At this very crisis a servant of Ūzūn Hassan’s came on
an embassy with some seditious propositions. The Begs,
very mistakenly, brought him where I was,*
and then gave
him leave to depart. In four or five days I got somewhat
better, but still had a little difficulty of speech.*
A few days
afterwards I received letters from my mother, my mother’s
mother Isān Daulat Begum, and from my teacher and
spiritual guide Khwājeh Moulāna Kazi, inviting me with so
much solicitude to come to their assistance, that I had not
March
1498.
the heart to delay. In the month of Rajeb, on a Saturday,
I marched out of Samarkand for Andejān. At this time
Marches to
the relief of
Andejān.
I had reigned just one hundred days in Samarkand. Next
Saturday I reached Khojend, and that same day intelligence
Hears of its
surrender.
arrived that, seven days before, on the very Saturday on
which I had left Samarkand, Ali Dost Taghāi had surrendered
the fortress of Andejān to the enemy.
The truth was, that the servant of Ūzūn Hassan, who had been suffered to depart during my illness, arriving while the enemy were busy with the siege, and relating what he had witnessed, that the king had lost his speech, and received no nourishment except from having his tongue moistened with cotton steeped in a liquid, was made to confirm these circumstances on oath in the presence of Ali Dost Taghāi, who stood at the Khākān Gate. Completely confounded at the news, he commenced a negotiation with the enemy, and having entered into terms of capitulation, surrendered the fort. There was no want of provisions, nor of fighting men in the place. This wretched fellow’s conduct, therefore, was the extreme of treachery and cowardice.* He merely employed the circumstances that have been mentioned as a cover to his baseness.
KhwājehAfter the surrender of Andejān, the enemy having received information of my arrival at Khojend, seized Khwājeh Moulāna Kazi and martyred him, by hanging him in a shameful manner over the gate of the citadel. Khwājeh Moulāna Kazi’s real name was Abdallah, but he was better known by the other appellation. By the father’s side he was descended of Sheikh Būrhān-ed-dīn Kilij, and by the mother’s side from Sultan Ilik Māzi; and his family had for a long time maintained the situation of Muktida (prime religious guide), and of Sheikh-ul-Islām (or chief judge in ecclesiastical law), in the country of Ferghāna. Khwājeh Kazi was the disciple of Khwājeh Obeidullah, by whom he was educated. I have no doubt that Khwājeh Kazi was a Wali (or saint). What better proof of it could be required than the single fact that, in a short time, no trace or memorial remained of any one of all those who were concerned in his murder? They were all completely extirpated. Khwājeh Kazi was a wonderfully bold man, which is also no mean proof of sanctity. All mankind, however brave they be, have some little anxiety or trepidation about them. The Khwājeh had not a particle of either.
After the Khwājeh’s death they seized and plundered all those who were connected with him as his servants and domestics, his tribe and followers. They sent to me, to Khojend, my grandmother, my mother, and the families of several persons who were with me.* For the sake of Andejān, I had lost Samarkand, and found that I had lost the one without preserving the other.*
Bābur re- I now became a prey to melancholy and vexation; for
since I had been a sovereign prince, I never before had been
separated in this manner from my country and followers;
and since the day that I had known myself, I had never
experienced such grief and suffering. While I was at
Khojend, some who envied Khalīfeh could not endure to
Is obliged
to dismiss
Khalīfeh.
see his influence in my court; and Muhammed Hussain
Mirza and some others exerted themselves with such effect,*
that I was obliged to allow him to retire to Tāshkend.
I had sent Kāsim Beg to Tāshkend to the Khan, to request him to march against Andejān. The Khan, who was my maternal uncle, accordingly, having collected an army, advanced by the Dale of Ahengerān,* and I having set out from Khojend, met him by the time he had encamped below Kundezlik and Amāni.* Having reduced Kundezlik and Amāni, he advanced towards Akhsi and encamped. The enemy too, on their part, having brought together what army they had, came to Akhsi. At this time the fortress of Pāp* was held by some of my partisans in hopes of my arrival; but the enemy, gaining courage from a belief of the Khan’s retreat,* carried it by storm.
