The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)Babur, Emperor of Hindustan
History
The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur)
Babur, Emperor of Hindustan
Babur, Emperor of Hindustan, 1483-1530; Mogul Empire
This quatrain recalls one by the Mullā.[991] Kīchīk Mīrzā made the
circuit of the _ka'ba_ towards the end of his life.
Badka (Badī`u'l-jamāl) Begīm also was older[992] than the Mīrzā. She was
given in the guerilla times to Aḥmad Khān of Ḥājī-tarkhān;[993] by him
she had two sons (Sl. Maḥmūd Khān and Bahādur Sl.) who went to Herī and
were in the Mīrzā's service.
(_b._) _His appearance and habits._
He was slant-eyed (_qīyik gūzlūq_) and lion-bodied, being slender from
the waist downwards. Even when old and white-bearded, he wore silken
garments of fine red and green. He used to wear either the black
lambskin cap (_būrk_) or the _qālpāq_,[994] but on a Feast-day would
sometimes set up a little three-fold turban, wound broad and badly,[995]
stick a heron's plume in it and so go to Prayers.
When he first took Herī, he thought of reciting the names of [Sidenote:
Fol. 164b.] the Twelve Imāms in the _khuṯba_,[996] but `Alī-sher Beg and
others prevented it; thereafter all his important acts were done in
accordance with orthodox law. He could not perform the Prayers on
account of a trouble in the joints,[997] and he kept no fasts. He was
lively and pleasant, rather immoderate in temper, and with words that
matched his temper. He shewed great respect for the law in several
weighty matters; he once surrendered to the Avengers of blood a son of
his own who had killed a man, and had him taken to the Judgment-gate
(_Dāru'l-qaẓā_). He was abstinent for six or seven years after he took
the throne; later on he degraded himself to drink. During the almost 40
years of his rule[998] in Khurāsān, there may not have been one single
day on which he did not drink after the Mid-day prayer; earlier than
that however he did not drink. What happened with his sons, the soldiers
and the town was that every-one pursued vice and pleasure to excess.
Bold and daring he was! Time and again he got to work with his own
sword, getting his own hand in wherever he arrayed to fight; no man of
Tīmūr Beg's line has been known to match him in the slashing of swords.
He had a leaning to poetry and even put a _dīwān_ together, writing in
Turkī with Ḥusainī for his pen-name.[999] Many couplets in his _dīwān_
are not bad; it is however in one and the same metre throughout. Great
ruler though he was, [Sidenote: Fol. 165.] both by the length of his
reign (_yāsh_) and the breadth of his dominions, he yet, like little
people kept fighting-rams, flew pigeons and fought cocks.
(_c._) _His wars and encounters._[1000]
He swam the Gurgān-water[1001] in his guerilla days and gave a party of
Aūzbegs a good beating.
Again,—with 60 men he fell on 3000 under Pay-master Muḥammad `Alī, sent
ahead by Sl. Abū-sa`īd Mīrzā, and gave them a downright good beating
(868 AH.). This was his one fine, out-standing feat-of-arms.[1002]
Again,—he fought and beat Sl. Maḥmūd Mīrzā near Astarābād (865
AH.).[1003]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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