[2700] Tārīkh-i-rashīdī trs. p. 387.
[2701] T.-i-R. trs. p. 353 et seq. and Mr. Ney Elias’ notes.
[2702] Abū’l-faẓl’s record of Humāyūn’s sayings and minor doings at this early date in his career, can hardly be anything more accurate than family-tradition.
[2703] The statement that Khalīfa was asked to go so far from where he was of the first importance as an administrator, leads to consideration of why it was done. So little is known explicitly of Bābur’s intentions about his territories after his death that it is possible only to put that little together and read between its lines. It may be that he was now planning an immediate retirement to Kābul and an apportionment during life of his dominions, such as Abū-sa‘īd had made of his own. If so, it would be desirable to have Badakhshān held in strength such as Khalīfa’s family could command, and especially desirable because as Barlās Turks, that family would be one with Bābur in desire to regain Transoxiana. Such a political motive would worthily explain the offer of the appointment.
[2704] The “Shāh” of this style is derived from Sulaimān’s Badakhshī descent through Shāh Begīm; the “Mīrzā” from his Mīrān-shāhī descent through his father Wais Khān Mīrzā. The title Khān Mīrzā or Mīrzā Khān, presumably according to the outlook of the speaker, was similarly derived from forbears, as would be also Shāh Begīm’s; (her personal name is not mentioned in the sources).
[2705] Sa‘īd, on the father’s, and Bābur, on the mother’s side, were of the same generation in descent from Yūnas Khān; Sulaimān was of a younger one, hence his pseudo-filial relation to the men of the elder one.
[2706] Sa‘īd was Shāh Begīm’s grandson through her son Aḥmad, Sulaimān her great-grandson through her daughter Sult̤ān-Nigār, but Sulaimān could claim also as the heir of his father who was nominated to rule by Shāh Begīm; moreover, he could claim by right of conquest on the father’s side, through Abū-sa‘īd the conqueror, his son Maḥmūd long the ruler, and so through Maḥmūd’s son Wais Khān Mīrzā.
[2707] The menace conveyed by these words would be made the more forceful by Bābur’s move to Lāhor, narrated by Aḥmad-i-yādgār. Some ill-result to Sa‘īd of independent rule by Sulaimān seems foreshadowed; was it that if Bābur’s restraining hand were withdrawn, the Badakhshīs would try to regain their lost districts and would have help in so-doing from Bābur?
[2708] It is open to conjecture that if affairs in Hindūstān had allowed it, Bābur would now have returned to Kābul. Aḥmad-i-yādgār makes the expedition to be one for pleasure only, and describes Bābur as hunting and sight-seeing for a year in Lāhor, the Panj-āb and near Dihlī. This appears a mere flourish of words, in view of the purposes the expedition served, and of the difficulties which had arisen in Lāhor itself and with Sa‘īd Khān. Part of the work effected may have been the despatch of an expedition to Kashmīr.
[2709] This appears a large amount.