The Legacy of the Timurids

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 43-58

  Dale, Stephen Frederic ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85012188970     PISSN: 13561863     EISSN: 14740591     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1356186300016424     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Jean-Paul Roux offers the most elaborate and articulate essay on the Timurid renaissance in his recent biography of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, the founder of the Mughul empire of India. Histoire des Grand Moghols, Babur (Paris, 1986), chapter II, “La Renaissance timouride”, pp. 51-93. Maria Eva Subtelny criticizes the idea in her article “Sociocultural bases of cultural patronage under the later Timurids”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XX/4 (1988), p. 398 and n. 1.
2. For introductions to Mir ‘Ali Shir Nava'i see Alessio Bombaci, Histoire de la litterature Turque, I. Melikoff trans. (Paris, 1968), pp. 107-35; A. H. Khayitmetov, “Khorasan i Maverannahr vo vtory polovine xv veke”, in Historiya Uzbekskoy Uteraturi (Tashkent, 1987); and Izzat Sultan, Knigapriznanniy Navoi (Tashkent, 1985).
3. Cl. Huart [H. Masse], “Djami, Maulana Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., and A. J. Arberry, “Jami”, in his book Classical Persian Literature (London, 1967), pp. 425-50.
4. R. Ettinghausen, ‘Bihzad, Kamal al-Din, Ustad”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., and Priscilla Soucek, “Behzad, Kamal al-Din”, Encyclopaedia Iranica. “Annette Susannah Beveridge, ed. and trans., The Babur-nama in English, 2nd ed. (London, 1969), pp. 299-300.
5. Stephen Frederic Dale, “Steppe humanism: the autobiographical writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur (1483-1530)”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, XXII/i (1990), pp. 37-58.
6. Bombaci, Histoire de la litterature Turque, p. 150. “Nous devons etre reconnaissants a Babur de s'etre presente comme un personnage d'un relief marque, qui reunit l'heritage de trois races: l'elan vital et le qualites de domination des Turcs et des Mongols, le raffinement persan, le conception ethique et religieuse arabe”.
7. Roy Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (London, 1960), p. 12.
8. Riazul Islam, A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500-1700), i (Tehran, 1979), No. A 31, Letter from, Abu'l Fadl ‘Allami to ‘Abdur-Rahim Khan-Khanan, p. 15.
9. Beveridge, The Babur-nama in English, p. 299.
10. Islam, A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations (1500-1700), ii, p. 203.
11. Mir Izzet Ullah, “Travels Beyond the Himalaya”, Republished from the Calcutta Magazine, 1825, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, VII (1853), p. 329. “The attendants [of the Gur-i Amir] are in much poverty; they told me that formerly they were supported by an allowance from the Emperors of Hindustan, which ceased with Muhammad Shah; and they wished to know if there were in India any of the descendants of Timur, whom they might apprise of their condition”.
12. Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D. Lowrey, Timur and the Princely Vision (Los Angeles, 1988), p. 323, and Stuart Carey Welch, India: Art and Culture ljoo-igoo (New York, 1985), pp. 143-4, and plate 84.
13. Nicollao Manucci, Storia Do Mogor, William Irvine trans, and ed., repr. (Calcutta, 1960, ii). Aurungzeb's seal is reproduced and translated on p. 364.
14. Abu'l Fadl, The Akbar-Nama of Abu-l-Fazl, H. Beveridge trans., repr. (New Delhi, 1987), i, pp. 178-80.
15. Islam, A Calendar of Documents on Indo-Persian Relations {1500-1700), i, pp. 178-80 and Lentz and Lowrey, Timur and the Princely Vision, pp. 321-1.
16. W. E. Begley and Z. A. Desai, The Shahjahan Nama of'Inayat Khan (Delhi, 1990), p. 21, and Stanley Lane Poole, The Coins of the Mogol Emperors of Hindustan in the British Museum, repr. (New Delhi, 1983), p. 104. See also the evocative painting done for Shahjahan titled “Timur hands his imperial crown to Babur”, in Robert Skelton, The Indian Heritage (London, 1982), p. 41 and plate 52.
17. Islam, A Calendar of Documents on lndo-Persian Relations (1500-1700), i, p. 271. A discussion of the Balkh campaign is contained in K. A. Antonova and N. M. Goldberg, eds., Russko-Indiiskie Otnosheniya (Moscow, 1958), pp. 74-82.
18. Lentz and Lowrey, Timur and the Princely Vision, p. 324, and ns. 84-7. See also Howard Crane, “The patronage of Zahir al-Din Babur and the origins of Mughal architecture”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute, I (1987), pp. 95-100; A. Chaghtai, “Indian links with Central Asia in architecture”, Arts and Letters, XI/2 (1937), pp. 85-104; and especially Ebba Koch, Mughal Architecture (Munich, 1991).
19. Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge, 1989), p. 53.
