[345] Interesting reference may be made, amongst the many books on Samarkand, to Sharafu’d-dīn ‘Alī Yazdī’s Z̤afar-nāma Bib. Ind. ed. i, 300, 781, 799, 800 and ii, 6, 194, 596 etc.; to Ruy Gonzalves di Clavijo’s Embassy to Tīmūr (Markham) cap. vi and vii; to Ujfalvy’s Turkistan ii, 79 and Madame Ujfalvy’s De Paris à Samarcande p. 161,—these two containing a plan of the town; to Schuyler’s Turkistan; to Kostenko’s Turkistan Gazetteer i, 345; to Réclus, vi, 270 and plan; and to a beautiful work of the St. Petersburg Archæological Society, Les Mosquées de Samarcande, of which the B.M. has a copy.
[346] This statement is confused in the Elp. and Ḥai. MSS. The second appears to give, by abjad, lat. 40° 6" and long. 99'. Mr. Erskine (p. 48) gives lat. 39’ 57" and long. 99’ 16”, noting that this is according to Ūlūgh Beg’s Tables and that the long. is calculated from Ferro. The Ency. Br. of 1910-11 gives lat. 39’ 39" and long. 66’ 45”.
[347] The enigmatical cognomen, Protected Town, is of early date; it is used i.a. by Ibn Batūta in the 14th. century. Bābur’s tense refers it to the past. The town had frequently changed hands in historic times before he wrote. The name may be due to immunity from damage to the buildings in the town. Even Chīngīz Khān’s capture (1222 AD.) left the place well-preserved and its lands cultivated, but it inflicted great loss of men. Cf. Schuyler i, 236 and his authorities, especially Bretschneider.
[348] Here is a good example of Bābur’s caution in narrative. He does not affirm that Samarkand became Musalmān, or (infra) that Quṣam ibn ‘Abbās went, or that Alexander founded but in each case uses the presumptive past tense, resp. būlghān dūr, bārghān dūr, bīnā qīlghān dūr, thus showing that he repeats what may be inferred or presumed and not what he himself asserts.
[349] i.e. of Muḥammad. See Z̤.N. ii, 193.
[350] i.e. Fat Village. His text misleading him, Mr. Erskine makes here the useful irrelevant note that Persians and Arabs call the place Samar-qand and Turks, Samar-kand, the former using qaf (q), the latter kaf (k). Both the Elph. and the Ḥai. MSS. write Samarqand.
For use of the name Fat Village, see Clavijo (Markham p. 170), Simesquinte, and Bretschneider’s Mediæval Geography pp. 61, 64, 66 and 163.
[351] qadam. Kostenko (i, 344) gives 9 m. as the circumference of the old walls and 1-2/3m. as that of the citadel. See Mde. Ujfalvy p. 175 for a picture of the walls.
[352] Ma‘lūm aīmās kīm mūncha paidā būlmīsh būlghāī; an idiomatic phrase.
[353] d. 333 AH. (944 AD.). See D’Herbélot art. Mātridī p. 572.