USEFUL SOURCES
Compared with what Bābur could have told of this most interesting period of his life, the yield of the sources is scant, a natural sequel from the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity.
Of all known sources the best are Khwānd-amīr’s Ḥabību’s-siyar and Ḥaidar Mīrzā Dūghlāt’s Tārīkh-i-rashīdī. The first was finished nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Bābur’s death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Bābur after its author went to Hindūstān in 934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a life of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī is especially valuable for the years of this lacuna. Ḥaidar’s book was finished under Humāyūn in 953 AH. (1547 AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmīr. It is the most valuable of all the sources for those interested in Bābur himself, both because of Ḥaidar’s excellence as a biographer, and through his close acquaintance with Bābur’s family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he lived under Bābur’s protection, followed this by 19 years service under Sa‘īd Khān, the cousin of both, in Kāshghar, and after that Khān’s death, went to Bābur’s sons Kāmrān and Humāyūn in Hindūstān.
A work issuing from a Sunnī Aūzbeg centre, Faẓl bin Ruzbahān Isfahānī’s Sūlūku’l-mulūk, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Māwarā’u’n-nahr through Bābur’s invasions. The book itself is a Treatise on Musalmān Law, and was prepared by order of ‘Ubaidu’l-lāh Khān Aūzbeg for his help in fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Bābur in 918 AH., at the shrine of Khwāja Aḥmad Yasawī [in Ḥaẓrat Turkistān], that, if he were victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it in Māwarā’u’n-nahr (Rieu’s Pers. Cat. ii, 448).
The Tārīkh-i Ḥājī Muḥammad ‘Ārif Qandahārī appears, from the frequent use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author was a native of Qandahār, a place much occupying Bābur’s activities, and because he was a servant of Bairām Khān-i-khānān, whose assassination under Akbar he witnessed.[1333] Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar survives no copy is now known of the section of his General History which deals with Bābur’s.
An early source is Yahya Kazwīnī’s Lubbu’t-tawārīkh, written in 948 AH. (1541 AD.), but brief only in the Bābur period. It issued from a Shī‘a source, being commanded by Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī’s son Bahrām.
Another work issuing also from a Ṣafawī centre is Mīr Sikandar’s Tārīkh-i-‘ālam-arāī, a history of Shāh ‘Abbas I, with an introduction treating of his predecessors which was completed in 1025 AH. (1616 AD.). Its interest lies in its outlook on Bābur’s dealings with Shāh Ismā‘īl.
A later source, brief only, is Firishta’s Tārīkh-i-firishta, finished under Jahāngīr in the first quarter of the 17th century.
Mr. Erskine makes frequent reference to Kh(w)āfī Khān’s Tārīkh, a secondary authority however, written under Aurangzīb, mainly based on Firishta’s work, and merely summarizing Bābur’s period. References to detached incidents of the period are found in Shaikh ‘Abdu’l-qādir’s Tārīkh-i-badāyūnī and Mīr Ma‘ṣūm’s Tārīkh-i-sind.