20. On the Mughul patrimonial state see Stephen P. Blake, “The patrimonial bureaucratic-state of the Mughals”, Journal of Asian Studies, XXXIX/i (1979), pp. 77-94.
21. Jo-Ann Gross provides a useful introduction to literature on the Naqshbandi order in general and Khwaja Ahrar in particular in “Multiple roles and perceptions of a Sufi Shaikh: symbolic statement and religious authority”, in Marc Gaborieau et al., ed., Naqshbandis (Istanbul/Paris, 1990), pp. 109-10. O. D. Chekovich summarizes Ahrar's career in Samarqand in Samarkandskie Dokuntenti xv-xvi w (Moscow, 1974), pp. 14-28. For conflicting interpretations of the early Naqshbandiyya in India see I. H. Siddiqi's review of Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi's A History of Sufism in India (Delhi, 1983), in Islamic Culture, LXI/i (1985), pp. 71-8.
22. Chekovich, Samarkandskie Dokuntenti xv-xvi w, pp. 336-7. The several waqf structures located immediately adjacent to the royal baths and royal mosque were situated in the area where many Naqshbandi lineages lived at the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. I am indebted for this information to my colleague. Professor Alan Payind, Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Center, Ohio State University.
23. Samarkandskie Dokuntenti xv-xvi w., p. 332.
24. N. Elias and E. Denison Ross, ed. and trans., A History of the Moghols of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlat, 2nd ed., repr. (London, 1972), p. 399.
25. Sultan Khwaja Naqshbandi, a disciple of'Abd al-Shahid, one of Khwaja Ahrar's grandsons, held the office of sadr between 1578 and 1584. Abu'l Fazl, The Akbar-Nama of Abu'l Fazl, ii, p. 275.
26. The ramifications of the marriage of Babur's daughter to a Naqshbandi shaykh were considerable, for a daughter of this marriage later married Akbar's tutor, Bairam Khan. Following Bairam Khan's death the woman became one of Akbar's wives. Bairam Khan was himself a disciple of an Iranian Naqshbandi, Maulana Zayn al-Din Kamankar, and his son, ‘Abd al-Rahim, is likely to have inherited his father's Naqshbandi connections. See The Akbar-Nama of Abu al-Fazl, ii, pp. 98-100 and al-Badauni, Muntakhabu-T-Tawarikh, W. H. Love ed. and trans., repr. (Patna, 1973), i, p. 588.
27. Abu'l Fazl, The Akbar-Nama of Abu'l Fazl, ii, p. 3.
28. I have discussed many of these relationships in my unpublished paper, “Ashraf Sufis: Ahrari Naqshbandis in early Mughul India”, delivered at the Middle Eastern Studies Conference, San Antonio, Texas, November, 1990.
29. I have discussed many of these relationships in my unpublished paper, “Ashraf Sufis: Ahrari Naqshbandis in early Mughul India”, delivered at the Middle Eastern Studies Conference., pp. 6-7.
30. Juan R. I. Cole, Roots of Shi'ism in Iran and Iraq (Berkeley, 1988), p. 230.
31. Baqi Bi'llah's career is described by Muhammad Hashim Kishmi in Zubdat al-Muqamat (Kanpur, 1890). S. A. A. Rizvi summarizes Baqi Bi'llah's life and spiritual training in his work, A History of Sufism in India (Delhi, 1983), ii, pp. 185-7.
32. See the important paper by Simon Digby, “The Naqshbandi in the Deccan in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century A.D.: Baba Palangosh, Baba Musafir and their adherents”, in Marc Gaborieau et al., ed., Naqshbandis, pp. 167-207. Digby's article illustrates that Mughul-Ahrari (Naqshbandi) ties were replicated on a wide scale by Turanian offices and Naqshbandis. His material also makes Cole's references to this phenomenon much more meaningful.
33. H. J. J. Winter, “Persian Sciences in Safavid Times”, in Peter Jackson and Lawrence Lockhart, eds., The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, The Timurid and Safavid Periods (Cambridge, 1986), p. 593, and G. R. Kaye, “The astronomical observatories of Jai Singh”, Archaeological Survey of India, New Imperial Series, XV (Calcutta, 1918).
34. Francis Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals: shared knowledge and connective systems”, pp. 11-13. I am indebted to Professor Robinson for his permission to quote from his unpublished paper. Il'yas Nizamutdinov discusses some Timurid cultural contacts with Timurid-Mughul India in the first half of the sixteenth century, relying heavily on the Babur-nama, in his book, Iz Istorii Sredneaziatsko-Indiiskikh Otnoshenii (Tashkent, 1969), pp. 28-43.
35. Fuad Koprulii, “Chagatay Edebiyati”, in Islam Ansiklopedisi, and Annemarie Schimmel, Islamic Literature in India (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. 23-6.
36. Soucek, “Behzad, Kamal al-Din”, p. 116.
37. Milo Cleveland Beach, Early Mughul Painting (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), pp. 66-7.
38. Maria Eva Subtelny, “Art and politics in early sixteenth century Central Asia”, Central Asiatic Journal, XXVII/i-2(i983),p. 131.
