The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

When this news came, the begs were summoned for counsel. The matters for discussion were these:—Strangers and ancient foes, such as are Shaibāq Khān and the Aūzbegs, are in possession of all the countries once held by Tīmūr Beg’s descendants; even where Turks and Chaghatāīs1306 survive in corners and border-lands, they have all joined the Aūzbeg, willingly or with aversion; one remains, I myself, in Kābul, the foe mightily strong, I very weak, with no means of making terms, no strength to oppose; that, in the presence of such power and potency, we had to think of some place for ourselves and, at this crisis and in the crack of time there was, to put a wider space between us and the strong foeman; that choice lay between Badakhshān and Hindūstān and that decision must now be made.

(Author’s note on Badakhshān.) Those holding their heads up in Badakhshān at this crisis were, of Badakhshīs, Mubārak Shāh and Zubair, Jahāngīr Turkmān and Muḥammad the armourer. They had driven Nāṣir Mīrzā out but had not joined the Aūzbeg.

After taking Qandahār, I had bestowed Qalāt and the Turnūk (Tarnak) country on ‘Abdu’r-razzāq Mīrzā and had left him in Qalāt, but with the Aūzbeg besieging Qandahār, he could not stay in Qalāt, so left it and came to Kābul. He arriving just as we were marching out, was there left in charge.1308

There being in Badakhshān no ruler or ruler’s son, Mīrzā Khān inclined to go in that direction, both because of his relationship to Shāh Begīm1309 and with her approval. He was allowed to go and the honoured Begīm herself started off with him. My honoured maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm also wished to go to Badakhshān, notwithstanding that it was more seemly for her to be with me, a blood-relation; but whatever objection was made, she was not to be dissuaded; she also betook1310 herself to Badakhshān.

The Afghāns belonging between Kābul and Lamghān (Ningnahār) are thieves and abettors of thieves even in quiet times; for just such a happening as this they had prayed in vain. Said they, “He has abandoned Kābul”, and multiplied their misdeeds by ten, changing their very merits for faults. To suchFol. 214. lengths did things go that on the morning we marched from Jagdālīk, the Afghāns located between it and Lamghān, such as the Khiẓr-khail, Shimū-khail, Khirilchī and Khūgīanī, thought of blocking the pass, arrayed on the mountain to the north, and advancing with sound of tambour and flourish of sword, began to shew themselves off. On our mounting I ordered our men to move along the mountain-side, each man from where he had dismounted;1311 off they set at the gallop up every ridge and every valley of the saddle.1312 The Afghāns stood awhile, but could not let even one arrow fly,1313 and betook themselves to flight. While I was on the mountain during the pursuit, I shot one in the hand as he was running back below me. That arrow-stricken man and a few others were brought in; some were put to death by impalement, as an example.

Up till then we had taken no thought where to camp, where to go, where to stay; we had just marched up and down, camping in fresh places, while waiting for news.1314 It was late in the autumn; most lowlanders had carried in their rice. People knowing the local land and water represented that the Mīl Kāfirs up the water of the ‘Alīshang tūmān grow great quantities of rice, so that we might be able to collect winter supplies from them for the army. Accordingly we rode out of the Nīngnahār dale (julga), crossed (the Bārān-water) at Sāīkal, and went swiftly as far as the Pūr-amīn (easeful) valley. Fol. 214b.There the soldiers took a mass of rice. The rice-fields were all at the bottom of the hills. The people fled but some Kāfirs went to their death. A few of our braves had been sent to a look-out (sar-kūb)1315 on a naze of the Pūr-anīm valley; when they were returning to us, the Kāfirs rushed from the hill above, shooting at them. They overtook Qāsim Beg’s son-in-law Pūrān, chopped at him with an axe, and were just taking him when some of the braves went back, brought strength to bear, drove them off and got Pūrān away. After one night spent in the Kāfirs’ rice-fields, we returned to camp with a mass of provisions collected.

As it was not found desirable to go on into Hindūstān, I sent Mullā Bābā of Pashāghar back to Kābul with a few braves. Meantime I marched from near Mandrāwar to Atar and Shīwa and lay there for a few days. From Atar I visited Kūnār and Nūr-gal; from Kūnār I went back to camp on a raft; it was the first time I had sat on one; it pleased me much, and the raft came into common use thereafter.

In those same days Mullā Bābā of Farkat came from Nāṣir Mīrzā with news in detail that Shaibāq Khān, after taking the outer-fort of Qandahār, had not been able to take the citadel but had retired; also that the Mīrzā, on various accounts, had left Qandahār and gone to Ghaznī.

Shaibāq Khān’s arrival before Qandahār, within a few daysFol. 215. of our own departure, had taken the garrison by surprise, and they had not been able to make fast the outer-fort. He ran mines several times round about the citadel and made several assaults. The place was about to be lost. At that anxious time Khwāja Muḥ. Amīn, Khwāja Dost Khāwand, Muḥ. ‘Alī, a foot-soldier, and Shāmī (Syrian?) let themselves down from the walls and got away. Just as those in the citadel were about to surrender in despair, Shaibāq Khān interposed words of peace and uprose from before the place. Why he rose was this:—It appears that before he went there, he had sent his ḥaram to Nīrah-tū,1317 and that in Nīrah-tū some-one lifted up his head and got command in the fort; the Khān therefore made a sort of peace and retired from Qandahār.

Mid-winter though it was we went back to Kābul by the Bād-i-pīch road. I ordered the date of that transit and that crossing of the pass to be cut on a stone above Bād-i-pīch;1318 Ḥāfiẓ Mīrak wrote the inscription, Ustād Shāh Muḥammad did the cutting, not well though, through haste.

At the end of this year, on Tuesday the 4th day of the month of Ẕū’l-qa‘da (March 6th 1506 AD.), the Sun being in Pisces Fol. 215b.(Ḥūt), Humāyūn was born in the citadel of Kābul. The date of his birth was found by the poet Maulānā Masnadī in the words Sult̤ān Humāyūn Khān,1321 and a minor poet of Kābul found it in Shāh-i-fīrūs-qadr (Shāh of victorious might). A few days later he received the name Humāyūn; when he was five or six days old, I went out to the Chār-bāgh where was had the feast of his nativity. All the begs, small and great, brought gifts; such a mass of white tankas was heaped up as had never been seen before. It was a first-rate feast!