of later date, Shah Abu'l-ma'ali. But though he were of Tirmiz, it is doubtful if that religious house would be described by the word khdnzvdda which so frequently denotes a ruling dynasty.
His name may have found its way into Nizamu'd-din Ahmad's story as a gloss mistakenly amplifying the word ddmdd, taken in its less usual sense of brother-in-law. To Babur's contemporaries the expression " Babur Padshah's ddmdd" (son-in-law) would be explicit, because for some 11 years before he lay on his deathbed, he had one son-in-law only, viz. Muhammad-i-zaman Mlrza Bdi-qard,x the husband of Ma'suma Sultan Beglm. If that Mirza's name .vere where Mahdi Khwaja's is entered, the story of an exclusion of Babur's sons from rule might have a core of truth.
It is incredible however that Khalifa, with or without Babur's concurrence, made the plan attributed to him of placing any man not a Tlmurid in the position of Padshah over all Babur's territory. I suggest that the plan concerned Hindustan only and was one considered in connection with Babur's intended return to Kabul, when he must have left that difficult country, hardly yet a possession, in charge of some man giving promise of power to hold it. Such a man Humayun was not. My suggestion rests on the following ponsiderations :
(1) Babur's outlook was not that of those in Agra in 1587 AD. who gaye Abu'1-fazl his Baburiana material, because at that date Dihll had become the pivot of Tlmurid power, so that not to hold Hindustan would imply not to be Padshah. Babur's outlook on his smaller Hindustan was different; his position in it was precarious, Kabul, not Dihll, was his chosen centre, and from Kabul his eyes looked northwards as well as to the East. If he had lost the Hindustan which was approximately the modern United Provinces, he might still have held what lay west of it to the Indus, as well as Qandahar.
(2) For several years before his death he had wished to return to Kabul. Ample evidence of this wish is given by his diary, his letters, and some poems in his second Dl-wdn (that found in the RampurMS.). As he told hissons more than once.he kept Kabul
' ^bur, shortly before his death, married Gul-rang to Aisan-tlmur and Gul-chihra p J"jkhta-bugha Chaghatal. Cf. post, Section h, Babur's wives and children ; and «■ B.'sH. N. trs. Biographical Appendix s.nn. Dil-dar Beglm andSalima Saltan Begim Miran-shahi.
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