The Bābur-nāma. Babur

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СКАЧАТЬ reached Kābul in the month of Ẕū’l-ḥijja (May 1505 AD.).915 A few days earlier Sayyid Yūsuf Aūghlāqchī had gone to God’s mercy through the pains of colic.

      (n. Misconduct of Nāṣīr Mīrzā.)

      It has been mentioned that at Qūsh-guṃbaz, Nāṣir Mīrzā asked leave to stay behind, saying that he would follow in a few days after taking something from his district for his retainers and followers.916 But having left us, he sent a force against the people of Nūr-valley, they having done something a little refractory. The difficulty of moving in that valley owing to the strong position of its fort and the rice-cultivation of its lands, has already been described.917 The Mīrzā’s commander, Faẓlī, in ground so impracticable and in that one-road tract, instead of safe-guarding his men, scattered them to forage. Out came the valesmen, drove the foragers off, made it impossible to the rest to keep their ground, killed some, captured a mass of others and of horses, – precisely what would happen to any army chancing to be under such a person as Faẓlī! Whether because of this affair, or whether from want of heart, the Mīrzā did not follow us at all; he stayed behind.

      Moreover Ayūb’s sons, Yūsuf and Bahlūl (Begchīk), more seditious, silly and arrogant persons than whom there may not exist, – to whom I had given, to Yūsuf Alangār, to Bahlūl ‘Alī-shang, they like Nāṣir Mīrzā, were to have taken something from their districts and to have come on with him, but, he not coming, neither did they. All that winter they were the companions of his cups and social pleasures. They also over-ran the Tarkalānī Afghāns in it.918 With the on-coming heats, the Mīrzā made march off the families of the clans, outside-tribes and hordes who had wintered in Nīngnahār and the Lamghānāt, driving them like sheep before him, with all their goods, as far as the Bārān-water.919

      (o. Affairs of Badakhshān.)

      While Nāṣir Mīrzā was in camp on the Bārān-water, he heard that the Badakhshīs were united against the Aūzbegs and had killed some of them.

      Here are the particulars: – When Shaibāq Khān had given Qūndūz to Qaṃbar Bī and gone himself to Khwārizm920; Qaṃbar Bī, in order to conciliate the Badakhshīs, sent them a son of Muḥammad-i-makhdūmī, Maḥmūd by name, but Mubārak Shāh, – whose ancestors are heard of as begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, – having uplifted his own head, and cut off Maḥmūd’s and those of some Aūzbegs, made himself fast in the fort once known as Shāf-tiwār but re-named by him Qila‘-i-z̤afar. Moreover, in Rustāq Muḥammad qūrchī, an armourer of Khusrau Shāh, then occupying Khamalangān, slew Shaibāq Khān’s ṣadr and some Aūzbegs and made that place fast. Zubair of Rāgh, again, whose forefathers also will have been begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, uprose in Rāgh.921 Jahāngīr Turkmān, again, a servant of Khusrau Shāh’s Walī, collected some of the fugitive soldiers and tribesmen Walī had left behind, and with them withdrew into a fastness.922

      Nāṣir Mīrzā, hearing these various items of news and spurred on by the instigation of a few silly, short-sighted persons to covet Badakhshān, marched along the Shibr-tū and Āb-dara road, driving like sheep before him the families of the men who had come into Kābul from the other side of the Amū.923

      (p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh.)

      At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for Khurāsān,924 they meeting in with Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū’n-nūn Beg, all went on together to the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Herī. All had long been foes of his; all had behaved unmannerly to him; what brands had they not set on his heart! Yet all now went to him in their distress, and all went through me. For it is not likely they would have seen him if I had not made Khusrau Shāh helpless by parting him from his following, and if I had not taken Kābul from Ẕū’n’nūn’s son, Muqīm. Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā himself was as dough in the hands of the rest; beyond their word he could not go. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took up a gracious attitude towards one and all, mentioned no-one’s misdeeds, even made them gifts.

      Shortly after their arrival Khusrau Shāh asked for leave to go to his own country, saying, “If I go, I shall get it all into my hands.” As he had reached Herī without equipment and without resources, they finessed a little about his leave. He became importunate. Muḥammad Barandūq retorted roundly on him with, “When you had 30,000 men behind you and the whole country in your hands, what did you effect against the Aūzbeg? What will you do now with your 500 men and the Aūzbegs in possession?” He added a little good advice in a few sensible words, but all was in vain because the fated hour of Khusrau Shāh’s death was near. Leave was at last given because of his importunity; Khusrau Shāh with his 3 or 400 followers, went straight into the borders of Dahānah. There as Nāṣir Mīrzā had just gone across, these two met.

      Now the Badakhshī chiefs had invited only the Mīrzā; they had not invited Khusrau Shāh. Try as the Mīrzā did to persuade Khusrau Shāh to go into the hill-country,925 the latter, quite understanding the whole time, would not consent to go, his own idea being that if he marched under the Mīrzā, he would get the country into his own hands. In the end, unable to agree, each of them, near Ishkīmīsh, arrayed his following, put on mail, drew out to fight, and – departed. Nāṣir Mīrzā went on for Badakhshān; Khusrau Shāh after collecting a disorderly rabble, good and bad of some 1,000 persons, went, with the intention of laying siege to Qūndūz, to Khwāja Chār-tāq, one or two yīghāch outside it.

      (q. Death of Khusrau Shāh.)

      At the time Shaibāq Khān, after overcoming Sult̤ān Aḥmad Taṃbal and Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh926 flung away his country (Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār) without a blow struck, and saved himself. Thereupon Shaibāq Khān went to Ḥiṣār in which were Sherīm the page and a few good braves. They did not surrender Ḥiṣār, though their honourable beg had flung his country away and gone off; they made Ḥiṣār fast. The siege of Ḥiṣār Shaibāq Khān entrusted to Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sult̤ān,927 went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān and betook himself without delay to Khwārizm against Chīn Ṣūfī. But as, before he reached Samarkand on his way to Khwārizm, he heard of the death in Qūndūz of his brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān, he gave that place to Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.928

      Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the others Shaibāq Khān had left behind. Ḥamza Sl. came himself as far as the sarāī on the Amū bank where he put his sons and begs in command of a force which went direct against Khusrau Shāh. There was neither fight nor flight for that fat, little man; Ḥamza Sult̤ān’s men unhorsed him, killed his sister’s son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim, Sherīm the page and several good braves. Him they took into Qūndūz, there struck his head off and from there sent it to Shaibāq Khān in Khwārizm.929

      (r. Conduct in Kābul of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers.)

      Just as Khusrau Shāh had said they СКАЧАТЬ