The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[1123] These are those connected with grammar and rhetoric (Erskine).

[1124] This is one of the four principal sects of Muḥammadanism (Erskine).

[1125] T.R. p. 235, for Shāh Ismā‘īl’s murders in Herī.

[1126] Superintendent of Police, who examines weights, measures and provisions, also prevents gambling, drinking and so on.

[1127] f. 137.

[1128] The rank of Mujtahid, which is not bestowed by any individual or class of men but which is the result of slow and imperceptible opinion, finally prevailing and universally acknowledged, is one of the greatest peculiarities of the religion of Persia. The Mujtahid is supposed to be elevated above human fears and human enjoyments, and to have a certain degree of infallibility and inspiration. He is consulted with reverence and awe. There is not always a Mujtahid necessarily existing. See Kæmpfer, Amoenitates Exoticae (Erskine).

[1129]muḥaddas̤, one versed in the traditional sayings and actions of Muḥammad.

[1130] Ḥ.S. iii, 340.

[1131] B.M. Or. 218 (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 350). The Commentary was made in order to explain the Nafaḥāt to Jāmī’s son.

[1132] He was buried by the Mullā’s side.

[1133] Amīr Burhānu’d-dīn ‘Atā’u’l-lāh bin Maḥmūdu’l-ḥusainī was born in Nishāpūr but known as Mashhadī because he retired to that holy spot after becoming blind.

[1134] f. 144b and note. Qāẓī Ikhtiyāru’d-dīn Ḥasan (Ḥ.S. iii, 347) appears to be the Khwāja Ikhtiyār of the Āyīn-i-akbarī, and, if so, will have taken professional interest in the script, since Abū’l-faẓl describes him as a distinguished calligrapher in Sl. Ḥusain M.’s presence (Blochmann, p. 101).

[1135] Saifu’d-dīn (Sword of the Faith) Aḥmad, presumably.

[1136] A sister of his, Apāq Bega, the wife of ‘Alī-sher’s brother Darwīsh-i-‘alī kitābdār, is included as a poet in the Biography of Ladies (Sprenger’s Cat. p. 11). Amongst the 20 women named one is a wife of Shaibāq Khān, another a daughter of Hilālī.

[1137] He was the son of Khw. Ni‘amatu’l-lāh, one of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd M.’s wazīrs. When dying aet. 70 (923 AH.), he made this chronogram on his own death, “With 70 steps he measured the road to eternity.” The name Āsaf, so frequent amongst wazīrs, is that of Solomon’s wazīr.

[1138] Other interpretations are open; wādī, taken as river, might refer to the going on from one poem to another, the stream of verse; or it might be taken as desert, with disparagement of collections.

[1139] Maulānā Jamālu’d-dīn Banā’i was the son of a sabz-banā, an architect, a good builder.

[1140] Steingass’s Dictionary allows convenient reference for examples of metres.

[1141] Other jokes made by Banā’i at the expense of Nawā’i are recorded in the various sources.

[1142] Bābur saw Banā’i in Samarkand at the end of 901 AH. (1496 AD. f. 38).

Here Dr. Leyden’s translation ends; one other fragment which he translated will be found under the year 925 AH. (Erskine). This statement allows attention to be drawn to the inequality of the shares of the work done for the Memoirs of 1826 by Leyden and by Erskine. It is just to Mr. Erskine, but a justice he did not claim, to point out that Dr. Leyden’s share is slight both in amount and in quality; his essential contribution was the initial stimulus he gave to the great labours of his collaborator.

[1143] So of Lope de Vega (b. 1562; d. 1635 AD.), “It became a common proverb to praise a good thing by calling it a Lope, so that jewels, diamonds, pictures, etc. were raised into esteem by calling them his” (Montalvan in Ticknor’s Spanish Literature ii, 270).

[1144] Maulānā Saifī, known as ‘Arūẓī from his mastery in prosody (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 525).

[1145] Here pedantry will be implied in the mullahood.

[1146]Khamsatīn (infra f. 180b and note).

[1147] This appears to mean that not only the sparse diacritical pointing common in writing Persian was dealt with but also the fuller Arabic.

[1148] He is best known by his pen-name Hātifī. The B.M. and I.O. have several of his books.

[1149]Khamsatīn. Hātifī regarded himself as the successor of Niz̤āmī and Khusrau; this, taken with Bābur’s use of the word Khamsatīn on f. 7 and here, and Saifī’s just above, leads to the opinion that the Khamsatīn of the Bābur-nāma are always those of Niz̤āmī and Khusrau, the Two Quintets (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 653).

[1150] Maulānā Mīr Kamālu’d-dīn Ḥusain of Nishāpūr (Rieu l.c. index s.n.; Ethé’s I.O. Cat. pp. 433 and 1134).

[1151] One of his couplets on good and bad fortune is striking; “The fortune of men is like a sand-glass; one hour up, the next down.” See D’Herbélot in his article (Erskine).

[1152] Ḥ.S. iii, 336; Rieu’s Pers. Cat. p. 1089.

[1153] Āhī (sighing) was with Shāh-i-gharīb before Ibn-i-ḥusain and to him dedicated his dīwān. The words sāḥib-i-dīwān seem likely to be used here with double meaning i.e. to express authorship and finance office. Though Bābur has made frequent mention of authorship of a dīwān and of office in the Dīwān, he has not used these words hitherto in either sense; there may be a play of words here.

[1154] Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā Khwārizmī, author of the Shaibānī-nāma which manifestly is the poem (mas̤nawī) mentioned below. This has been published with a German translation by Professor Vambéry and has been edited with Russian notes by Mr. Platon Melioransky (Rieu’s Turkish Cat. p. 74; Ḥ.S. iii, 301).

[1155] Jāmī’s Subḥatu’l-abrār (Rosary of the righteous).

[1156] The reference may be to things said by Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ the untruth of which was known to Bābur through his own part in the events. A crying instance of misrepresentation is Ṣāliḥ’s assertion, in rhetorical phrase, that Bābur took booty in jewels from Khusrau Shāh; other instances concern the affairs of The Khāns and of Bābur in Transoxiana (f. 124b and index s.nn. Aḥmad and Maḥmūd Chaghatāī etc.; T.R. index s.nn.)

[1157] The name Fat-land (Taṃbal-khāna) has its parallel in Fat-village (Sīmīz-kīnt) a name of Samarkand; in both cases the nick-name is accounted for by the fertility of irrigated lands. We have not been able to find the above-quoted couplet in the Shaibānī-nāma (Vambéry); needless to say, the pun is on the nick-name (taṃbal, fat) of Sl. Aḥmad Taṃbal.

[1158] Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ does not show well in his book; he is sometimes coarse, gloats over spoil whether in human captives or goods, and, his good-birth not-forbidding, is a servile flatterer. Bābur’s word “heartless” is just; it must have had sharp prompting from Ṣāliḥ’s rejoicing in the downfall of The Khāns, Bābur’s uncles.

[1159] the Longer (Ḥ.S. iii, 349).

[1160] Maulānā Badru’d-dīn (Full-moon of the Faith) whose pen-name was Hilālī, was of Astarābād. It may be noted that two dates of his death are found, 936 and 939 AH. the first given by de Saçy, the second by Rieu, and that the second seems to be correct (Not. et Extr. p. 285; Pers. Cat. p. 656; Hammer’s Geschichte p. 368).

[1161] B.M. Add. 7783.