Babur (February 23 small
[
O.S.
February 14]
/small 1483- January 5 small
[
O.S.
December 26 1530]
/small 1531) was a Muslim conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty of India. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother.sup[
1
]/sup Babur identified his lineage as Timurid and Chaghatay-Turkic, while his origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so he was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, and for the expansion of Persian cultural influence in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results.sup[
2
]/supsup[
3
]/sup
sup/sup
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Biography
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Sources
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The main source for Babur's biography is a written account of his life, written by Babur himself. His memoirs are known as the BÄburnÄma and are considered the first true autobiography in Islamic literature.
He wrote the BÄburnÄma in Chaghatai Turkic, his mother-tongue, though his prose was highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology, and vocabulary.sup[
4
]/sup The work gives a valuable impression of Babur's surrounding environment.sup[
10
]/sup
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"I have not written all this to complain: I have simply written the truth. I do not intend by what I have written to compliment myself: I have simply set down exactly what happened. Since I have made it a point in this history to write the truth of every matter and to set down no more than the reality of every event, as a consequence I have reported every good and evil I have seen of father and brother and set down the actuality of every fault and virtue of relative and stranger. May the reader excuse me; may the listener take me not to task."
—BÄburnÄmasup[
16
]/sup
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History of the text and translations
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The memoirs were originally much more extensive than they are now. The gaps in the text, particularly those between 1508 to 1519 and from 1520 to 1525, are likely the result of quires during a storm. A year before his death Babur was reworking parts of his memoirs in 1528-29. His son and successor HumÄyÅ«n knew Chaghatay well and read his father's memoirs. Babur corresponded with him in that language, correcting his spelling and commenting on his style. His grandson Akbar was enthroned at the age of fourteen when Humayun died in 1556. The young emperor was raised by the regent, Bayram KhÄn, an Iranian statesman of Turcoman Azerbaijani origin whose father and grandfather had joined Babur's service. Bayram KhÄn himself wrote poetry in Chaghatay and Persian. His son, Abdul-Rahim, was fluent in Chaghatay, Hindi, and Persian and composed in all three languages. Using Babur's own text, he translated the BÄburnÄma into Persian. The Chaghatay original was last seen in the imperial library sometime between 1628 and 1638 during Shah JahÄngÄ«r's reign.
Background
The family tree of Babur
Babur was born on February 23 small
[
O.S.
February 14]
/small 1483sup[
17
]/sup in the town of Andijan, in the Fergana Valley which is in modern Uzbekistan. He was the eldest son of Ê¿Omar Sheykh MirzÄ,sup[
18
]/sup ruler of the Fergana Valley, and his wife Qutluq NegÄr KhÄnum, daughter of Yonus KhÄn, the ruler of Moghulistan.
Although Babur hailed from the Barlas tribe which was of Mongol origin, his tribe had embraced Turkicsup[
19
]/sup and Persian culture,sup[
2
]/supsup[
20
]/supsup[
21
]/sup converted to Islam and resided in Turkestan and Khorasan. His mother tongue was the Chaghatai language (known to Babur as Turkī, "Turkic") and he was equally at home in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite.sup[
22
]/sup
Hence Babur, though nominally a Mongol (or Moghul in Persian), drew much of his support from the Turkic and Iranian peoples of Central Asia, and his army was diverse in its ethnic makeup, including Persians (Tajiks or Sarts, as they were called by Babur),sup[
10
]/sup Pashtuns, and Arabs as well as Barlas and Chaghatayid Turco-Mongols from Central Asia.sup[
23
]/sup Babur's army also included QizilbÄsh fighters, a militant religious order of Shi'a[/url] Sufis from Persia who later became one of the most influential groups in the Mughal court.
