(a. A Mughūl rebellion.)
A few days after our return from that raid, Qūj Beg, Faqīr-i-‘alī, Karīm-dād and Bābā chuhra were thinking about deserting, but their design becoming known, people were sent who took them below Astarghach. As good-for-nothing words of theirs had been reported to me, even during Jahāngīr M.’s life-time,[1324] I ordered that they should be put to death at the top of the bāzār. They had been taken to the place; the ropes had been fixed; and they were about to be hanged when Qāsim Beg sent Khalīfa to me with an urgent entreaty that I would pardon their offences. To please him I gave them their lives, but I ordered them kept in custody.
What there was of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers from Ḥiṣār and Qūndūz, together with the head-men of the Mughūls, Chilma,Fol. 216. ‘Alī Sayyid,[1325] Sakma (?), Sher-qulī and Aīkū-sālam (?), and also Khusrau Shāh’s favourite Chaghatāī retainers under Sl. ‘Alī chuhra and Khudabakhsh, with also 2 or 3000 serviceable Turkmān braves led by Sīūndūk and Shāh Naz̤ar,[1326] the whole of these, after consultation, took up a bad position towards me. They were all seated in front of Khwāja Riwāj, from the Sūng-qūrghān meadow to the Chālāk; ‘Abdu’r-razzāq Mīrzā, come in from Nīng-nahār, being in Dih-i-afghān.[1327]
Earlier on Muḥibb-i-‘alī the armourer had told Khalīfa and Mullā Bābā once or twice of their assemblies, and both had given me a hint, but the thing seeming incredible, it had had no attention. One night, towards the Bed-time Prayer, when I was sitting in the Audience-hall of the Chār-bāgh, Mūsa Khwāja, coming swiftly up with another man, said in my ear, “The Mughūls are really rebelling! We do not know for certain whether they have got ‘Abdu’r-razzāq M. to join them. They have not settled to rise to-night.” I feigned disregard and a little later went towards the ḥarams which at the time were in the Yūrūnchqa-garden[1328] and the Bāgh-i-khilwat, but after page, servitor and messenger (yasāwal) had turned back on getting Fol. 216b.near them, I went with the chief-slave towards the town, and on along the ditch. I had gone as far as the Iron-gate when Khwāja Muḥ. ‘Alī[1329] met me, he coming by the bāzār road from the opposite direction. He joined me ... of the porch of the Hot-bath (ḥammām)....[1330]
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE ON 914 to 925 AH.—1508 to 1519 AD.
From several references made in the Bābur-nāma and from a passage in Gul-badan’s Humāyūn-nāma (f. 15), it is inferrible that Bābur was composing the annals of 914 AH. not long before his last illness and death.[1331]
Before the diary of 925 AH. (1519 AD.) takes up the broken thread of his autobiography, there is a lacuna of narrative extending over nearly eleven years. The break was not intended, several references in the Bābur-nāma shewing Bābur’s purpose to describe events of the unchronicled years.[1332] Mr. Erskine, in the Leyden and Erskine Memoirs, carried Bābur’s biography through the major lacunæ, but without firsthand help from the best sources, the Habību’s-siyar and Tārīkh-i-rashīdī. He had not the help of the first even in his History of India. M. de Courteille working as a translator only, made no attempt to fill the gaps.
Bābur’s biography has yet to be completed; much time is demanded by the task, not only in order to exhaust known sources and seek others further afield, but to weigh and balance the contradictory statements of writers deep-sundered in sympathy and outlook. To strike such a balance is essential when dealing with the events of 914 to 920 AH. because in those years Bābur had part in an embittered conflict between Sunni and Shī‘a. What I offer below, as a stop-gap, is a mere summary of events, mainly based on material not used by Mr. Erskine, with a few comments prompted by acquaintance with Bāburiana.