39. Beveridge, The Babur-nama in English, pp. 328-9.
40. Subtelny, “Art and politics in early sixteenth century Central Asia”, p. 137.
41. Edward A. Allworth, The Modem Uzbeks (Stanford, Calif., 1990), p. 52.
42. Chekovich, Samarkandskie Dokumenti, No. 16, p. 311 passim.
43. Beveridge, The Babur-nama in English, p. 271.
44. Use Laude-Cirtautas, “O n the development of literary Uzbek in the last fifty years”, Central Asiatic Review, XXI (1977), p. 36 and n. 3.
45. Allworth, The Modem Uzbeks, pp. 226-8.
46. Janos Eckmann, Chagatay Manual (Bloomington, Indiana, 1966), pp. 1-10; Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, pp. 228-31, and Laude-Cirtautas, “O n the development of literary Uzbek in the last fifty years”, pp. 36-51.
47. Khayitmetov, Istoriya Uzbekskoy Uteraturi, i, p. 276.
48. Khayitmetov, Istoriya Uzbekskoy Uteraturi, i., p. 407. ‘ 2 I. V. Stevleba, “Some notes on the literary skill of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur”, Journal of Turkish Studies, XIII (1989), pp. 245-7; and Khayitmetov, Istoriya Uzbekskoy Uteraturi, p. 408.
49. Khayitmetov, Istoriya Uzbekskoy Uteraturi, i., p. 412.
50. Shaikh Sibjon, Abdulrahid, “Baboor-eminent Poet and Scientist”, Muslims of the Soviet East, No. 2 (1983), pp. 19-20. 1 am indebted to Howard Ciane for giving me a copy of this article which conveys an idea of the contemporary Uzbek view of Babur. Pirimqul Qadirov's novel, Babyr, is subtitled Zvezdnie Nod [Starry Nights] (Moscow, 1983).
51. Norah Chadwick and Victor Zhirmunsky, Oral Epics of Central Asia (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 138 and 297. A complete understanding of the Timurids’ legacy would require a systematic study of oral traditions and popular literature of all kinds in the eastern Islamic world.
52. Allworth, The Modern Uzbeks, pp. 242-9.
53. Sergei Borodin, Zvezdi nad Samarkhandom (Moscow, 1956). 38 Cornell Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, The Historian Mustafa ‘Ali (1511-1600) (Princeton, 1986), pp. 284-7.
54. Eleazer Birnbaum, “The Ottomans and Chagatay literature”, Central Asiatic Journal, XX/3 (1976), p. 163.
55. Godfrey Goodwin, A History of Ottoman Architecture (London, 1971), pp. 109-10 and 137-8.
56. Birnbaum, “The Ottomans and Chagatay literature”, p. 165.
57. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire, pp. 70-1.
58. For a modern Turk's appreciation of Nava'i see Fuad Kopriilii, “Chagatay Edebiyati”, pp. 296-306. Babur is discussed by Resit Rahmeti Arat in his modern Turkish translation of the Babur-nama, Vekayi Babaru'un Hatirati (Ankara, 1943).
59. Koprulii, “Chagatay Edebiyati”, pp. 309-11, and the important article by Tourkhan Gandjei, “Turkish in the Safavid court of Isfahan”, Tunica, XXI-XXIII (1991), pp. 311-18.
60. Laurence Binyon, J. V. S. Wilkinson and Basil Gray, Sayr-i Tarikh Naqqashi-yi Irani, Muhammad Iranmunshi, trans. (Tehran, n.d.), p. 141 passim.
61. Robert Hillenbrand, “Safavid Architecture”, The Cambridge History of Iran, VI, pp. 761, 766 and 817.
62. Soucek, ‘Behzad…”, p. 116.
63. Lentz and Lowrey, Timur and the Princely Vision, pp. 310-13.
64. Linda Komaroff, The Golden Disk of Heaven (Costa Mesa, Calif, 1991).
65. Sometimes this attitude is implicit, as it is in ‘Abd al-Hayy's massive volume, Hunar-i ‘ahd Timuriyan (Tehran, n.d.).
66. Ghulam Muhammad Ghubar, Afghanistan dar masir tarikh (Kabul?, n.d.), p. 277.
67. Afghanistan dar masir tarikh., p. 277.
68. Conversation with Dr Farhadi, Middle East Studies Association, San Antonio, Texas, November, 1990.
69. Dale, “Steppe humanism… “, pp. 49-53.
70. Roux, Hhtoire Des Grand Moghols, Babur, p. 21.
71. E. M. Forster, “The Emperor Babur”, Abinger Harvest, repr. (New York, 1964), p. 301.
72. E. M. Forster, “What I Believe”, Two Cheers for Democracy, repr. (New York, 1951), p. 67. I am indebted to my wife, Carole J. Dale, for this reference.
73. “What I Believe”., p. 68.