Mahdī Khwāja.

Niāmu-d-dīn Aḥmad has included in his abaqāt-i-akbarī a story which he heard from his father Muḥam-mad Muqīm Harāwī, and of which the purport is that Bābar's Khalīfa (Niāmu-d-dīn 'Alī Barlās) had at one time thought of placing a certain Mahdī Khwāja on the throne in succession to Bābar.

Two circumstances cast doubt on the story: (1) It was customary in Bābar's family for a son to succeed his father; (2) Bābar left four sons, the youngest of whom, Hindāl, was eleven years old.

Moreover, there were Tīmūrids both of the Bāyqrā and Mīrān-shāhī branches in India with Bābar whose claims to a Tīmūrid throne would be strongly enforced.

But Niāmu-d-dīn Aḥmad has left us the story in circumstantial detail and it cannot be passed over unnoticed, and this the less because Gul-badan Begam throws some light on the identity of the Mahdī con­cerned, and also because in an important particular, i.e., the relation of Mahdī to Bābar, I am able, through Mr. Beveridge's study of the Ḥabību-s-siyār, to give more accurate information than was at Mr. Erskine's disposal.

The story was old when Niāmu-d-dīn set it down and it is not necessary to accept all its details as exact. It is sufficient to consider its minimum contents which are, that in the royal household there had been a rumour of a plan of supersession of Bābar's sons by Mahdī Khwāja at the instance of Khalīfa.

The question naturally arises, who was the man concerning whom such intention could be attributed to the wise and experienced Khalīfa?

Niāmu-d-dīn calls Mahdī Bābar's damād, and Mr. Erskine, amongst other translators, has rendered this by son-in-law. It is unnecessary to consider why any Mahdī Khwāja known in history should have been preferred to those sons-in-law who were of Bābar's own blood, because Gul-badan calls Mahdī Bābar's yazna. For this word the dictionaries yield only the meaning of ‘brother-in-law’ and ‘husband of the king's sister.’ Both these meanings are also attributed to damād. But the Ḥabīb settles the verbal question by a statement that Mahdī Khwāja was the husband of Khān-zāda Begam, Bābar's full sister.

It is not improbable that he had another close link with the Emperor, namely that of relationship to Māham Begam, but I am not yet able to assert this definitely.

Bābar never mentions Mahdī Khwāja's parentage. This is learned from Khwānd-amīr who states that he was the son of Mūsa Khwāja and grandson of Murtaza Khwāja. He was a sayyid; and from the circumstance that his burial-place was chosen as that of Sayyid Abū'l-ma'ālī Termiẕī, it may be inferred that he belonged to the religious house of Termiẕ. If so, he had probably Tīmūrid blood in his veins, since inter­marriage between the families was frequent.

Bābar mentions a Khwāja Mūsa who is perhaps Mahdī's father, in 914H., 1508. He immediately afterwards names Khwāja Muḥammad 'Alī, Māham Begam's brother, in suggestive sequence.

Bābar's first surviving record of Mahdī is made in 925H. (February, 1519) when ‘Mīr Muḥammad Mahdī Khwāja’ brings in a prisoner. It is in cir. 923H. (1517) that Khwānd-amīr speaks of the marriage of Mahdī and Khān-zāda, but this is probably a good deal after the fact, because Khān-zāda was returned to Bābar in 917H. (1511).

Mahdī Khwāja, as Bābar invariably calls him after his first appearance, went to Hindūstān with Bābar and is frequently mentioned. It is significant of his high position and presumably not only by marriage but by birth, that on military duty he is always associated with men of royal blood, either Tīmūrid or Chaghatāī. He is sometimes given precedence of them, and is never named last in a list of officers. Chīn-tīmūr Chaghatāī, Muḥammad Sulān Mīrzā Bāyqrā, Sulān Mīrzā Mīrān-shāhī, and 'Ādil Sulān are constantly associated with him. It seems clear that he was a great noble and ranked amongst the highest. Khāfī Khān calls him Sayyid Khwāja, and so does Khwānd-amīr. Whether the ‘Khwāja’ indicates anything as to his mother's marriage I am not able to say.

Khāfī Khān (I. 42) has a passage which may relate to him: Sulān Mīrzā wa Mahdī Sulān binī a'māmrā (of Bābar) ki asīr-i-ān juma' būdand khalāṣ sakht. The date of the occurrence is cir. 1511, the year in which another Mahdī, i.e., Uzbeg, was killed by Bābar. Mr. Erskine appears to think that the two men, named here as released, were Ḥamza and Mahdī Sulāns Uzbeg, but the sources do not give the style of Mīrzā to either of these chiefs. They appear to have had marriage connections with Bābar in an earlier genera­tion, and a son of Mahdī seems to have been 'Ādil Sulān (Mems., 363) who was father of 'Āqil Sulān Uzbeg (Akbar-nāma, I. 221).

A Mahdī Khwāja who was undoubtedly of Bābar's family, appears both in the Tārīkh-i-rashīdī and in Gul-badan Begam's Humāyūn-nāma. He is the son of Aiman, and grandson of Sulān Aḥmad Khān Chaghatāī, Bābar's mother's brother. But his age places him out of the question; he was about ten in 1530, and the hero of Niāmu-d-dīn's story stroked his beard, and was either a damād or a yazna. Mahdī Chaghatāī, moreover, reached India after Bābar's death.*

The abaqāt states that Mahdī Khwāja had long been connected with Khalīfa; the latter was himself a sayyid.

Niāmu-d-dīn calls Mahdī a jūwan and Mr. Erskine has accentuated all the faults and characteristics of youth in his version of the story. But Gul-badan calls Hindāl an uninjurious youth at thirty-three, and there seems good ground to read often in jūwan the notion of vigour and strength rather than exclusively of fewness of years. In 1530 Mahdī had served Bābar eleven known years.

Like many other such small problems, that of the family connections of Mahdī Khwāja and the other men of his name may be solved by some chance passage in a less known author, or by a closer con­sideration of the personages of the Memoirs.

Mems., 255, 303, 305-307, 338, 340-342, 344, 345, 349, 352,
363, 370, 371, 401, 426.*
Akbar-nāma, s.n., 'Áqil Sulān and Mahdī.
Khāfī Khān, Bib. Ind. ed., s.n..
Ḥabibu-s-siyār, Khwānd-amīr, under date cir. 923H..
Cf. Index to this volume, s.n. Mahdī.