of Lāhor some writers describe him as then being. The best sources, however, leave him still posted in Qandahār. He had been appointed to Multān (f. 359) when ‘Askarī was summoned to Āgra (f. 339), but whether he actually went there is not assured; some months later (Ẕū’l-ḥijja 10th 935 AH.) he is described by Abū’l-faẓl as coming to Kābul from Qandahār. He took both Multān²⁷⁰⁴ and Lāhor by force from his (half-)brother Humāyūn in 935 AH. (1531 AD.) the year after their Father’s death. That he should wait upon his Father in Lāhor would be natural, Hind-āl did so, coming from Kābul. Hind-āl will have come to Lāhor after making over charge of Qila‘-i-z̤afar to Sulaimān, and he went back at the end of the cold season, going perhaps just before his Father started from Lāhor on his return journey, the gifts he received before leaving being 2 elephants, 4 horses, belts and jewelled daggers.²⁷⁰⁵

Bābur is said to have left Lāhor on Rajab 4th (936 AH.) – (March 4th, 1530 AD.). From Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s outline of Bābur’s doings in Lāhor, he, or his original, must be taken as ill-informed or indifferent about them. His interest becomes greater when he writes of Samāna.

d. Punishment of the Mundāhirs.

When Bābur, on his return journey, reached Sihrind, he received a complaint from the Qāẓī of Samāna against one Mohan Mundāhir (or Mundhār)²⁷⁰⁶ Rājpūt who had attacked his estates, burning and plundering, and killed his son. Here-upon ‘Alī-qulī of Hamadān²⁷⁰⁷ was sent with 3000 horse to avenge the Qāzī’s wrongs, and reached Mohan’s village, in the Kaithal pargana, early in the morning when the cold was such that the archers “could not pull their bows.”²⁷⁰⁸ A marriage had been celebrated over-night; the villagers, issuing from warm houses, shot such flights of arrows that the royal troops could make no stand; many were killed and nothing was effected; they retired into the jungle, lit fires, warmed themselves(?), renewed the attack and were again repulsed. On hearing of their failure, Bābur sent off, perhaps again from Sihrind, Tarsam Bahādur and Naurang Beg with 6000 horse and many elephants. This force reached the village at night and when marriage festivities were in progress. Towards morning it was formed into three divisions,²⁷⁰⁹ one of which was ordered to go to the west of the village and show itself. This having been done, the villagers advanced towards it, in the pride of their recent success. The royal troops, as ordered beforehand, turned their backs and fled, the Mundāhirs pursuing them some two miles. Meantime Tarsam Bahādur had attacked and fired the village, killing many of its inhabitants. The pursuers on the west saw the flames of their burning homes, ran back and were intercepted on their way. About 1000 men, women and children were made prisoner; there was also great slaughter, and a pillar of heads was raised. Mohan was captured and later on was buried to the waist and shot to death with arrows.²⁷¹⁰ News of the affair was sent to the Pādshāh.²⁷¹¹

As after being in Sihrind, Bābur is said to have spent two months hunting near Dihlī, it may be that he followed up the punitive expedition sent into the Kaithal pargana of the Karnāl District, by hunting in Nardak, a favourite ground of the Tīmūrids, which lies in that district.

Thus the gap of 936 AH. with also perhaps a month of 937 AH. is filled by the “year’s” travel west of Dihlī. The record is a mere outline and in it are periods of months without mention of where Bābur was or what affairs of government were brought before him. At some time, on his return journey presumably, he will have despatched to Kashmīr the expedition referred to in the opening section of this appendix. Something further may yet be gleaned from local chronicles, from unwritten tradition, or from the witness of place-names commemorating his visit.

e. Bābur’s self-surrender to save Humāyūn.

The few months, perhaps 4 to 5, between Bābur’s return to Āgra from his expedition towards the North-west, and the time of his death are filled by Gul-badan and Abū’l-faẓl with matters concerning family interests only.

The first such matter these authors mention is an illness of Humāyūn during which Bābur devoted his own life to save his son’s.²⁷¹² Of this the particulars are, briefly: – That Humāyūn, while still in Saṃbhal, had had a violent attack of fever; that he was brought by water to Āgra, his mother meeting him in Muttra; and that when the disease baffled medical skill, Bābur resolved to practise the rite believed then and now in the East to be valid, of intercession and devotion of a suppliant’s most valued possession in exchange for a sick man’s life. Rejecting counsel to offer the Koh-i-nūr for pious uses, he resolved to supplicate for the acceptance of his life. He made intercession through a saint his daughter names, and moved thrice round Humāyūn’s bed, praying, in effect, “O God! if a life may be exchanged for a life, I, who am Bābur, give my life and my being for Humāyūn.” During the rite fever surged over him, and, convinced that his prayer and offering had prevailed, he cried out, “I have borne it away! I have borne it away!”²⁷¹³ Gul-badan says that he himself fell ill on that very day, while Humāyūn poured water on his head, came out and gave audience; and that they carried her Father within on account of his illness, where he kept his bed for 2 or 3 months.