Babur is said to have been extremely strong and physically fit. He could allegedly carry two men, one on each of his shoulders, and then climb slopes on the run, just for exercise. Legend holds that Babur swam across every major river he encountered, including twice across the Ganges River in North India.sup[
24
]/sup
His passions could be equally strong. In his first marriage he was "bashful" towards ʿĀʾisha á¹¢ultÄn Begum, later losing his affection for her.sup[
25
]/sup
Babur was an orthodox Sunni Muslim and occasionally voiced distaste at the "deviations" of Shia Muslims. Though religion had a central place in his life, Babur and his fellow princes wore their Islam lightly. He approvingly quotes a line of poetry by one of his contemporaries: "I am drunk, officer. Punish me when I am sober." Babur related that one of his uncles "was addicted to vice and debauchery. He kept a lot of catamites. In his realm, wherever there was a comely, beardless youth, he did everything he could to turn him into one. During his time this vice was so widespread, that to keep catamites was considered a virtue."
A scene from the Baburnama.
He gave up drinking alcohol two years before his death, and demanded that his court do the same. But he did not stop chewing narcotic preparations, and did not lose his sense of irony. He wrote:sup[
26
]/sup
sup/sup
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Last days
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The Bagh-e Babur in Kabul where Babur is buried.
After Babar fell seriously ill, Humayun was told of a plot by the senior nobles of Babur's court to bypass the leader's sons and appoint Mahdi Khwaja, Babur's sister's husband, as his successor. He rushed to Agra and arrived there to see his father was well enough again, although Mahdi Khwaja had lost all hope of becoming ruler after arrogantly exceeding his authority during Babur's illness. Upon his arrival in Agra it was Humayun himself who fell ill, and was close to dying.
Babar is said to have circled the sick-bed, crying to God to take his life and not his son's. The traditions that follow this tell that Babur soon fell ill with a fever and Humayun began to get better again. This is not accurate, as there are months separating the recovery of Humayun and the death of Babur, and Babur's final illness was rather sudden. His last words apparently being to his son, Humayun, "Do nothing against your brothers, even though they may deserve it."
He died at the age of 47 on January 5 small
[
O.S.
26 December 1530]
/small 1531, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Humayun. Though he wished to be buried in his favourite garden in Kabul, a city he had always loved, he was first buried in a Mausoleum in the capital city of Agra. Roughly nine years later his wishes were fulfilled by Sher Shah Suri and Babur was buried in a beautiful garden Bagh-e Babur in Kabul, now in Afghanistan. The inscription on his tomb reads (in Persian):
Impact on Architecture
A view of the Babri Mosque, before its destruction in 1992. The Mosque is believed to have been commissioned by Babur.
Babar travelled the country, taking in much of the land and its scenery, and began building a series of structures which mixed the pre-existing Hindu intricacies of carved detail with the traditional Muslim designs used by Persians and Turks. He described with awe the buildings in Chanderi, a village carved from rock, and the palace of Raja Man Singh in Gwalior describing them as "wonderful buildings, entirely hewn from stonesup
[cite this quote]
/sup." He, was, however, disgusted by the Jain "idols" carved into the rock face below the fortress at Gwalior. "These idols are shown quite naked without even covering for the privities... I ordered them to be destroyed.sup
[cite this quote]
/sup" Fortunately, the statues were not destroyed entirely, rather the faces and genitalia of the offending pieces were removed. (Modern sculptors have restored the faces).
To remind himself of the lands he had left behind, Babur began a process of creating exquisite gardens in every palace and province, where he would often sit shaded from the fierce Indian sun. He tried to recreate the gardens of Kabul, which he believed were the most beautiful in the world, and in one of which he would eventually be buried. Almost thirty pages of Babur's memoirs are taken up describing the fauna and flora of his Hindustan.
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Babri Masjid
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Babur is also famous for his commission of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. Like many of the Mughals, Babur constructed many mosques around India, many of them on the foundations of native Hindu temples or from the stones retrieved from desecrated Hindu templessup
[citation needed]
/sup. The mosque was demolished on 6th Dec 1992.The site has been declared as disputed with court case pending.Many Hindu Leaders were implicated,with onging criminal Charges against them.