Summary

Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad (Andijan, February 14, 1483 - Agra, December 26, 1530) was the founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. A direct descendant of Tamerlane, he succeeded through a long series of military successes in establishing one of the most important and powerful empires in Indian history.

Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad-known as Bābur (in Persian بابُر)-was born on February 14, 1483, in the city of Andijān, an important stop on a branch of the Silk Road, between Kashgar (in present-day Chinese Xinjiang), Osh (in present-day Kyrgyzstan), and Kokand (in the western part of the Ferghana Valley, in present-day Uzbekistan). He was the eldest son of the Timurid ruler of the Fergana Valley, ʿUmar Shaykh Mīrzā, and his wife, the noble Ṭughlāq Nigār Khānūm, a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. Although he belonged to the nomadic Mongol Barlas tribe, his family embraced the culture of the Turkic and Persian peoples and converted to the Islamic religion.

His mother tongue was Chagatai Mongolian (which he himself called Tōrki, or Turki) but he was also perfectly comfortable with Persian, which was considered the vehicular language of Islamic culture and the lingua franca of the entire elite of the Timurid dynasty. His autobiography, the Bāburnāme or The Book of Bābur, was written by him in the Chagatai language, however, and in it we read:

Thus Bābur, although formally Mongol (or Mogol, in Persian), drew much of his support from the Turkic and Iranian populations of Central Asia; consequently, his army was of varied ethnic composition, including Persians (Tajiks or sart, as he called them), Pashtuns, and Arabs, as well as Turkic-Mongolian barlas and ciagatai (the lineage of Ciagatai, son of Genghis Khan). There was also a component of Kizilbaş (Red Heads) fighters: a military religious order transfused from Turkic Sunnism and switched to Persian Shiism; later this component would become of great importance in the Mughal court.

Tradition has it that Bābur was very strong and physically fit, so much so that he was able to load a man on each of his shoulders, and that he loved to swim across every river he encountered in his path, including twice the Ganges.

The name

Ẓahīr al-Dīn is more commonly known as Bābur, a word of Indo-European origin that would mean "leopard," "panther," or "tiger" (Persian: babr). In fact, Bābur's cousin, Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥaydar, wrote:

In 1494 at only twelve years of age, Bābur obtained his first prestigious role, taking his father's place as governor of the city of Fergana in present-day eastern Uzbekistan. However, his uncles tried relentlessly to deprive him of this office, and for this reason Bābur spent much of his youth without a real home and often in forced exile (not infrequently in Osh in Kyrgyzstan, where the supposedly tumbledown remains of his home can still be visited today), aided only by friends and peasants. In 1497 he attacked Uzbek Samarkand and after seven months of siege succeeded in conquering it. During this time, a rebellion that broke out among the nobles of his governorate deprived him of Fergana. On the march to the city, of which he intended to regain possession, Bābur suffered the defection of most of his remaining soldiers in Samarkand, thus losing both cities.

In 1501, he succeeded in retaking Samarkand, but lost it almost immediately, defeated by his bitterest enemy, the Uzbek khan Muḥammad Shaybānī. He then fled from Fergana and hid in exile. Bābur spent the next three years gathering a powerful army, recruiting men mainly from among the Tajiks of the Badakhshan region. Thus it was that in 1504 he crossed the snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush and took Kabul, conquering with bold and risky tactics a new and very rich kingdom and assuming the ambitious title of Padishāh (King of Kings).

In 1505 Bābur allied himself with the ruler of Herāt, Ḥusayn Bāyqarā, also a member of the Timurid dynasty and his distant relative; together, Bābur and Ḥusayn Bāyqarā prepared to fight the usurper. The unexpected death of his ally in 1506 forced Bābur to delay the venture, seeking in the meantime to settle in Herāt but eventually having to give it up for lack of resources and supplies. However, he was extraordinarily impressed by the cultural and intellectual richness of Herāt, and especially by the ethnic Uyghur poet Mīr ʿAlī Shīr Navāʾī, who encouraged the use of ciagatai as a literary language. It was perhaps for this reason that Bābur himself used it in writing his memoirs.

