While Abūsaīd was yet at Merv, Hassan Ali, the son of
Jehān Shah, the prince of the Turkomāns of the Black
Sheep, arrived from Irāk, where, by one of those reverses
so frequent in the East, his father had been defeated and
slain by the celebrated Ūzūn Hassan, the Beg of the Turkomāns
of the White Sheep. Hassan Ali now solicited
the protection and assistance of Abūsaīd, who gladly
undertook to restore him to his paternal dominions. The
expedition which followed is famous in eastern history, and
1467.
is often alluded to by Bābur, under the name of ‘the
disaster of Irāk’. Abūsaīd Mirza advanced into Azarbaijān
who
marches
into Azar-
baijān.
with a powerful army, subduing the country in his
course. He sent two detachments to take possession the
one of the Persian Irāk, the other of Fārs. As he pushed
on towards Ardebīl and Tabrīz, among the hills of Azarbaijān,
Ūzūn Hassan, alarmed at his progress, sent repeated
embassies to sue for peace; but in vain, as Abūsaīd, to
all his offers, annexed the condition that the Turkomān
should appear in his presence, and humble himself before
the descendant of Taimūr Beg. To this Ūzūn Hassan
refused to submit, and, reduced to despair, betook himself
to the hills and fastnesses in which the country abounds,
and employed himself indefatigably in harassing and
cutting off the supplies of the enemy, whom he prudently
avoided meeting in the field. What the sword could not
achieve was completed by famine. The large but tumultuary
army of Abūsaīd began to suffer from the pressure
of want, and no sooner suffered than it began to fall away.
The disas-
ter of Irāk.
The various chieftains and tribes of which it was composed
gradually withdrew each to his own country. The army
fell to pieces. Abūsaīd was compelled to seek safety in
1468.
Abūsaīd
beheaded.
flight, was pursued, taken prisoner, and soon after beheaded.
Of his mighty army few returned to their homes. The
greater part were taken prisoners, or slaughtered in the
course of their long retreat.
The dominions of Abūsaīd, who was by far the most
powerful prince of his time, extended, at the period of his
death, from Azarbaijān to the borders of India, and from
Sultan Ah-
med Mirza,
king of Sa-
markand
and Bok-
hāra.
Sultan
Mahmūd
Mirza, king
of Hissār,
Kunduz,
and Ba-
dakhshān.
Mekrān to the deserts of Tartary. Of his sons, Sultan
Ahmed Mirza, who was the eldest, retained possession of
Samarkand and Bokhāra, the government of which he
had held in the lifetime of his father. Another of them,
Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, held the government of Asterābād,
from whence, after the ‘disaster of Irāk’, he marched
to take possession of Herāt; but the inhabitants preferring
the government of Sultan Hussain Mirza, called him in;
and Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, expelled from Khorasān,
and forced to cross the Amu, took refuge in Samarkand,
with his brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, having lost Asterābād
in his attempt to gain Khorasān. In the course of a few
months, he fled privately from his brother’s protection, and
by means of Kamber Ali Beg, a Moghul nobleman of great
influence, who was at that time the governor of Hissār,
gained possession of all the country, from the straits of
Kolugha or Derbend, to the Belūt mountains, and from the
hills of Asfera to the mountains of Hindū-kūsh, an extensive
tract of country, that included Hissār, Chegāniān, Termiz,
Kunduz, Badakhshān, and Khutlān. Another of Abūsaīd’s
Ulugh Beg
Mirza, king
of Kābul
and Ghazni.
sons, Ulugh Beg Mirza, retained possession of Kābul and
Ghazni, which he had governed in his father’s lifetime.
Another, Omer-Sheikh Mirza, the father of the illustrious
Omer-
Sheikh
Mirza,
king of
Ferghāna.
