348 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
a natural sequel from the fact that no one of them had his biography for its main theme, still less had his own action in crises of enforced ambiguity.
Of all known sources the best are Khwand-amir's Hablbu'ssiyar and Haidar Mlrza Dughldt's Tarikh-i-rashidi. ' The first was finished nominally in 930 AH. (1524-5 AD.), seven years therefore before Babur's death, but it received much addition of matter concerning Babur after its author went to Hindustan in %934 AH. (f. 339). Its fourth part, a life of Shah I sma'll Safawi , is especially valuable for the -years of this lacuna. Haidar's book was finished under Humayun in 953 AH. (1547 AD.), when its author had reigned five years in Kashmir. It is the most valuable of all the sources for those interested in Babur himself, both because of Haidar's excellence as a biographer, and through his close acquaintance with Babur's family. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he lived under Babur's protection, followed this by 19 years service under Sa'Id Khan, the cousin of both, in Kashghar, and after that Khan's death, went to Babur's sons Kamran and Humayun in Hindustan.
A work issuing from a SunnI Auzbeg centre, Fazl bin Ruzbahan IsfahanVs Siiliiku'l-muluk, has a Preface of special value, as shewing one view of what it writes of as the spread of heresy in Mawara'u'n-nahr through Babur's invasions. The .book itself is a Treatise on Musalman Law, and was prepared by order of 'Ubaidu'1-lah Khan Auzbeg for his help in fulfilling a vow he had made, before attacking Babur in 918 AH., at the shrine of Khwaja Ahmad Yasawt [in Hazrat Turkistan], that, if he were victorious, he would conform exactly with the divine Law and uphold it in Mawara'u'n-nahr (Rieu's Pers. Cat. ii, 448). The Tarikh-i Haji Muhammad 'Art/ Qandahdri appears, from the frequent use Firishta made of it, to be a useful source, both because its author was a native of Qandahar, a place much occupying Babur's activities, and because he was a servant of Bairam Khan-i-khanan, whose assassination under Akbar he witnessed.1 Unfortunately, though his life of Akbar survives
1 Jumada I, 14th 968 ah. Jan. 31st 1561 An. Concerning the book see Elliot and Dowson's History of Itidia vi, 572 and JR AS 1901 p. 76, H. Beveridge's art. On Persian MSS. in Indian Libraries. -