The ferment of an uprising subsequently induced him to return to Kabul from Herāt. There, he managed to impose himself by force of arms, but two years later a revolt among some of his top generals drove him from the city. Escaping with very few comrades, after a short time Bābur was back, retaking Kabul and obtaining the rebels' act of submission. In 1510 shortly before the death in battle of the Uzbek Muḥammad Shaybānī Khān Özbeg (917-1512), at the hands of the Safavid Shāh of Persia Ismāʿīl I, Bābur seized the opportunity to launch himself to reconquer his ancestral Timurid territories. In the years immediately following, Bābur and Shah Ismāʿīl formed an alliance to try to conquer parts of Central Asia. In return for Ismāʿīl's assistance, Bābur agreed to become a vassal of the Safavids. As a reward, Ismāʿīl handed back to Bābur his sister Khānzāda, who had been imprisoned and forced to marry the late Muḥammad Shaybānī. Also obtaining many rich and luxurious gifts, as well as military assistance, Bābur reciprocated by adopting the dress and customs of the Shiite Muslims, of whom the Shah of Persia had become the supreme champion.

With Persian assistance, Bābur marched on Bukhara, where his army was apparently welcomed as liberators. As a Timurid, Bābur appeared more legitimized than the Uzbeks. In October 1511 he made a triumphant return to Samarkand after a ten-year absence. Dressed in Shiite fashion, he towered stiffly over the Sunni crowds gathered to welcome him in triumph. All this was done to please the Persians, whom Bābur was aware he still needed, still fearing the Uzbeks (as his cousin Haydar wrote). This turned the Sunni component of his new subjects against him and ended up leading to the return of the Uzbeks eight months later.

However, the Safavids were defeated at the Battle of Ghujduwān, and Bābur lost Samarkand and had to return in 1512 to Kābul.

Writing in retrospect, Bābur said he had failed to conquer Samarkand, which was the greatest of gifts Allah could bestow on him. He had now given up all hope of regaining his lordship of Fergana, and although he feared terribly an Uzbek aggression from the west, his attention turned increasingly toward India.

Indeed, he claimed to be the true and legitimate monarch of the Sayyid dynasty lands, as he considered himself the rightful heir to Tamerlane's throne. It was indeed Tamerlane who had originally left Khiżr Khān as his vassal in the Punjab, and the latter had become lord (sultan) of the Delhi sultanate, founding the aforementioned dynasty. However, the Sayyid dynasty had been dislodged by Ibrāhīm Lōdī (or Lōdhī), an Afghan of the Ghilzai, and Bābur demanded that the territory be returned to him. Therefore, while actively gathering the necessary military force for the invasion of the Punjab, he sent a request to Ibrāhīm Lōdī, claiming "the countries that anciently depended on the Turks," namely the lands of the Delhi Sultanate.

Given Ibrāhīm Lōdī's obvious unwillingness to agree to the terms of the request, and while in no hurry to carry out a full-scale invasion, Bābur proceeded with several preliminary raids, in the course of which he took Kandahār, a strategic place to repel possible attacks on Kabul while occupied in India. However, the siege lasted much longer than expected, and it was not until three years later that Kandahār and its formidable citadel were taken. From that time raids into India resumed, but it was in the course of them that an opportunity arose for a far more ambitious expedition: namely, an attack on Parwala, a Gakhar stronghold (1521), which led to the end of Ibrāhīm Lōdī's empire.

The part of Bābur's memoirs referring to the period between 1508 and 1519 is missing. During those years the Safavid Shah Ismāʿīl I suffered a major defeat when his large cavalry-based army was annihilated at the Battle of Cialdiran by the Ottoman Empire's new weapon, the fuse musket. It appears, however, that both he and Bābur had quickly procured this technology for themselves. Bābur also hired an Ottoman, Ustad ʿAli, to train his troops.

The battle against Ibrāhīm Lōdī

While the Timurids were united, the armies of the Lōdī (or Lōdhī) dynasty were far from it. Ibrāhīm was widely disliked, even among his nobles, and it was several of his Afghan nobles who called for the intervention of Bābur, who gathered an army of 12,000 men and entered India. The number gradually swelled as the advance progressed, as many men from the local populations joined the invading army. The first major clash between the two forces occurred in late February 1526. Bābur's favorite son Humāyūn (then 17 years old) led the Timurid army into battle against Ibrāhīm's first vanguards. His victory cost more effort than the previous skirmishes, but it was a decisive victory. More than 100 prisoners were taken, along with eight elephants. However, unlike in the past, these prisoners were not chained or freed, but by Humāyūn's orders were shot. In his memoirs Bābur reported, "Ustad ʿAli-quli and the musketeers were ordered to shoot the prisoners as an example; it had been Humāyūn's first feat, his first experience of combat, it was an excellent omen." This is perhaps the earliest example of the use of a firing squad.

