Babur: Timurid Prince and Founder of the Mughal Dynasty

Babur (1483–1530), born Zahir al-Din Muhammad, was a Central Asian prince who founded the Mughal dynasty of India. After decades of struggle in Central Asia and Afghanistan, he defeated the sultan of Delhi at Panipat in 1526 and established a dynasty that ruled much of South Asia for the next two centuries. He is also remembered for his memoir, the Baburnama, one of the first true autobiographies in Islamic literature.

Early life in Fergana

Babur was born on 14 February 1483 in Andijan in the Fergana Valley, today in Uzbekistan. His father, Umar Shaikh Mirza, was a minor Timurid prince, a great-great-grandson of Timur. His mother, Qutlugh Nigar Khanum, came from the family of the Chagatai khans and thus descended from Genghis Khan.

In June 1494 his father died in an accident when a dovecote on a cliff collapsed. Babur, aged 11, became ruler of Fergana. His early reign was a constant struggle against relatives, rival Timurid princes and powerful nobles.

Samarkand lost and won

Babur’s great ambition was Samarkand, Timur’s old capital. He captured it in 1497 but held it only briefly, and while he was away he lost Andijan as well. He took Samarkand again in 1500, but the Uzbek leader Muhammad Shaybani Khan defeated him in 1501 and forced him to abandon the city.

For several years Babur lived as a wandering prince with a small band of followers. In 1504 he crossed the Hindu Kush and seized Kabul, which became his base for the next two decades. In 1507 he took the title padshah (emperor), asserting his rank as a leading Timurid.

When Shaybani Khan was killed by the Safavid Shah Ismail I in 1510, Babur saw a new chance. With Safavid help he reoccupied Samarkand in 1511, but his alliance with the Shi’a Safavids was unpopular among the Sunni population. After Uzbek victories in 1512 he lost the city for good and turned his attention south.

The Kabul years

For more than 20 years Kabul was Babur’s home and the centre of his power. He described the city and its surroundings with great affection, praising its climate, fruit and gardens. From there he fought the Hazaras and Afghan tribes of the mountains, put down revolts by relatives and nobles, and maintained diplomatic ties with the Safavids of Iran.

During these years he also learned about new military methods. By 1519 his army included matchlock men, and he later employed Ottoman-trained gunners, a combination that would prove decisive in India.

The conquest of India

From 1519 Babur led a series of expeditions into the Indus region and the Punjab. He was encouraged by rebels against the Lodi sultan of Delhi, Ibrahim, and by his own sense that the lands Timur had raided in 1398 were part of his inheritance.

At the First Battle of Panipat on 21 April 1526, Babur’s army of perhaps 8,000–15,000 men defeated a much larger Lodi force. He used carts and screens to protect his guns and matchlock infantry, and horse archers to encircle the enemy. Ibrahim Lodi was killed and Babur occupied Delhi and Agra.

Two more victories secured his position. At Khanwa in March 1527 he defeated a Rajput confederacy led by Rana Sanga of Mewar, and in 1529 he beat the Afghans of the east at the Ghaghra River. By then his realm stretched from Kabul to the borders of Bengal.

Death and succession

Babur’s Indian kingdom was still fragile when he died in Agra on 26 December 1530, aged 47. A well-known family tradition, recorded by his daughter Gulbadan Begum, says that when his son Humayun was gravely ill, Babur walked around his bed and offered his life in exchange, after which Humayun recovered and Babur declined.

Humayun succeeded him but was driven out of India by the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri in 1540, recovering Delhi only in 1555. The empire was consolidated by Babur’s grandson Akbar, who ruled from 1556 to 1605.

Babur had several wives and many children. Besides Humayun, his sons Kamran, Askari and Hindal later quarrelled with their brother over the inheritance, which weakened the young empire. His daughter Gulbadan Begum wrote a memoir of her own, the Humayun-nama, one of the few works by a Mughal princess.

Babur was first buried in Agra. In keeping with his wishes, his body was later taken to Kabul and buried in a terraced garden, now known as Bagh-e Babur.

The Baburnama

Babur’s memoir, known as the Baburnama or Vaqai (“events”), was written in Chagatai Turkic, his native language. It covers much of his life from 1494 to 1529, though there are large gaps, some probably lost. It is remarkable for its frankness: Babur describes his defeats, his doubts, his drinking parties and his later decision to give up wine, as well as his victories.

The work is also a rich description of the lands he knew. He wrote with great curiosity about the geography, people, plants and animals of Fergana, Kabul and India. Of India he admired the wealth and the abundance of workers, but complained of the heat, the dust and the lack of good melons, grapes and running water.

Under Akbar the memoir was translated into Persian in 1589, and several richly illustrated copies were produced by Mughal court painters. In modern times it has been translated into many languages, including English versions by Annette Beveridge (1912–1922) and Wheeler Thackston (1996).

Poet and gardener

Babur was also an accomplished poet in Turki and Persian, and wrote a treatise on prosody. He even devised a script, known as the Baburi script, though it never came into wide use.

He loved gardens and laid out several in Afghanistan and India in the Persian charbagh style, with walls, water channels and planted quarters. One of them, the Bagh-i Wafa or Garden of Fidelity near Jalalabad, laid out in 1508, is shown in later Baburnama paintings. This garden culture shaped later Mughal architecture, from Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi to the Taj Mahal in Agra.

Character and reputation

Babur’s own writings show a complex personality: ambitious and often ruthless in war, but also cultured, curious and capable of self-criticism. He admitted mistakes, recorded the loyalty and betrayals of friends, and wrote movingly about relatives he had lost.

Later Mughal historians presented him as the heroic founder of the dynasty. Modern historians value him especially as a writer, for his memoir gives a rare insider’s view of politics and society in Central Asia and India in the early 16th century.

Timeline

• 1483, 14 February: Babur is born at Andijan in the Fergana Valley.
• 1494, June: He becomes ruler of Fergana at the age of 11.
• 1497: He captures Samarkand for the first time.
• 1501: Defeated by Muhammad Shaybani Khan, he loses Samarkand.
• 1504: He takes Kabul, his base for the next 22 years.
• 1511–1512: He briefly holds Samarkand again with Safavid support.
• 1526, 21 April: He defeats Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat.
• 1527, March: He defeats Rana Sanga at Khanwa.
• 1530, 26 December: Babur dies in Agra.

Why it matters

Babur turned the defeats of his youth into the founding of one of the great empires of the early modern world. The Mughal dynasty he created ruled much of the Indian subcontinent and left a lasting mark on its politics, languages, art and architecture. His memoir remains a unique personal window on the life of a 16th-century ruler.