Here are the particulars: – When Shaibāq Khān had given Qūndūz to Qaṃbar Bī and gone himself to Khwārizm920; Qaṃbar Bī, in order to conciliate the Badakhshīs, sent them a son of Muḥammad-i-makhdūmī, Maḥmūd by name, but Mubārak Shāh, – whose ancestors are heard of as begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, – having uplifted his own head, and cut off Maḥmūd’s and those of some Aūzbegs, made himself fast in the fort once known as Shāf-tiwār but re-named by him Qila‘-i-z̤afar. Moreover, in Rustāq Muḥammad qūrchī, an armourer of Khusrau Shāh, then occupying Khamalangān, slew Shaibāq Khān’s ṣadr and some Aūzbegs and made that place fast. Zubair of Rāgh, again, whose forefathers also will have been begs of the Badakhshān Shāhs, uprose in Rāgh.921 Jahāngīr Turkmān, again, a servant of Khusrau Shāh’s Walī, collected some of the fugitive soldiers and tribesmen Walī had left behind, and with them withdrew into a fastness.922
Nāṣir Mīrzā, hearing these various items of news and spurred on by the instigation of a few silly, short-sighted persons to covet Badakhshān, marched along the Shibr-tū and Āb-dara road, driving like sheep before him the families of the men who had come into Kābul from the other side of the Amū.923
(p. Affairs of Khusrau Shāh.)
At the time Khusrau Shāh and Aḥmad-i-qāsim were in flight from Ājar for Khurāsān,924 they meeting in with Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā and Ẕū’n-nūn Beg, all went on together to the presence of Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā in Herī. All had long been foes of his; all had behaved unmannerly to him; what brands had they not set on his heart! Yet all now went to him in their distress, and all went through me. For it is not likely they would have seen him if I had not made Khusrau Shāh helpless by parting him from his following, and if I had not taken Kābul from Ẕū’n’nūn’s son, Muqīm. Badī‘u’z-zamān Mīrzā himself was as dough in the hands of the rest; beyond their word he could not go. Sl. Ḥusain Mīrzā took up a gracious attitude towards one and all, mentioned no-one’s misdeeds, even made them gifts.
Shortly after their arrival Khusrau Shāh asked for leave to go to his own country, saying, “If I go, I shall get it all into my hands.” As he had reached Herī without equipment and without resources, they finessed a little about his leave. He became importunate. Muḥammad Barandūq retorted roundly on him with, “When you had 30,000 men behind you and the whole country in your hands, what did you effect against the Aūzbeg? What will you do now with your 500 men and the Aūzbegs in possession?” He added a little good advice in a few sensible words, but all was in vain because the fated hour of Khusrau Shāh’s death was near. Leave was at last given because of his importunity; Khusrau Shāh with his 3 or 400 followers, went straight into the borders of Dahānah. There as Nāṣir Mīrzā had just gone across, these two met.
Now the Badakhshī chiefs had invited only the Mīrzā; they had not invited Khusrau Shāh. Try as the Mīrzā did to persuade Khusrau Shāh to go into the hill-country,925 the latter, quite understanding the whole time, would not consent to go, his own idea being that if he marched under the Mīrzā, he would get the country into his own hands. In the end, unable to agree, each of them, near Ishkīmīsh, arrayed his following, put on mail, drew out to fight, and – departed. Nāṣir Mīrzā went on for Badakhshān; Khusrau Shāh after collecting a disorderly rabble, good and bad of some 1,000 persons, went, with the intention of laying siege to Qūndūz, to Khwāja Chār-tāq, one or two yīghāch outside it.
(q. Death of Khusrau Shāh.)
At the time Shaibāq Khān, after overcoming Sult̤ān Aḥmad Taṃbal and Andijān, made a move on Ḥiṣār, his Honour Khusrau Shāh926 flung away his country (Qūndūz and Ḥiṣār) without a blow struck, and saved himself. Thereupon Shaibāq Khān went to Ḥiṣār in which were Sherīm the page and a few good braves. They did not surrender Ḥiṣār, though their honourable beg had flung his country away and gone off; they made Ḥiṣār fast. The siege of Ḥiṣār Shaibāq Khān entrusted to Ḥamza Sl. and Mahdī Sult̤ān,927 went to Qūndūz, gave Qūndūz to his younger brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān and betook himself without delay to Khwārizm against Chīn Ṣūfī. But as, before he reached Samarkand on his way to Khwārizm, he heard of the death in Qūndūz of his brother, Maḥmūd Sult̤ān, he gave that place to Qaṃbar Bī of Marv.928
Qaṃbar Bī was in Qūndūz when Khusrau Shāh went against it; he at once sent off galloppers to summon Ḥamza Sl. and the others Shaibāq Khān had left behind. Ḥamza Sl. came himself as far as the sarāī on the Amū bank where he put his sons and begs in command of a force which went direct against Khusrau Shāh. There was neither fight nor flight for that fat, little man; Ḥamza Sult̤ān’s men unhorsed him, killed his sister’s son, Aḥmad-i-qāsim, Sherīm the page and several good braves. Him they took into Qūndūz, there struck his head off and from there sent it to Shaibāq Khān in Khwārizm.929
(r. Conduct in Kābul of Khusrau Shāh’s retainers.)
Just as Khusrau Shāh had said they would do, his former retainers and followers, no sooner than he marched against Qūndūz, changed in their demeanour to me,930 most of them marching off to near Khwāja-i-riwāj.931 The greater number of the men in my service had been in his. The Mughūls behaved well, taking up a position of adherence to me.932 On all this the news of Khusrau Shāh’s death fell like water on fire; it put his men out.
911 AH. – JUNE 4th 1505 to MAY 24th 1506 AD.933
(a. Death of Qūtlūq-nigār Khānīm.)
In the month of Muḥarram my mother had fever. Blood was let without effect and a Khurāsānī doctor, known as Sayyid T̤abīb, in accordance with the Khurāsān practice, gave her water-melon, but her time to die must have come, for on the Saturday after six days of illness, she went to God’s mercy.
On Sunday I and Qāsim Kūkūldāsh conveyed her to the New-year’s Garden on the mountain-skirt934 where Aūlūgh Beg Mīrzā had built a house, and there, with the permission of his heirs,935 we committed her to the earth. While we were mourning for her, people let me know about (the death of) my younger Khān dādā Alacha Khān, and my grandmother Aīsān-daulat Begīm.936 Close upon Khānīm’s Fortieth937 arrived from Khurāsān Shāh Begīm the mother of the Khāns, together with my maternal-aunt Mihr-nigār Khānīm, formerly of Sl. Aḥmad Mīrzā’s ḥaram, and Muḥammad Ḥusain Kūrkān Dūghlāt.938 Lament broke out afresh; the bitterness of these partings was extreme. When the mourning-rites had been observed, food and victuals set out for the poor and destitute, the Qorān recited, and prayers offered for the departed souls, we steadied ourselves and all took heart again.
(b. A futile start for Qandahār.)
When set free from these momentous duties, we got an army to horse for Qandahār under the strong insistance of Bāqī Chaghānīānī. At the start I went to Qūsh-nādir (var. nāwar) where on dismounting I got fever. It was a strange sort of illness for whenever