Ibrāhīm Lōdī advanced with 100,000 soldiers and 100 elephants, while Bābur's army, although increased in strength, numbered half as many, perhaps as few as 25,000 men. At the Battle of Pānīpat (April 21, 1526) Ibrāhīm Lōdī's throat was cut and his army routed, after which Bābur quickly took possession of both Delhi and Āgrā. That same day Bābur had in fact ordered Humāyūn to advance to the latter (formerly the capital of Ibrāhīm) to secure its treasures and resources from plunder. There Humāyūn found the relatives of the Rāja of Gwalior (who died at Panipat), who were seeking refuge from the invaders, terrified by what they had heard about the Mongols. Having obtained assurance of safety, they gave their new lord a famous jewel, the diamond that was long the largest in the world, the Koh-i-Noor, the "Mountain of Light."

Battles with the Rajputs

Although now ruler of Delhi and Agra, Bābur reports in his memoirs that he spent sleepless nights due to the constant worries caused him by Rana Sanga, Rajput lord of Mewar. Before Bābur's intervention, the Rajputs had conquered part of the sultanate's territories and ruled a vast area southwest of its new possessions, commonly known as Rajputana. This was not a United Kingdom, however, but rather a confederation of lordships under the informal sovereignty of Rana Sanga.

The Rajputs had probably gotten wind of the heavy losses inflicted by Ibrāhīm Lōdī on Bābur's forces, so they were convinced that they could conquer Delhi and perhaps even all of Hindustan, hoping to bring it back into Rajput-Indu hands for the first time in 330 years, that is, since Muḥammad of Ghor had defeated Prithviraj III, King Chauan of the Rajputs (1192).

Moreover, the Rajputs were aware that there were disagreements among the ranks of the Bābur army. The hot Indian summer had descended upon them, and most of the troops wanted to return home to the cooler climes of Central Asia. The Rajputs' reputation for valor had preceded them, and their numerical superiority intimidated Bābur's forces. Instead, Bābur had decided to turn the favorable situation into a broader conquest and push further into the interior of India, into territories never before claimed by the Timurids. So he needed his troops to defeat the Rajputs. Despite the army's resistance to engage in further warfare, Bābur was convinced that he could prevail over the Rajputs and gain complete control of Hindustan. So he propagated widely that for the first time he would have to fight against non-Muslims, that is, kāfirs (infidels). After that he required his men to line up to swear by the Qur'ān that it would "not occur to any of them to turn their backs on the enemy or to retreat from this deadly encounter until life is snatched from his body." At that point he began to give himself the designation of Ghazi, or Warrior for the Islamic Cause, a title down used by Tamerlane when he had fought in India.

The two armies clashed at Khanwa, 40 miles west of Agra. At first victorious, Sanga died within a year, possibly poisoned by one of his own ministers. Thus disappeared one of Bābur's main opponents. In return for the payment of regular tribute, the new lord allowed the Rajput princes to retain control of their principalities, as well as their customs and traditions.

Bābur was now the undisputed ruler of Hindustan (an expression that once denoted northwestern India and the Ganges plain) and began a period of further expansion. Each of the nobles or ʿumarāʾ he appointed was allowed to form his own army. And, in order to further imperial expansionist aims, many were assigned as jaghirs lands yet to be conquered, thus freeing Bābur from many of the problems associated with recruiting troops. At the same time he assigned to his sons the provinces furthest from his new center of operations: Kamran was assigned control of Kandahar, Askari that of Bengal, and Humāyūn the government of Badakshān, perhaps the most remote province of the expanding empire.

With the help of Ustad ʿAli, moreover, Bābur continued to use new technologies to improve his army. In addition to firearms, the two tried new types of siege weaponry, such as cannons, which Bābur recalls being capable of firing a large stone at a distance of almost a mile (although, he adds, the initial test left nine innocent bystanders dead on the ground). In addition to these, they experimented with bombs that exploded on impact. Finally, the strictest discipline was maintained in the organization of the army, with regular inspections.

Bābur traveled the country, admiring much of its terrain and vistas, and initiated the construction of a series of structures in which the pre-existing Hindu volutes of carved details mingled with traditional Muslim designs peculiar to Persians and Turks. He himself wrote with reverent wonder of the buildings at Chanderi, a village carved out of rock, and of the palace of Rāja Man Singh at Gwalior, reporting of them in the terms of "marvelous palaces, entirely carved out of rock." He was infuriated, on the other hand, by the Jain idols carved into the surface of the rock beneath the Gwalior fortress. "These idols are shown completely naked, without even covering their private parts.... I ordered their destruction." Fortunately, the statues were not destroyed completely, but their genitals and faces were removed (the latter later restored by modern sculptors).

