The Bābur-nāma. Babur

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      This year Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā sent an envoy, named ‘Abdu’l-qadūs Beg,226 to bring me a gift from the wedding he had made with splendid festivity for his eldest son, Mas‘ūd Mīrzā with (Ṣāliḥa-sult̤ān), the Fair Begīm, the second daughter of his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. They had sent gold and silver almonds and pistachios.

      There must have been relationship between this envoy and Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb, and on its account he will have been the man sent to make Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb, by fair promises, look towards Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā. Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb returned him a smooth answer, made indeed as though won over to his side, and gave him leave to go. Five or six months later, his manners changed entirely; he began to behave ill to those about me and to others, and he carried matters so far that he would have dismissed me in order to put Jahāngīr Mīrzā in my place. Moreover his conversation with the whole body of begs and soldiers was not what should be; every-one came to know what was in his mind. Khwāja-i-Qāzī and (Sayyid) Qāsim Qūchīn and ‘Alī-dost T̤aghāī met other well-wishers of mine in the presence of my grandmother, Āīsān-daulat Begīm and decided to give quietus to Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb’s disloyalty by his deposition.

      Few amongst women will have been my grandmother’s equals for judgment and counsel; she was very wise and far-sighted and most affairs of mine were carried through under her advice. She and my mother were (living) in the Gate-house of the outer fort;227 Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb was in the citadel.

      When I went to the citadel, in pursuance of our decision, he had ridden out, presumably for hawking, and as soon as he had our news, went off from where he was towards Samarkand. The begs and others in sympathy with him,228 were arrested; one was Muḥammad Bāqir Beg; Sl. Maḥmud Dūldāī, Sl. Muḥammad Dūldāī’s father, was another; there were several more; to some leave was given to go for Samarkand. The Andijān Government and control of my Gate were settled on (Sayyid) Qāsim Qūchīn.

      A few days after Ḥasan-i-yaq‘ūb reached Kand-i-badām on the Samarkand road, he went to near the Khūqān sub-division (aūrchīn) with ill-intent on Akhsī. Hearing of it, we sent several begs and braves to oppose him; they, as they went, detached a scouting party ahead; he, hearing this, moved against the detachment, surrounded it in its night-quarters229 and poured flights of arrows (shība) in on it. In the darkness of the night an arrow (aūq), shot by one of his own men, hit him just (aūq) in the vent (qāchār) and before he could take vent (qāchār),230 he became the captive of his own act.

      “If you have done ill, keep not an easy mind,

      For retribution is Nature’s law.”231

      This year I began to abstain from all doubtful food, my obedience extended even to the knife, the spoon and the table-cloth;232 also the after-midnight Prayer (taḥajjud) was less neglected.

      (a. Death of Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā.)

      In the month of the latter Rabī‘ (January 1495 AD.), Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā was confronted by violent illness and in six days, passed from the world. He was 43 (lunar) years old.

      b. His birth and lineage.

      He was born in 857 AH. (1453 AD.), was Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s third son and the full-brother of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā.233

      c. His appearance and characteristics.

      He was a short, stout, sparse-bearded and somewhat ill-shaped person. His manners and his qualities were good, his rules and methods of business excellent; he was well-versed in accounts, not a dinār or a dirhām234 of revenue was spent without his knowledge. The pay of his servants was never disallowed. His assemblies, his gifts, his open table, were all good. Everything of his was orderly and well-arranged;235 no soldier or peasant could deviate in the slightest from any plan of his. Formerly he must have been hard set (qātīrār) on hawking but latterly he very frequently hunted driven game.236 He carried violence and vice to frantic excess, was a constant wine-bibber and kept many catamites. If anywhere in his territory, there was a handsome boy, he used, by whatever means, to have him brought for a catamite; of his begs’ sons and of his sons’ begs’ sons he made catamites; and laid command for this service on his very foster brothers and on their own brothers. So common in his day was that vile practice, that no person was without his catamite; to keep one was thought a merit, not to keep one, a defect. Through his infamous violence and vice, his sons died in the day of their strength (tamām juwān).

      He had a taste for poetry and put a dīwān237 together but his verse is flat and insipid, – not to compose is better than to compose verse such as his. He was not firm in the Faith and held his Highness Khwāja ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh (Aḥrārī) in slight esteem. He had no heart (yūruk) and was somewhat scant in modesty, – several of his impudent buffoons used to do their filthy and abominable acts in his full Court, in all men’s sight. He spoke badly, there was no understanding him at first.

      d. His battles.

      He fought two battles, both with Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā (Bāīqarā). The first was in Astarābād; here he was defeated. The second was at Chīkman (Sarāī),238 near Andikhūd; here also he was defeated. He went twice to Kāfiristān, on the south of Badakhshān, and made Holy War; for this reason they wrote him Sl. Maḥmūd Ghāzī in the headings of his public papers.

      e. His countries.

      Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā gave him Astarābād.239 After the ‘Irāq disaster (i. e., his father’s death,) he went into Khurāsān. At that time, Qaṃbar-‘alī Beg, the governor of Ḥiṣār, by Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā’s orders, had mobilized the Hindūstān240 army and was following him into ‘Irāq; he joined Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā in Khurāsān but the Khurāsānīs, hearing of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā’s approach, rose suddenly and drove them out of the country. On this Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā went to his elder brother, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā in Samarkand. A few months later Sayyid Badr and Khusrau Shāh and some braves under Aḥmad

       Mushtāq 241 took him and fled to Qaṃbar-‘alī in Ḥiṣār. From that time forth, Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā possessed the countries lying south of Quhqa (Quhlugha) and the Kohtin Range as far as the Hindū-kush Mountains, such as Tīrmīẕ, Chaghānīān, Ḥiṣār, Khutlān, Qūndūz and Badakhshān. He also held Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā’s lands, after his brother’s death.

      f. His children.

      He had five sons and eleven daughters.

      Sl. Mas‘ūd Mīrzā was his eldest son; his mother was Khān-zāda Begīm, a daughter of the Great Mīr of Tīrmīẕ. Bāī-sunghar Mīrzā was another; his mother was Pasha (or Pāshā) Begīm. Sl. ‘Alī Mīrzā was another; his mother was СКАЧАТЬ