The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)

[279] Niz̤āmu’d-dīn ‘Alī Barlās: see Gul-badan’s H.N. s.n. He served Bābur till the latter’s death.

[280]i.e. Ẕū’n-nūn or perhaps the garrison.

[281]i.e. down to Shaibānī’s destruction of Chaghatāī rule in Tāshkīnt in 1503 AD.

[282] Elph. MS. f. 23; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 26 and 217 f. 21; Mems. p. 35.

Bābur’s own affairs form a small part of this year’s record; the rest is drawn from the Ḥ.S. which in its turn, uses Bābur’s f. 34 and f. 37b. Each author words the shared material in his own style; one adding magniloquence, the other retracting to plain statement, indeed summarizing at times to obscurity. Each passes his own judgment on events, e.g. here Khwānd-amīr’s is more favourable to Ḥusain Bāī-qarā’s conduct of the Ḥiṣār campaign than Bābur’s. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 256-60 and 274.

[283] This feint would take him from the Oxus.

[284] Tīrmīẕ to Ḥiṣār, 96m. (Réclus vi, 255).

[285] Ḥ.S. Wazr-āb valley. The usual route is up the Kām Rūd and over the Mūra pass to Sara-tāq. Cf. f. 81b.

[286]i.e. the Ḥiṣārī mentioned a few lines lower and on f. 99b. Nothing on f. 99b explains his cognomen.

[287] The road is difficult. Cf. f. 81b.

[288] Khwānd-amīr also singles out one man for praise, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīr-i-ākhwur; the two names probably represent one person. The sobriquet may refer to skill with a matchlock, to top-spinning (firnagī-bāz) or to some lost joke. (Ḥ.S. ii, 257.)

[289] This pregnant phrase has been found difficult. It may express that Bābur assigned the sult̤āns places in their due precedence; that he seated them in a row; and that they sat cross-legged, as men of rank, and were not made, as inferiors, to kneel and sit back on their heels. Out of this last meaning, I infer comes the one given by dictionaries, “to sit at ease,” since the cross-legged posture is less irksome than the genuflection, not to speak of the ease of mind produced by honour received. Cf. f. 18b and note on Aḥmad’s posture; Redhouse s.nn. bāghīsh and bāghdāsh; and B.M. Tawārīkh-i-guzīda naṣrat-nāma, in the illustrations of which the chief personage, only, sits cross-legged.

[290]siyāsat. My translation is conjectural only.

[291]sar-kob. The old English noun strike, “an instrument for scraping off what appears above the top,” expresses the purpose of the wall-high erections of wood or earth (L. agger) raised to reach what shewed above ramparts. Cf. Webster.

[292] Presumably lower down the Qūndūz Water.

[293]aūz pādshāhī u mīrzālārīdīn artīb.

[294]sic. Ḥai. MS.; Elph. MS. “near Tāliqān”; some W.-i-B. MSS. “Great Garden.” Gul-badan mentions a Tāliqān Garden. Perhaps the Mīrzā went so far east because, Ẕū’n-nūn being with him, he had Qandahār in mind. Cf. f. 42b.

[295]i.e. Sayyid Muḥammad ‘Alī. See f. 15 n. to Sherīm. Khwāja Changāl lies 14 m. below Tāliqān on the Tāliqān Water. (Erskine.)

[296] f. 27b, second.

[297] The first was circa 895 AH.-1490 AD. Cf. f. 27b.

[298] Bābur’s wording suggests that their common homage was the cause of Badī‘u’z-zamān’s displeasure but see f. 41.

[299] The Mīrzā had grown up with Ḥiṣārīs. Cf. Ḥ.S. ii, 270.

[300] As the husband of one of the six Badakhshī Begīms, he was closely connected with local ruling houses. See T.R. p. 107.

[301]i.e. Muḥammad ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh the elder of Aḥrārī’s two sons. d. 911 AH. See Rashaḥāt-i-‘ain-alḥayāt (I.O. 633) f. 269-75; and Khizīnatu’l-aṣfīya lith. ed. i, 597.

[302]Bū yūq tūr, i.e. This is not to be.

[303] d. 908 AH. He was not, it would seem, of the Aḥrārī family. His own had provided Pontiffs (Shaikhu’l-islām) for Samarkand through 400 years. Cf. Shaibānī-nāma, Vambéry, p. 106; also, for his character, p. 96.

[304]i.e. he claimed sanctuary.

[305]Cf. f. 45b and Pétis de la Croix’s Histoire de Chīngīz Khān pp. 171 and 227. What Tīmūr’s work on the Gūk Sarāī was is a question for archæologists.

[306]i.e. over the Aītmak Pass. Cf. f. 49.

[307] Ḥai. MS. ārālighīgha. Elph. MS. ārāl, island.

[308]See f. 179b for Binā’ī. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā Khwārizmī is the author of the Shaibānī-nāma.

[309] Elph. MS. f. 27; W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 30b and 217 f. 25; Mems. p. 42.

[310]i.e. Circassian. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ (Sh.N. Vambéry p. 276 l. 58) speaks of other Aūzbegs using Chirkas swords.

[311]aīrtā yāzīghā. My translation is conjectural. Aīrtā implies i.a. foresight. Yāzīghā allows a pun at the expense of the sult̤āns; since it can be read both as to the open country and as for their (next, aīrtā) misdeeds. My impression is that they took the opportunity of being outside Samarkand with their men, to leave Bāī-sunghar and make for Shaibānī, then in Turkistān. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ also marking the tottering Gate of Sl. ‘Alī Mīrzā, left him now, also for Shaibānī. (Vambéry cap. xv.)

[312]aūmāq, to amuse a child in order to keep it from crying.

[313]i.e. with Khwāja Yahya presumably. See f. 38.

[314] This man is mentioned also in the Tawārikh-i-guzīda Naṣratnāma B.M. Or. 3222 f. 124b.

[315] Ḥ.S., on the last day of Ramẓān (June 28th. 1497 AD.).

[316] Muḥammad Sīghal appears to have been a marked man. I quote from the T.G.N.N. (see supra), f. 123b foot, the information that he was the grandson of Ya‘qūb Beg. Zenker explains Sīghalī as the name of a Chaghatāī family. An Ayūb-i-Ya‘qūb Begchīk Mughūl may be an uncle. See f. 43 for another grandson.

[317]baẓ’ī kīrkān-kīnt-kīsākkā bāsh-sīz-qīlghān Mughūllārnī tūtūb. I take the word kīsāk in this highly idiomatic sentence to be a diminutive of kīs, old person, on the analogy of mīr, mīrāk, mard, mardak. [The Ḥ.S. uses Kīsāk (ii, 261) as a proper noun.] The alliteration in kāf and the mighty adjective here are noticeable.