To remind himself of the lands he had left behind, Bābur began the creation of delightful gardens throughout the palaces and provinces, where he used to sit to find shade from the fierce Indian sun. He tried as much as possible to recreate those in Kabul, which he considered the most beautiful in the world and in one of which he eventually wished to be buried (the Bāgh-e Bābur, or Garden of Bābur). "In that Hindustan devoid of charm and order, gardens were created without order and symmetry." Nearly thirty pages of his memoirs are taken up with descriptions of the fauna and flora of that Hindustan.

At the end of 1528 Bābur celebrated a great feast, or tamasha. All the nobles from the different regions of his empire were gathered, together with every nobleman who camped a lineage from Tamerlane or Genghis Khan. It was a celebration of his Chinggiskhanid lineage, and when the guests were all seated in a semicircle (with him in the center), the one furthest from Bābur was over 100 meters away. The immense banquet was accompanied by gifts and performances of animal fighting, wrestling, dancing and acrobatics. Guests offered the emperor tribute in gold and silver and received in turn sword belts and cloaks of honor (khalat). Among the guests were several Uzbeks (those who had driven the Timurids out of Central Asia and were occupying Samarkand at that time), and a group of peasants from Transoxiana, who were rewarded for being friendly toward Bābur and helping him when he was not yet a powerful ruler.

When the feast concluded, many of the gifts offered to him were sent to Kabul "to adorn the ladies" of his family. Bābur was excessively generous with regard to riches, so much so that at the time of his death the empire's coffers were almost empty: troops were even ordered to return a third of their income to the treasury. The emperor's extravagance did not go unnoticed. He was a heavy drinker and consumer of hashish, perhaps as a means of alleviating the various ailments from which he suffered: he famously spat blood and had several pustules on his body, suffered from sciatica, and more blood oozed from his ears. The above-mentioned substances were strictly forbidden by the orthodox doctrines of Islam, but in the Bābur-nāme he himself writes without censure of his relatives in Fergana who consumed strong liquors in abundance. So, he, a "Warrior of Faith," indulged in the forbidden (ḥaram).

On May 6, 1529, Bābur defeated Maḥmūd Lodī, Ibrāhīm's brother. With the Battle of Ghagra the last remnants of resistance in northern India were thus crushed.

When Babur fell seriously ill, Humayun was told of a plot by the noble elders to push aside his sons and appoint Mahdi Khwaja, husband of the emperor's sister, to succeed him. The young prince rushed to Agra, noting, however, upon his arrival that his father had recovered, although Mahdi Khwaja had lost all hope of becoming his successor after behaving with an arrogance that exceeded his authority during the lord's illness. But once he reached Agra it was Humayun himself who fell ill, coming close to death.

Bābur himself is said to have circled his sick son's bed, crying out to God to take his life instead of his son's. And according to later traditions, he did indeed fall ill, while conversely Humayun recovered. This does not seem accurate, however, since several months elapsed between Humayun's recovery and his father's death and Bābur's illness was a rather sudden affair. The emperor's last words seem to be addressed to his favorite son, Humayun: "Do nothing against your brothers, even if they might deserve it."

Bābur died at the age of 48, and, as expected, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Humayun. He would have liked to be buried in his favorite garden in Kabul, a city he had always loved, but he was first buried in a mausoleum in Agra, his capital. About nine years later, however, his wishes were granted by Sher Sha, and he was buried in a beautiful garden, the Bagh-e Babur in Kabul, now in Afghanistan. The inscription on his tomb reads (in Persian):

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4. ^ Contrazione di Amīr zādeh, ossia "figlio del Comandante".
5. ^ In realtà si trattava del colore del berretto, ma in turco baş significa anzitutto "testa" (poi "corona" o anche "cima").
6. ^ Per esempio in Jean-Paul Roux, op. cit. in Bibliografia (p. 124), anche se, secondo fonti inglesi, la parola "Babur" (anche traslitterata "Babar" o "Baber") equivarrebbe a beaver, ovvero "castoro". Osta però il fatto non trascurabile che il castoro in Asia non esiste.
7. ^ I Ghilzai erano la tribù più popolosa, di etnia pashtun, in Afghanistan.
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