But is pre- Though the Khan had many valuable qualities and
talents, yet he had no talents as a soldier or general. At the
very moment when matters were brought to such a pass,
that, if we had advanced a single march, the country might
have been gained without fighting a battle, he listened to
the artful proposals of the enemy, and dispatched Khwājeh
Abul Makāram with Tambol’s elder brother, Beg Tīlbeh,
who at that time was the Khan’s chamberlain, on an
embassy, with proposals for an accommodation. The cabal,
in order to extricate themselves, presented such a mixture of
truth and falsehood in their representations, and seasoned
their eloquence so well with gratifications and bribes to
those who acted as negotiators,*
that the Khan was prevailed
upon to break up and retreat the way he came. As the
Begs, captains, and warriors, who were with me, had many
of them their wives and families in Andejān; and as they
Bābur
abandoned
by his
army.
now saw no hope of our regaining it, great and small, Beg
and common man, to the number of seven or eight hundred
men, separated from me entirely. Among the nobles who
left me, were Ali Derwīsh Beg, Ali Mazīd Kuchīn, Muhammed
Bākir Beg, Sheikh Abdallah the chamberlain, and
Mīram Lāghari. There adhered to me, choosing voluntarily
a life of exile and difficulty, of all ranks, good and bad,
somewhat more than two hundred, and less than three
hundred men. Of the Begs were Kāsim Beg Kuchīn, Weis
Lāghari, Ibrahīm Sāru Minkaligh, Shīrīm Taghāi, and
Seyad Kārabeg. Of my other officers and courtiers there
were Mīr Shah Kuchīn, Syed Kāsim, the Chamberlain,
a Jelāir, Kāsim Ajab, Muhammed Dost, Ali Dost Taghāi,
Muhammed Ali Mubashar, Khuda-berdi Tughchi (the
Standard-bearer), a Moghul, Yārek Taghāi, Sultan Kuli,
Pīr Weis, Sheikh Weis, Yār Ali Belāl, Kāsim, Master of the
Horse, Hyder Rikābdār (the Equerry).
I was now reduced to a very distressed condition, and
wept a great deal. I returned to Khojend, whither they
sent me my mother and my grandmother, with the wives
and families of several of those who had continued with me.
May 1498.
I spent that Ramzān in Khojend, and afterwards, having
sent a person to Sultan Mahmūd Khan to solicit assistance,
proceeded against Samarkand. He dispatched his son,
Sultan Muhammed Khanekeh, and Ahmed Beg, with four
or five thousand men, against Samarkand; and came himself
to Uratippa, where I had an interview with him, and
then advanced towards Samarkand by way of Yār-ailāk.
Sultan Muhammed and Ahmed Beg had reached Yār-ailāk
before me by another road. I came by way of Burkeh-ailāk
to Sengraz, which is the chief township and seat of the
Dārogha*
of Yār-ailāk; but before my arrival, Sultan
Muhammed and Ahmed Beg, having been informed of the
But is
forced to
return to
Khojend.
approach of Sheibāni Khan, and of his ravaging Shirāz and
that vicinity, had retreated back in haste. I too was
consequently compelled to retreat, and returned to Khojend.
Inspired as I was with an ambition for conquest and for
extensive dominion, I would not, on account of one or two
defeats, sit down and look idly around me. I now repaired
to Tāshkend to the Khan, in order to gain some assistance
in my views on Andejān. This journey also furnished me
with a pretext for seeing Shah Begum*
and my other
relations, whom I had not seen for seven or eight years.
Gets a rein-
forcement
of Moghuls.
A few days after my arrival, Syed Muhammed Mirza
Dughlet, Ayūb Begchik, and Jān Hassan were appointed
to accompany me, with a reinforcement of seven or eight
Takes
Nasūkh.
hundred men. With this auxiliary force I set out, and
without tarrying in Khojend advanced without loss of
time, and leaving Kandbādām on the left, in the course of
the night, reached and applied scaling-ladders to the fortress
of Nasūkh, which is ten farsangs from Khojend and three*
from Kandbādām, and carried the place by surprise. It
was the season when the melons were ripe, and at Nasūkh
there is a sort of melon termed Ismāīl sheikhi, the skin of
which is yellow and puckered like shagreen leather; they
are in great abundance. The seeds are about the size of
those of an apple, and the pulp four fingers thick. It is
a remarkably delicate and agreeable melon, and there is none
equal to it in that quarter. Next morning the Moghul Begs
represented to me that we had only a handful of men, and
that no possible benefit could result from keeping possession
of a single insulated castle. Indeed there was truth in what
But aban-
dons it.
they said; so that, not finding it expedient to remain there
and garrison the fort, I retired and went back to Khojend.