There can be no doubt as to Bābur’s faith in the rite he had practised, or as to his belief that his offering of life was accepted; moreover actual facts would sustain his faith and belief. Onlookers also must have believed his prayer and offering to have prevailed, since Humāyūn went back to Saṃbhal,²⁷¹⁴ while Bābur fell ill at once and died in a few weeks.²⁷¹⁵

f. A plan to set Bābur’s sons aside from the succession.

Reading the Akbar-nāma alone, there would seem to be no question about whether Bābur ever intended to give Hindūstān, at any rate, to Humāyūn, but, by piecing together various contributory matters, an opposite opinion is reached, viz. that not Khalīfa only whom Abū’l-faẓl names perhaps on Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s warrant, but Bābur also, with some considerable number of chiefs, wished another ruler for Hindūstān. The starting-point of this opinion is a story in the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and, with less detail, in the Akbar-nāma, of which the gist is that Khalīfa planned to supersede Humāyūn and his three brothers in their Father’s succession.²⁷¹⁶

The story, in brief, is as follows: – At the time of Bābur’s death Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s father Khwāja Muḥammad Muqīm Harāwī was in the service of the Office of Works.²⁷¹⁷ Amīr Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī Khalīfa, the Chief of the Administration, had dread and suspicion about Humāyūn and did not favour his succession as Pādshāh. Nor did he favour that of Bābur’s other sons. He promised “Bābur Pādshāh’s son-in-law (dāmād)” Mahdī Khwāja who was a generous young man, very friendly to himself, that he would make him Pādshāh. This promise becoming known, others made their salām to the Khwāja who put on airs and accepted the position. One day when Khalīfa, accompanied by Muqīm, went to see Mahdī Khwāja in his tent, no-one else being present, Bābur, in the pangs of his disease, sent for him²⁷¹⁸ when he had been seated a few minutes only. When Khalīfa had gone out, Mahdī Khwāja remained standing in such a way that Muqīm could not follow but, the Khwāja unaware, waited respectfully behind him. The Khwāja, who was noted for the wildness of youth, said, stroking his beard, “Please God! first, I will flay thee!” turned round and saw Muqīm, took him by the ear, repeated a proverb of menace, “The red tongue gives the green head to the wind,” and let him go. Muqīm hurried to Khalīfa, repeated the Khwāja’s threat against him, and remonstrated about the plan to set all Bābur’s sons aside in favour of a stranger-house.²⁷¹⁹ Here-upon Khalīfa sent for Humāyūn,²⁷²⁰ and despatched an officer with orders to the Khwāja to retire to his house, who found him about to dine and hurried him off without ceremony. Khalīfa also issued a proclamation forbidding intercourse with him, excluded him from Court, and when Bābur died, supported Humāyūn.

As Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad was not born till 20 years after Bābur died, the story will have been old before he could appreciate it, and it was some 60 years old when it found way into the T̤abaqāt-i-akbarī and, with less detail, into the Akbar-nāma.

Taken as it stands, it is incredible, because it represents Khalīfa, and him alone, planning to subject the four sons of Bābur to the suzerainty of Mahdī Khwāja who was not a Tīmūrid, who, so far as well-known sources show, was not of a ruling dynasty or personally illustrious,²⁷²¹ and who had been associated, so lately as the autumn of 1529 AD., with his nephew Raḥīm-dād in seditious action which had so angered Bābur that, whatever the punishment actually ordered, rumour had it both men were to die.²⁷²² In two particulars the only Mahdī Khwāja then of Bābur’s following, does not suit the story; he was not a young man in 1530 AD.,²⁷²³ and was not a dāmād of Bābur, if that word be taken in its usual sense of son-in-law, but he was a yazna, husband of a Pādshāh’s sister, in his case, of Khān-zāda Begīm.²⁷²⁴ Some writers style him Sayyid Mahdī Khwāja, a double title which may indicate descent on both sides from religious houses; one is suggested to be that of Tirmiẕ by the circumstance that in his and Khān-zāda Begīm’s mausoleum was buried a Tirmiẕ sayyid of later date, Shāh Abū’l-ma‘ālī. But though he were of Tirmiẕ, it is doubtful if that religious house would be described by the word khānwāda which so frequently denotes a ruling dynasty.

