It would have accorded with Bābur’s custom if here he had mentioned the parentage of his father’s mother. Three times (fs. 17b, 70b, 96b) he writes of “Shāh Sulṯan Begīm” in a way allowing her to be taken as ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother. Nowhere, however, does he mention her parentage. One even cognate statement only have we discovered, viz. Khwānd-amīr’s (Ḥ.S. ii, 192) that ‘Umar Shaikh was the own younger brother (barādar khurdtar khūd) of Aḥmad and Maḥmūd. If his words mean that the three were full-brothers, ‘Umar Shaikh’s own mother was Ābū-sa‘īd’s Tarkhān wife. Bābur’s omission (f. 21b) to mention his father with A. and M. as a nephew of Darwesh Muḥammad Tarkhān would be negative testimony against taking Khwānd-amīr’s statement to mean “full-brother,” if clerical slips were not easy and if Khwānd-amir’s means of information were less good. He however both was the son of Maḥmūd’s wāzir (Ḥ.S. ii, 194) and supplemented his book in Bābur’s presence.
To a statement made by the writer of the biographies included in Kehr’s B.N. volume, that ‘U.S.’s family (aūmāgh) is not known, no weight can be attached, spite of the co-incidence that the Mongol form of aūmāgh, i.e. aūmāk means Mutter-leib. The biographies contain too many known mistakes for their compiler to outweigh Khwānd-amīr in authority.
[107] Cf. Rauzatu’ṣ-ṣafā vi, 266. (H.B.)
[108] Dara-i-gaz, south of Balkh. This historic feast took place at Merv in 870 AH. (1465 AD.). As ‘Umar Shaikh was then under ten, he may have been one of the Mīrzās concerned.
[109] Khudāī-bīrdī is a Pers.-Turkī hybrid equivalent of Theodore; tūghchī implies the right to use or (as hereditary standard-bearer,) to guard the tūgh; Tīmūr-tāsh may mean i.a. Friend of Tīmūr (a title not excluded here as borne by inheritance. Cf. f. 12b and note), Sword-friend (i.e. Companion-in-arms), and Iron-friend (i.e. stanch). Cf. Dict. s.n. Tīmūr-bāsh, a sobriquet of Charles XII.
[110] Elph. and Ḥai. MSS. qūbā yūzlūq; this is under-lined in the Elph. MS. by ya‘nī pur ghosht. Cf. f. 68b for the same phrase. The four earlier trss. viz. the two W.-i-B., the English and the French, have variants in this passage.
[111] The apposition may be between placing the turban-sash round the turban-cap in a single flat fold and winding it four times round after twisting it on itself. Cf. f. 18 and Hughes Dict. of Islām s.n. turban.
[112] qaẓālār, the prayers and fasts omitted when due, through war, travel sickness, etc.
[113] rawān sawādī bār īdī; perhaps, wrote a running hand. De C. i, 13, ses lectures courantes étaient....
[114] The dates of ‘Umar Shaikh’s limits of perusal allow the Quintets (Khamsatīn) here referred to to be those of Niz̤āmī and Amīr Khusrau of Dihlī. The Maṣnawī must be that of Jalālu’d-dīn Rūmī. (H.B.)