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
Another district is Qarshī, known also as Nashaf and Nakhshab.[403]
Qarshī is a Mughūl name. In the Mughūl tongue they call a _kūr-khāna_
Qarshī.[404] The name must have come in after the rule of Chīngīz Khān.
Qarshī is somewhat scantily supplied with water; in spring it is very
beautiful and its grain and melons are good. It lies 18 _yīghāch_[405]
by road south and a little inclined to west of Samarkand. In the
district a small bird, known as the _qīl-qūyīrūgh_ and resembling the
_bāghrī qarā_, is found in such countless numbers that it goes by the
name of the Qarshī birdie (_murghak_).[406]
Khozār is another district; Karmīna another, lying between Samarkand and
Bukhārā; Qarā-kūl another, 7 _yīghāch_[407] n.w. of Bukhārā and at the
furthest limit of the water.
Samarkand has good _tūmāns_. One is Soghd with its dependencies. Its
head Yār-yīlāq, its foot Bukhārā, there may be not one single _yīghāch_
of earth without its village and its cultivated lands. So famous is it
that the saying attributed to Tīmūr Beg, 'I have a garden 30 _yīghāch_
long,[408] must have been spoken of Soghd. Another _tūmān_ is Shāvdār
(var. Shādwār), an excellent one adjoining the town-suburbs. On one side
it has the range (Aītmāk Dābān), lying between Samarkand and [Sidenote:
Fol. 50.] Shahr-i-sabz, on the skirts of which are many of its villages.
On the other side is the Kohik Water (_i.e._ the Dar-i-gham canal).
There it lies! an excellent _tūmān_, with fine air, full of beauty,
abounding in waters, its good things cheap. Observers of Egypt and Syria
have not pointed out its match.
Though Samarkand has other _tūmāns_, none rank with those enumerated;
with so much, enough has been said.
Tīmūr Beg gave the government of Samarkand to his eldest son, Jahāngīr
Mīrzā (in 776 AH.-1375 AD.); when Jahāngīr Mīrzā died (805 AH.-1403
AD.), he gave it to the Mīrzā's eldest son, Muḥammad Sulṯān-i-jahāngīr;
when Muḥammad Sulṯān Mīrzā died, it went to Shāh-rukh Mīrzā, Tīmūr Beg's
youngest son. Shāh-rukh Mīrzā gave the whole of Mā warā'u'n-nahr (in 872
AH.-1467 AD.) to his eldest son, Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā. From him his own son,
`Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā took it, (853 AH.-1449 AD.), for the sake of this
five days' fleeting world martyring a father so full of years and
knowledge.
The following chronogram gives the date of Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā's death:—
Aūlūgh Beg, an ocean of wisdom and science,
The pillar of realm and religion,
Sipped from the hand of `Abbās, the mead of martyrdom,
And the date of the death is _`Abbās kasht_ (`Abbās slew).[409]
Though `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā did not rule more than five or six months,
the following couplet was current about him:—
Ill does sovereignty befit the parricide;
Should he rule, be it for no more than six months.[410]
This chronogram of the death of `Abdu'l-laṯīf Mīrzā is also well done:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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