His name may have found its way into Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s story as a gloss mistakenly amplifying the word dāmād, taken in its less usual sense of brother-in-law. To Bābur’s contemporaries the expression “Bābur Pādshāh’s dāmād” (son-in-law) would be explicit, because for some 11 years before he lay on his death-bed, he had one son-in-law only, viz. Muḥammad-i-zamān Mīrzā Bāī-qarā,²⁷²⁵ the husband of Ma‘ṣūma Sult̤ān Begīm. If that Mīrzā’s name were where Mahdī Khwāja’s is entered, the story of an exclusion of Bābur’s sons from rule might have a core of truth.

It is incredible however that Khālīfa, with or without Bābur’s concurrence, made the plan attributed to him of placing any man not a Tīmūrid in the position of Pādshāh over all Bābur’s territory. I suggest that the plan concerned Hindūstān only and was one considered in connection with Bābur’s intended return to Kābul, when he must have left that difficult country, hardly yet a possession, in charge of some man giving promise of power to hold it. Such a man Humāyūn was not. My suggestion rests on the following considerations: —

(1) Bābur’s outlook was not that of those in Āgra in 1587 AD. who gave Abū’l-faẓl his Bāburiana material, because at that date Dihlī had become the pivot of Tīmūrid power, so that not to hold Hindūstān would imply not to be Pādshāh. Bābur’s outlook on his smaller Hindūstān was different; his position in it was precarious, Kābul, not Dihlī, was his chosen centre, and from Kābul his eyes looked northwards as well as to the East. If he had lost the Hindūstān which was approximately the modern United Provinces, he might still have held what lay west of it to the Indus, as well as Qandahār.

(2) For several years before his death he had wished to return to Kābul. Ample evidence of this wish is given by his diary, his letters, and some poems in his second Dīwān (that found in the Rāmpūr MS.). As he told his sons more than once, he kept Kābul for himself.²⁷²⁶ If, instead of dying in Āgra, he had returned to Kābul, had pushed his way on from Badakhshān, whether as far as Samarkand or less, had given Humāyūn a seat in those parts, – action foreshadowed by the records – a reasonable interpretation of the story that Humāyūn and his brothers were not to govern Hindūstān, is that he had considered with Khalīfa the apportionment of his territories according to the example of his ancestors Chīngīz Khān, Tīmūr and Abū-sa‘īd; that by his plan of apportionment Humāyūn was not to have Hindūstān but something Tramontane; Kāmrān had already Qandahār; Sulaimān, if Humāyūn had moved beyond the out-post of Badakhshān, would have replaced him there; and Hindūstān would have gone to “Bābur Pādshāh’s dāmād”.

(3) Muḥammad-i-zamān had much to recommend him for Hindūstān: – Tīmūrid-born, grandson and heir of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā, husband of Ma‘ṣūma who was a Tīmūrid by double descent,²⁷²⁷ protected by Bābur after the Bāī-qarā débacle in Herāt, a landless man leading such other exiles as Muḥammad Sult̤ān Mīrzā,²⁷²⁸ ‘Ādil Sult̤ān, and Qāsim-i-ḥusain Sult̤ān, half-Tīmūrids all, who with their Khurāsānī following, had been Bābur’s guests in Kābul, had pressed on its poor resources, and thus had helped in 932 AH. (1525 AD.) to drive him across the Indus. This Bāī-qarā group needed a location; Muḥammad-i-zamān’s future had to be cared for and with his, Ma‘ṣūma’s.

(4) It is significant of intention to give Muḥammad-i-zamān ruling status that in April 1529 AD. (Sha‘bān 935 AH.) Bābur bestowed on him royal insignia, including the umbrella-symbol of sovereignty.²⁷²⁹ This was done after the Mīrzā had raised objections, unspecified now in the Bābur-nāma against Bihār; they were overcome, the insignia were given and, though for military reasons he was withheld from taking up that appointment, the recognition of his royal rank had been made. His next appointment was to Jūnpūr, the capital of the fallen Sharqī dynasty. No other chief is mentioned by Bābur as receiving the insignia of royalty.

(5) It appears to have been within a Pādshāh’s competence to select his successor; and it may be inferred that choice was made between Humāyūn and another from the wording of more than one writer that Khalīfa “supported” Humāyūn, and from the word “selected” used in Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s anecdote.²⁷³⁰ Much more would there be freedom of choice in a division of territory such as there is a good deal to suggest was the basis of Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s story. Whatever the extent of power proposed for the dāmād, whether, as it is difficult to believe, the Pādshāh’s whole supremacy, or whether the limited sovereignty of Hindūstān, it must have been known to Bābur as well as to Khalīfa. Whatever their earlier plan however, it was changed by the sequel of Humāyūn’s illness which led to his becoming Pādshāh. The dāmād was dropped, on grounds it is safe to believe more impressive than his threat to flay Khalīfa or than the remonstrance of that high official’s subordinate Muqīm of Herāt.