Pure gold, or silver or tin.”[149]
People say he now lives lawfully (tā’ib) and has found the right way (t̤arīqā).[150] He has a hand deft in everything, penmanship and painting, and in making arrows and arrow-barbs Fol. 11b.and string-grips; moreover he is a born poet and in a petition written to me, even his style is not bad.[151]
Shāh Begīm was another of Yūnas Khān’s ladies. Though he had more, she and Aīsān-daulat Begīm were the mothers of his children. She was one of the (six) daughters of Shāh Sult̤ān Muḥammad, Shāh of Badakhshān.[152] His line, they say, runs back to Iskandar Fīlkūs.[153] Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā took another daughter and by her had Ābā-bikr Mīrzā.[154] By this Shāh Begīm Yūnas Khān had two sons and two daughters. Her first-born but younger than all Aīsān-daulat Begīm’s daughters, was Sl. Maḥmūd Khān, called Khānika Khān[155] by many in and about Samarkand. Next younger than he was Sl. Aḥmad Khān, known as Alacha Khān. People say he was called this because he killed many Qālmāqs on the several occasions he beat them. In the Mughūl and Qālmāq tongues, one who will kill (aūltūrgūchī) is called ālāchī; Alāchī they called him therefore and this by repetition, became Alacha.[156] As occasion arises, the acts and circumstances of these two Khāns will find mention in this history (tārīkh).
Sult̤ān-nigār Khānīm was the youngest but one of Yūnas Khān’s children. Her they made go forth (chīqārīb īdīlār)Fol. 12. to Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā; by him she had one child, Sl. Wais (Khān Mīrzā), mention of whom will come into this history. When Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā died (900 AH.-1495 AD.), she took her son off to her brothers in Tāshkīnt without a word to any single person. They, a few years later, gave her to Adik (Aūng) Sult̤ān,[157] a Qāzāq sult̤ān of the line of Jūjī Khān, Chīngīz Khān’s eldest son. When Shaibānī Khān defeated the Khāns (her brothers), and took Tāshkīnt and Shāhrukhiya (908 AH.), she got away with 10 or 12 of her Mughūl servants, to (her husband), Adik Sult̤ān. She had two daughters by Adik Sult̤ān; one she gave to a Shaibān sult̤ān, the other to Rashīd Sult̤ān, the son of (her cousin) Sl. Sa‘īd Khān. After Adik Sult̤ān’s death, (his brother), Qāsim Khān, Khān of the Qāzāq horde, took her.[158] Of all the Qāzāq khāns and sult̤āns, no one, they say, ever kept the horde in such good order as he; his army was reckoned at 300,000 men. On his death the Khānīm went to Sl. Sa‘īd Khān’s presence in Kāshghar. Daulat-sult̤ān Khānīm was Yūnas Khān’s youngest child. Fol. 12b.In the Tāshkīnt disaster (908 AH.) she fell to Tīmūr Sult̤ān, the son of Shaibānī Khān. By him she had one daughter; they got out of Samarkand with me (918 AH.-1512 AD.), spent three or four years in the Badakhshān country, then went (923 AH.-1420 AD.) to Sl. Sa‘īd Khān’s presence in Kāshghar.[159]
(k. Account resumed of Bābur’s father’s family.)
In ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s ḥaram was also Aūlūs Āghā, a daughter of Khwāja Ḥusain Beg; her one daughter died in infancy and they sent her out of the ḥaram a year or eighteen months later. Fāt̤ima-sult̤ān Āghā was another; she was of the Mughūl tūmān-begs and the first taken of his wives. Qarāgūz (Makhdūm sult̤ān) Begīm was another; the Mīrzā took her towards the end of his life; she was much beloved, so to please him, they made her out descended from (his uncle) Minūchihr Mīrzā, the elder brother of Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā. He had many mistresses and concubines; one, Umīd Āghāchā died before him. Latterly there were also Tūn-sult̤ān (var. Yun) of the Mughūls and Āghā Sult̤ān.
l. ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s Amīrs.
There was Khudāī-bīrdī Tūghchī Tīmūr-tāsh, a descendant of the brother of Āq-būghā Beg, the Governor of Hīrī (Herāt, for Tīmūr Beg.) When Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā, after besieging Jūkī Mīrzā (Shāhrukhī) in Shāhrukhiya (868AH.-1464AD.) gave the Fol. 13.Farghāna country to ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā, he put this Khudāī-bīrdī Beg at the head of the Mīrzā’s Gate.[160] Khudāī-bīrdī was then 25 but youth notwithstanding, his rules and management were very good indeed. A few years later when Ibrāhīm Begchīk was plundering near Aūsh, he followed him up, fought him, was beaten and became a martyr. At the time, Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā was in the summer pastures of Āq Qāchghāī, in Aūrā-tīpā, 18 yīghāch east of Samarkand, and Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā was at Bābā Khākī, 12 yīghāch east of Hīrī. People sent the news post-haste to the Mīrzā(s),[161] having humbly represented it through ‘Abdu’l-wahhāb Shaghāwal. In four days it was carried those 120 yīghāch of road.[162]
Ḥāfiẓ Muḥammad Beg Dūldāī was another, Sl. Malik Kāshgharī’s son and a younger brother of Aḥmad Ḥājī Beg. After the death of Khudāī-bīrdī Beg, they sent him to control ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā’s Gate, but he did not get on well with the Andijān begs and therefore, when Sl. Abū-sa‘īd Mīrzā died, went to Samarkand and took service with Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā. At the time of the disaster on the Chīr, he was in Aūrā-tīpā and made it over to ‘Umar Shaikh Mīrzā when the Mīrzā Fol. 13b.passed through on his way to Samarkand, himself taking service with him. The Mīrzā, for his part, gave him the Andijān Command. Later on he went to Sl. Maḥmūd Khān in Tāshkīnt and was there entrusted with the guardianship of Khān Mīrzā (Wais) and given Dīzak. He had started for Makka by way of Hind before I took Kābul (910AH. Oct. 1504AD.), but he went to God’s mercy on the road. He was a simple person, of few words and not clever.
Khwāja Ḥusain Beg was another, a good-natured and simple person. It is said that, after the fashion of those days, he used to improvise very well at drinking parties.[163]