Bābur, and the fourth son of Abūsaīd, continued to reign
in Ferghāna. Sultan Murād Mirza, another of Abūsaīd
Mirza’s sons, who had held the government of Garmsīr
and Kandahār, had advanced, at the period of his father’s
Sultan Mu-
rād Mirza.
death, to occupy Kermān. He was forced to retreat by the
ensuing events, and found that he could not maintain himself
even in Kandahār. He repaired to the court of Sultan
Hussain Mirza, by whom he was sent to Samarkand, to his
brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza; but he soon after returned
to Herāt, after which he is little mentioned. It is needless
to detail the fortunes of the other sons, as they had no
influence on the history of Bābur.
Sultan Hussain Mirza was no sooner relieved of his
formidable enemy, by the death of Abūsaīd, than he once
more entered Khorasān, invited, as has been already mentioned,
by the wishes and affections of the inhabitants.
Drives
Yādgār
Mirza from
Asterābād.
He quickly drove from Asterābād, Yādgār Mirza, a son
of Muhammed Mirza, the late sovereign of Irāk and Fārs,
who had been selected by Ūzūn Hassan and the Turkomāns
to fill the throne of Khorasān, and compelled him to take
1469.
refuge in Tebrīz, at the court of his patron. Next year,
however, Yādgār Mirza returned, supported by a formidable
body of Turkomāns, penetrated into Khorasān, and took
Herāt, which Sultan Hussain, unable to resist the first
impulse of the enemy, was glad to abandon. The Sultan
retired to Balkh, but it was only to watch the favourable
moment for returning; and he had no sooner learned, by
a secret correspondence which he maintained with some
of the chief officers about Yādgār Mirza’s person, that that
young prince had given himself up to all the enjoyments of a
Surprises
and puts
him to
death near
Herāt.
1470.
luxurious capital, than, returning by forced marches, he
came upon him by surprise, while overpowered with wine,
in the Bāgh-e-zāghān,*
near Herāt, took him prisoner,
dispersed his troops, and put him to death.
The remaining years of the reign of Sultan Hussain Mirza were little disturbed, except by the rebellion of his sons, and, towards its close, by the invasion of Sheibāni Khan. But these events will be best explained by Bābur himself in his Memoirs, where copious details will be found regarding the family, dominions, and court of this monarch.*
Reign ofSultan Omer-Sheikh Mirza, the sovereign of Ferghāna, and the father of Bābur, has by some writers been supposed to have had his capital at Samarkand, and by others to have extended his dominions even into India. His dominions, however, never extended beyond the narrow limits of Ferghāna and Uratippa, unless for a short time, when he received Tāshkend and Seirām from his eldest brother, Sultan Ahmed, and gained Shahrokhīa by stratagem. These acquisitions he soon lost, having given them up to his brother-in-law, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, in return for assistance afforded him in his wars; and at his death, which happened in 1494, he only retained possession of Ferghāna, Uratippa having just been taken from him by his brother, Sultan Ahmed Mirza of Samarkand. He was a restless, profuse, good-humoured man, who left his dominions in considerable disorder to his eldest son, the illustrious Bābur, then only twelve years of age.
State ofIt is from this event that Bābur commences his Memoirs. At that period, his uncle, Sultan Ahmed Mirza, was still king of Samarkand and Bokhāra. Another of his uncles, Sultan Mahmūd Mirza, was the sovereign of Hissār, Termiz, Kunduz, Badakhshān, and Khutlān. A third uncle, Ulugh Beg Mirza, was king of Kābul and Ghazni; while Sultan Hussain Mirza Baikera, a descendant of the great Taimūr, and the most powerful prince of his age, was king of Khorasān. To the west and north of Ferghāna, Sultan Mahmūd Khan, a Moghul prince, Bābur’s maternal uncle, and the eldest son of Yunis Khan, so often alluded to by Bābur, held the fertile provinces of Tāshkend and Shahrokhīa, along the Sirr or Jaxartes, as well as the chief power over the Moghuls of the desert as far as Moghulistān, where Sultan Ahmed Khan, his younger brother, appears to have governed a separate division of the same tribe. Three daughters of Yunis Khan, the sisters of these two princes, had been married to the three brothers, the kings of Samarkand, Hissār, and Ferghāna; and the relations of affinity arising from these marriages are often alluded to by Bābur.
Account of