leave "Sulaiman Shah Mirza"1 in possession, who is as a son to them both,2 that this would be well, that otherwise he (Babur) will make over responsibility to the heir (Sulaiman) ;3 and, " The rest you know." 4
c. Babur visits Lahor.
If Ahmad-i-yadgar's account of a journey made by Babur to Lahor and the Panj-ab be accepted, the lacuna of 936 AH. is appropriately filled. He places the expedition in the 3rd year of Babur's rule in Hindustan, which, counting from the first reading of the khutba for Babur in Dihll (f. 286), began on Rajah 15th 935 AH. (March 26th 1529 AD.). But as Babur's diary-record for
935 AH. is complete down to end of the year, (minor lacunce excepted), the time of his leaving Agra for Lahor is relegated to
936 AH. He must have left early in the year, (1) to allow time, before the occurrence of the known events preceding his own death, for the long expedition Ahmad-i-yadgar calls one of a year, and (2) because an early start alter Humayun's arrival and Sulaiman's departure would suit the position of affairs and the dates mentioned or implied by Haidar's and by Ahmad-iyadgar's narratives.
Two reasons of policy are discernible, in the known events of the time, to recommend a journey in force towards the North-west; first, the sedition of 'Abdu'l-'azlz in Lahor (f. 381), and secondly, the invasion of Badakhshan by Sa'Id Khan with its resulting need of supporting Sulaiman by a menace of armed intervention.5
1 The "Shah" of this style is derived from Sulaiman's Badakhshi descent through Shah Begim; the "Mirza" from his Miran-shahl descent through his father Wais Khan Mirza. The title Khan Mirza or Mirza Khan, presumably according to the outlook of the speaker, was similarly derived from forbears, as would be also Shah Begim's ; (her personal name is not mentioned in the sources).
2 Sa'id, on the father's, and Babur, on the mother's side, were of the same generation in descent from Yunas Khan ; Sulaiman was of a younger one, hence his pseudo-filial relation to the men of the elder one.
3 Sa'id was Shah Begim's grandson through her son Ahmad, Sulaiman her greatgrandson through her daughter Sultan-Nigar, but Sulaiman could claim also as the heir of his father who was nominated to rule by Shah Begim ; moreover, he could claim by right of conquest on the father's side, through Abu-sa'id the conqueror, his son Mahmud long the ruler, and so through MahmQd's son Wais Khan Mirza.
4 The menace conveyed by these words would be made the more forceful by Babur's move to Lahor, narrated by Ahmad-i-yadgar. Some ill-result to Sa'id of independent rule by Sulaiman seems foreshadowed ; was it that if Babur's restraining hand were withdrawr, the Badakhshis would try to regain their lost districts and would have help in so-doing from Babur ?
s It is open to conjecture that if affairs in Hindustan had allowed it, Babur would now have returned to Kabul. Ahmad-i-yadgar makes the expedition to be one for
