LITMIR.BIZ

520

Elp. MS. f. 57b; W. – i-B. I.O. 215 f. 63b and I.O. 217 f. 52; Mems. p. 82.

Two contemporary works here supplement the B.N.; (1) the (Tawārikh-i-guzīda) Naṣrat-nāma, dated 908 AH. (B.M. Turkī Or. 3222) of which Berezin’s Shaibāni-nāma is an abridgment; (2) Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ Mīrzā’s Shaibānī-nāma (Vambéry trs. cap. xix et seq.). The Ḥ.S. (Bomb. ed. p. 302, and Tehran ed. p. 384) is also useful.

521

i. e. on his right. The Ḥ.S. ii, 302 represents that ‘Alī was well-received. After Shaibāq had had Zuhra’s overtures, he sent an envoy to ‘Alī and Yaḥya; the first was not won over but the second fell in with his mother’s scheme. This difference of view explains why ‘Alī slipped away while Yaḥya was engaged in the Friday Mosque. It seems likely that mother and son alike expected their Aūzbeg blood to stand them in good stead with Shaibāq.

522

He tried vainly to get the town defended. “Would to God Bābur Mīrzā were here!” he is reported as saying, by Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ.

523

Perhaps it is for the play of words on ‘Alī and ‘Alī’s life (jān) that this man makes his sole appearance here.

524

i. e. rich man or merchant, but Bī (infra) is an equivalent of Beg.

525

Muḥ. Ṣāliḥ, invoking curses on such a mother, mentions that Zuhra was given to a person of her own sort.

526

The Sh. N. and Naṣrat-nāma attempt to lift the blame of ‘Alī’s death from Shaibāq; the second saying that he fell into the Kohik-water when drunk.

527

Harāt might be his destination but the Ḥ.S. names Makka. Some dismissals towards Khurāsān may imply pilgrimage to Meshhed.

528

Used also by Bābur’s daughter, Gul-badan (l.c. f. 31).

529

Cut off by alien lands and weary travel.

530

The Pers. annotator of the Elph. Codex has changed Alāī to wīlāyat, and dābān (pass) to yān, side. For the difficult route see Schuyler, i, 275, Kostenko, i, 129 and Rickmers, JRGS. 1907, art. Fan Valley.

531

Amongst Turks and Mughūls, gifts were made by nines.

532

Ḥiṣār was his earlier home.

533

Many of these will have been climbed in order to get over places impassable at the river’s level.

534

Schuyler quotes a legend of the lake. He and Kostenko make it larger.

535

The second occasion was when he crossed from Sūkh for Kābul in 910 AH. (fol. 120).

536

This name appears to indicate a Command of 10,000 (Bretschneider’s Mediæval Researches, i, 112).

537

It seems likely that the cloth was soiled. Cf. f. 25 and Hughes Dict. of Islām s. n. Eating.

538

As, of the quoted speech, one word only, of three, is Turkī, others may have been dreamed. Shaikh Maṣlaḥat’s tomb is in Khujand where Bābur had found refuge in 903 AH.; it had been circumambulated by Tīmūr in 790 AH. (1390 AD.) and is still honoured.

This account of a dream compares well for naturalness with that in the seemingly-spurious passage, entered with the Ḥai. MS. on f. 118. For examination of the passage see JRAS, Jan. 1911, and App. D.

539

He was made a Tarkhān by diploma of Shaibānī (Ḥ.S. ii, 306, l. 2).

540

Here the Ḥai. MS. begins to use the word Shaibāq in place of its previously uniform Shaibānī. As has been noted (f. 5b n. 2), the Elph. MS. writes Shaibāq. It may be therefore that a scribe has changed the earlier part of the Ḥai. MS. and that Bābur wrote Shaibāq. From this point my text will follow the double authority of the Elph. and Ḥai. MSS.

541

In 875 AH. (1470 AD.). Ḥusain was then 32 years old. Bābur might have compared his taking of Samarkand with Tīmūr’s capture of Qarshī, also with 240 followers (Z̤.N. i, 127). Firishta (lith. ed. p. 196) ascribes his omission to do so to reluctance to rank himself with his great ancestor.

542

This arrival shews that Shaibānī expected to stay in Samarkand. He had been occupying Turkistān under The Chaghatāī Khān.

543

‘Alī-sher died Jan. 3rd. 1501. It is not clear to what disturbances Bābur refers. He himself was at ease till after April 20th. 1502 and his defeat at Sar-i-pul. Possibly the reference is to the quarrels between Binā’ī and ‘Alī-sher. Cf. Sām Mīrzā’s Anthology, trs. S. de Saçy, Notices et Extraits iv, 287 et seq.

544

I surmise a double play-of-words in this verse. One is on two rhyming words, ghala and mallah and is illustrated by rendering them as oat and coat. The other is on pointed and unpointed letters, i. e. ghala and ‘ala. We cannot find however a Persian word ‘ala, meaning garment.

545

Bābur’s refrain is ghūsīdūr, his rhymes būl, (buyur)ūl and tūl. Binā’ī makes būlghūsīdūr his refrain but his rhymes are not true viz. yīr, (sa)mar and lār.

546

Shawwāl 906 AH. began April 20th. 1501.

547

From the Bū-stān, Graf ed. p. 55, l. 246.

548

Sīkīz Yīldūz. See Chardin’s Voyages, v, 136 and Table; also Stanley Lane Poole’s Bābur, p. 56.

549

In 1791 AD. Muḥ. Effendi shot 482 yards from a Turkish bow, before the R. Tox. S.; not a good shot, he declared. Longer ones are on record. See Payne-Gallwey’s Cross-bow and AQR. 1911, H. Beveridge’s Oriental Cross-bows.

550

In the margin of the Elph. Codex, here, stands a Persian verse which appears more likely to be Humāyūn’s than Bābur’s. It is as follows:

This verse is written into the text of the First W. – i-B. (I.O. 215 f. 72) and is introduced by a scribe’s statement that it is by ān Ḥaẓrat, much as notes known to be Humāyūn’s are elsewhere attested in the Elph. Codex. It is not in the Ḥai. and Kehr’s MSS. nor with, at least many, good copies of the Second W. – i-B.

551

This subterranean water-course, issuing in a flowing well (Erskine) gave its name to a bastion (Ḥ.S. ii, 300).

552

nāwak,

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