914 AH.-MAY 2nd 1508 to APRIL 21st 1509 AD.
The mutiny, of which an account begins in the text, was crushed by the victory of 500 loyalists over 3,000 rebels, one factor of success being Bābur’s defeat in single combat of five champions of his adversaries.[1334] The disturbance was not of long duration; Kābul was tranquil in Sha‘bān (November) when Sl. Sa‘īd Khān Chaghatāī, then 21, arrived there seeking his cousin’s protection, after defeat by his brother Manṣūr at Almātū, escape from death, commanded by Shaibānī, in Farghāna, a winter journey through Qarā-tīgīn to Mīrzā Khān in Qilā'-i-z̤afar, refusal of an offer to put him in that feeble Mīrzā’s place, and so on to Kābul, where he came a destitute fugitive and enjoyed a freedom from care never known by him before (f. 200b; T.R. p. 226). The year was fatal to his family and to Ḥaidar’s; in it Shaibānī murdered Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and his six sons, Muḥammad Ḥusain Mīrzā and other Dūghlāt sult̤āns.
915 AH.-APRIL 21st 1509 to APRIL 11th 1510 AD.
In this year hostilities began between Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī and Muḥ. Shaibānī Khān Aūzbeg, news of which must have excited keen interest in Kābul.
In it occurred also what was in itself a minor matter of a child’s safety, but became of historical importance, namely, the beginning of personal acquaintance between Bābur and his sympathetic biographer Ḥaidar Mīrzā Dūghlāt. Ḥaidar, like Sa‘īd, came a fugitive to the protection of a kinsman; he was then eleven, had been saved by servants from the death commanded by Shaibānī, conveyed to Mīrzā Khān in Badakhshān, thence sent for by Bābur to the greater security of Kābul (f. 11; Index s.n.; T.R. p. 227).
916 AH.-APRIL 11th 1510 to MARCH 31st 1510 AD.
a. News of the battle of Merv.
Over half of this year passed quietly in Kābul; Ramẓān (December) brought from Mīrzā Khān (Wāis) the stirring news that Ismā‘īl had defeated Shaibānī near Merv.[1335] “It is not known,” wrote the Mīrzā, “whether Shāhī Beg Khān has been killed or not. All the Aūzbegs have crossed the Amū. Amīr Aūrūs, who was in Qūndūz, has fled. About 20,000 Mughūls, who left the Aūzbeg at Merv, have come to Qūndūz. I have come there.” He then invited Bābur to join him and with him to try for the recovery of their ancestral territories (T.R. p. 237).
b. Bābur’s campaign in Transoxiana begun.