BABUR

Babur before his conquest of India

Born in what is today the southern Soviet province of Uzbekistan, the Timurid Babur inherited the throne of a small principality known as Ferghana in 1494. He was then eleven years old. By the time he was twenty-one, he twice had held neighboring Samarqand, albeit briefly. For two years after his second loss of Samarqand, Babur, homeless and supported only by a tiny band of loyal followers, sought a principality. In 1504 his luck improved, and he captured Kabul and surrounding territories. In 1511, Babur tried for a third time to extend his rule to Samarqand, this time with support from the Safavid king Shah Ismacil. The Safavid extended his support only because Babur, a Sunni, had agreed to adopt trappings of the Shia creed, a heretical notion to the orthodox Sunni Muslims of Samarqand. Babur was able to enter the city and establish himself as its ruler. But within less than a year, the Sunni subjects of Samarqand withdrew support from Babur. After unsuccessful attempts to gain Bukhara, Babur returned to Kabul in 1512, once again holding only this province, nothing more.

While Babur's tenure in Samarqand had been short, the city's impact upon him was profound, shaping his attitude toward architecture and, even more significantly, toward landscape. Samarqand, embellished by Timur and his immediate successors with splendid char bagh gardens, mosques, madrasas and tombs, was one of the wonders of the fifteenth century. Babur was also deeply impressed by Herat, the seat of most cultured Timurid princes, which he had visited in 1507.