[1180] Bābur gives the Mīrzās precedence by age, ignoring Muz̤affar’s position as joint-ruler.
[1181] mubālgha qīldī; perhaps he laid stress on their excuse; perhaps did more than was ceremonially incumbent on him.
[1182] ‘irq, to which estrade answers in its sense of a carpet on which stands a raised seat.
[1183] Perhaps it was a recess, resembling a gate-way (W.-i-B. I.O. 215 f. 151 and 217 f. 127b). The impression conveyed by Bābur’s words here to the artist who in B.M. Or. 3714, has depicted the scene, is that there was a vestibule opening into the tent by a door and that the Mīrzā sat near that door. It must be said however that the illustration does not closely follow the text, in some known details.
[1184] shīra, fruit-syrups, sherbets. Bābur’s word for wine is chāghīr (q.v. index) and this reception being public, wine could hardly have been offered in Sunnī Herī. Bābur’s strictures can apply to the vessels of precious metal he mentions, these being forbidden to Musalmāns; from his reference to the Tūra it would appear to repeat the same injunctions. Bābur broke up such vessels before the battle of Kanwāha (f. 315). Shāh-i-jahān did the same; when sent by his father Jahāngīr to reconquer the Deccan (1030 AH.-1621 AD.) he asked permission to follow the example of his ancestor Bābur, renounced wine, poured his stock into the Chaṃbal, broke up his cups and gave the fragments to the poor (‘Amal-i-ṣāliḥ, Hughes’ Dict. of Islām quoting the Hidāyah and Mishkāt, s.nn. Drinkables, Drinking-vessels, and Gold; Lane’s Modern Egyptians p. 125 n.).
[1185] This may be the Rabāt̤-i-sanghī of some maps, on a near road between the “Forty-daughters” and Harāt; or Bābur may have gone out of his direct way to visit Rabāt̤-i-sang-bast, a renowned halting place at the Carfax of the Herī-T̤ūs and Nishāpūr-Mashhad roads, built by one Arslān Jazāla who lies buried near, and rebuilt with great magnificence by ‘Alī-sher Nawā’i (Daulat-shāh, Browne, p. 176).
[1186] The wording here is confusing to those lacking family details. The paternal-aunt begīms can be Pāyanda-sult̤ān (named), Khadīja-sult̤ān, Apāq-sult̤ān, and Fakhr-jahān Begīms, all daughters of Abū-sa‘īd. The Apāq Begīm named above (also on f. 168b q.v.) does not now seem to me to be Abū-sa‘īd’s daughter (Gul-badan, trs. Bio. App.).
[1187] yūkūnmāī. Unless all copies I have seen reproduce a primary clerical mistake of Bābur’s, the change of salutation indicated by there being no kneeling with Apāq Begīm, points to a nuance of etiquette. Of the verb yūkūnmāk it may be noted that it both describes the ceremonious attitude of intercourse, i.e. kneeling and sitting back on both heels (Shaw), and also the kneeling on meeting. From Bābur’s phrase Begīm bīla yūkūnūb [having kneeled with], it appears that each of those meeting made the genuflection; I have not found the phrase used of other meetings; it is not the one used when a junior or a man of less degree meets a senior or superior in rank (e.g. Khusrau and Bābur f. 123, or Bābur and Badī‘u’z-zamān f. 186).
[1188] Musalmāns employ a set of readers who succeed one another in reading (reciting) the Qorān at the tombs of their men of eminence. This reading is sometimes continued day and night. The readers are paid by the rent of lands or other funds assigned for the purpose (Erskine).
[1189] A suspicion that Khadīja put poison in Jahāngīr’s wine may refer to this occasion (T.R. p. 199).