ABSTRACT
Born in 1483 CE in the Farghana region of Central Asia, Babar, the founder of the renowned Mughal dynasty in India, claimed an illustrious pedigree by virtue of descent from two important rulers—Timur (Timurlane) (through his father, Umar Shaikh Mirza) and Chingiz Khan (through his mother, Qutluq Nigar Khanum). His father was one of several princes, all descendants of Timur, who engaged in constant rivalry and battles for control over territory in fifteenth-century Central Asia. In 1494, as a result of a fall from a collapsing wall, Babar’s father died, leaving the eleven-year-old boy to succeed him to rule the kingdom of Farghana. Like his father, Babar, too, spent much of his early political career engaged in endless wars and intrigues contending with his Timurid cousins for suzerainty over territory in Transoxiana and Khurasan, particularly the cities of Samarqand, Bukhara, and Herat. In these internecine Timurid struggles, his fortunes were mixed. He found it difficult to assert his authority over any city in the region fora sustained length of time. For example, by age 30, he had won and lost Samarqand three times. Particularly intense were his conflicts with Shaibani Khan, an Uzbeg prince, whose armies managed to drive Babar and his followers out of Transoxiana to territories farther to the south. There, Babar was eventually successful in establishing control over Kabul, Ghazni, and Badakshan.
