The Mīrzā’s letter was brought over passes blocked by snow; Bābur, with all possible speed, took the one winter-route through Āb-dara, kept the Ramẓān Feast in Bāmīān, and reached Qūndūz in Shawwāl (Jan. 1511 AD.). Ḥaidar’s detail about the Feast seems likely to have been recorded because he had read Bābur’s own remark, made in Ramẓān 933 AH. (June 1527) that up to that date, when he kept it in Sīkrī, he had not since his eleventh year kept it twice in the same place (f. 330).
c. Mughūl affairs.
Outside Qūndūz lay the Mughūls mentioned by Mīrzā Khān as come from Merv and so mentioned, presumably, as a possible reinforcement. They had been servants of Bābur’s uncles Maḥmūd and Aḥmad, and when Shaibānī defeated those Khāns at Akhsī in 908 AH., had been compelled by him to migrate into Khurāsān to places remote from Mughūlistān. Many of them had served in Kāshghar; none had served a Tīmūrid Mīrzā. Set free by Shaibānī’s death, they had come east, a Khān-less 20,000 of armed and fully equipped men and they were there, as Ḥaidar says, in their strength while of Chaghatāīs there were not more than 5,000. They now, and with them the Mughūls from Kābul, used the opportunity offering for return to a more congenial location and leadership, by the presence in Qūndūz of a legitimate Khāqān and the clearance in Andijān, a threshold of Mughūlistān, of its Aūzbeg governors (f. 200b). The chiefs of both bodies of Mughūls, Sherīm Taghāī at the head of one, Ayūb Begchīk of the other, proffered the Mughūl Khānship to Sa‘īd with offer to set Bābur aside, perhaps to kill him. It is improbable that in making their offer they contemplated locating themselves in the confined country of Kābul; what they seem to have wished was what Bābur gave, Sa‘īd for their Khāqān and permission to go north with him.
Sa‘īd, in words worth reading, rejected their offer to injure Bābur, doing so on the grounds of right and gratitude, but, the two men agreeing that it was now expedient for them to part, asked to be sent to act for Bābur where their friendship could be maintained for their common welfare. The matter was settled by Bābur’s sending him into Andijān in response to an urgent petition for help there just arrived from Ḥaidar’s uncle. He “was made Khān” and started forth in the following year, on Ṣafar 14th 917 AH. (May 13th 1511 AD.); with him went most of the Mughūls but not all, since even of those from Merv, Ayūb Begchīk and others are found mentioned on several later occasions as being with Bābur.
Bābur’s phrase “I made him Khān” (f. 200b) recalls his earlier mention of what seems to be the same appointment (f. 10b), made by Abū-sa‘īd of Yūnas as Khān of the Mughūls; in each case the meaning seems to be that the Tīmūrid Mīrzā made the Chaghatāī Khān Khāqān of the Mughūls.
d. First attempt on Ḥiṣār.
After spending a short time in Qūndūz, Bābur moved for Ḥiṣār in which were the Aūzbeg sult̤āns Mahdī and Ḥamza. They came out into Wakhsh to meet him but, owing to an imbroglio, there was no encounter and each side retired (T.R. p. 238).
e. Intercourse between Bābur and Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī.
While Bābur was now in Qūndūz his sister Khān-zāda arrived there, safe-returned under escort of the Shāh’s troops, after the death in the battle of Merv of her successive husbands Shaibānī and Sayyid Hādī, and with her came an envoy from Ismā‘īl proffering friendship, civilities calculated to arouse a hope of Persian help in Bābur. To acknowledge his courtesies, Bābur sent Mīrzā Khān with thanks and gifts; Ḥaidar says that the Mīrzā also conveyed protestations of good faith and a request for military assistance. He was well received and his request for help was granted; that it was granted under hard conditions then stated later occurrences shew.
917 AH.-MARCH 31st 1511 to MARCH 19th 1512 AD.