[2730] In an anonymous Life of Shāh Ismā‘īl Ṣafawī, Mahdī Khwāja [who may be a son of the Mūsa Khwāja mentioned by Bābur on f. 216] is described as being, in what will be 916-7 AH., Bābur’s Dīwān-begī and as sent towards Bukhārā with 10,000 men. This was 29 years before the story calls him a young man. Even if the word jawān (young man) be read, as T. yīgīt is frequently to be read, in the sense of “efficient fighting man”, Mahdī was over-age. Other details of the story, besides the word jawān, bespeak a younger man.
[2731] G. B.’s H. N. trs. p. 126; Ḥabību’s-siyar, B. M. Add. 16,679 f. 370, l. 16, lith. ed. Sec. III. iii, 372 (where a clerical error makes Bābur give Māhdī two of his full-sisters in marriage).—Another yazna of Bābur was Khalīfā’s brother Junaid Barlās, the husband of Shahr-bānū, a half-sister of Bābur.
[2732] Bābur, shortly before his death, married Gul-rang to Aīsān-tīmūr and Gul-chihra to Tūkhta-būghā Chaghatāī. Cf. post, Section h, Bābur’s wives and children; and G. B.’s H. N. trs. Biographical Appendix s.nn. Dil-dār Begīm and Salīma Sult̤ān Begīm Mirān-shāhi.
[2733] Cf. G. B.’s H. N. trs. p. 147.
[2734] She is the only adult daughter of a Tīmūrid mother named as being such by Bābur or Gul-badan, but various considerations incline to the opinion that Dil-dār Begīm also was a Tīmūrid, hence her three daughters, all named from the Rose, were so too. Cf. references of penultimate note.
[2735] It attaches interest to the Mīrzā that he can be taken reasonably as once the owner of the Elphinstone Codex (cf. JRAS. 1907, pp. 136 and 137).
[2736] Death did not threaten when this gift was made; life in Kābul was planned for.—Here attention is asked again to the value of Aḥmad-i-yādgār’s Bāburiana for removing the impression set on many writers by the blank year 936 AH. that it was one of illness, instead of being one of travel, hunting and sight-seeing. The details of the activities of that year have the further value that they enhance the worth of Bābur’s sacrifice of life.—Ḥaidar Mīrzā also fixes the date of the beginning of illness as 937 AH.
[2737] The author, or embroiderer, of that anonymous story did not know the Bābur-nāma well, or he would not have described Bābur as a wine-drinker after 933 AH. The anecdote is parallel with Niz̤āmu’d-dīn Aḥmad’s, the one explaining why the Mīrzā was selected, the other why the dāmād was dropped.
[2738] Bib. Ind. i, 341; Ranking’s trs. p. 448.
[2739] The night-guard; perhaps Māhīm Begīm’s brother (G. B.’s H. N. trs. pp. 27-8).