Mīrzā Ḥaydar Dughlāt

Ruler of Kashmir/Historian

Mīrzā Ḥaydar (his real name was Muḥammad Ḥaydar) was born in 905/1499-1500. Most of our knowledge of Mīrzā Ḥaydar is known from his own work, though Mughal empire founder Bābur devotes a few lines to him as do the historians Abū al-Fażl (see Abū al-Fażl ʿAllāmī) and Firištah (see Firishta). Following the assassination of his father, Mīrzā Ḥaydar fled from Boḫāra in 914/1508 and reached Kābul in 915/1509 upon which he was received as a son by his cousin Bābur (who refers to him as Ḥaydar Mīrzā). Three years later he left Bābur’s side and for the next twenty years he held a prominent position in the Mongol empire as restored by Saʾīd Ḫān. Following Saʾīd Ḫān’s death in 939/1533 and the ascension of ʾAbd al-Rašīd, Mīrzā Ḥaydar went over to the Tīmūrids. In 948/1541 he succeeded in conquering Kašmīr and founded a nearly independent kingdom for himself there. It was during his rule over Kašmīr that he wrote Tārīḫ-i Rashīdī. He was killed in 958/1551 during a rising of the native population.