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Steppe Humanism: The Autobiographical Writings of Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, 1483–1530

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Stephen Frederic Dale
Stephen Frederic Dale
Affiliation:
Department of History Ohio State University
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Extract

In his essays on “Self-Expression” and “The Human Ideal” in the medieval Islamic world, the late Gustave E. von Grunebaum argued that both expressions and portrayals of individuality were a comparative rarity in the literature of pre-modern Islamic civilization.1 Von Grunebaum concluded from reviewing both autobiographical and biographical works written by Muslims that the social customs, religious values, and literary conventions of premodern Islamic society combined to discourage evocations or depictions of idiosyncratic personalities in favor of representations of impersonal stereotypes.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , February 1990 , pp. 37 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

NOTES

Author's note: Part of this research was carried out under a grant from the Social Science Research Council. The article was first presented at the Ohio State University Humanities Symposium, April, 1988. I am grateful to my colleagues, June and Paul Fullmer, and to former editor Peter von Sivers for valuable suggestions that have been incorporated into the final draft.

1 Gustave, E. von Grunebaum, “Self-Expression: Literature and History,” and “The Human Ideal,” in idem, Medieval Islam, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1953), pp. 221–93.Google Scholar See also Fedwa, Malti-Douglas, Blindness and Autobiography (Princeton, N.J., 1988).Google Scholar In her discussion of the many examples of premodern Arabic autobiographical literature, Malti-Douglas echoes von Grunebaum when she says, “Autobiography was a literary form well known to the medieval Arabs…. But there is a basic difference between classical and modern Arabic conceptions of literature. (…) [In modern Arabic literature] there can be seen a totally transformed relationship between the individual and the work of art. The literary text ceases to be an expression of collective norms and becomes a personal work, expressing and centering on the individual” (pp. 9–10). The standard study of Arabic autobiography is Franz, Rosenthal's, “Die arabische Autobiographie,” Studia Arabica, I [Analecta Orientalia, 14 (1937)], 1–40.Google Scholar See also Sergei, E. Shuishkii, “Some Observations on Modern Arabic Autobiography,” Journal of Arabic Literature 13 (1982), 111–23.Google Scholar Maria Subtelny discusses autobiographical and biographical literature of the Timurid period in “Scenes from the Literary Life of Tīmūrid Herāt,” in Roger, Savory and Dionisius, A. Agius, eds., Logos Islamikos: Studia Islamica in Honorem Georgii Michaelis Wickens (Toronto, 1984), pp. 137–45.Google Scholar

2 Von Grunebaum, “Self-Expression: Literature and History,” and “The Human Ideal,” in von, Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 275, 223–24.Google Scholar

3 As is generally known, the use of the term “Mughal” as a label for Babur's Indian dynasty is a misnomer, for although Babur's mother was of Mongol lineage, Babur spoke and largely wrote Chagatay and thought of himself as a Turk and, more particularly, as a Timurid. His “claim” to India was based upon Timur's invasion of India and sack of Delhi in 1398. See Annette, Susannah Beveridge, trans. and ed., The Bābur-nāma in English, 2nd ed. (London, 1969), pp. 382–85.Google Scholar

4 The Chagatay text has been edited by Beveridge, A. S., The Bābar-nāma (repr. London, 1971).Google Scholar Beveridge meticulously edited her translation of the text cited in n. 3. J. L. Baqué-Grammont recently published a new French translation, Le livre de Babur (Paris, 1980). Sabakat Azimdzhanova describes Russian and Uzbek editions of the text in her partial biography, Gosudarstvo Babura v Kabule i v Indii (Moscow, 1977). Reşit Rahmeti Arat did a modern Turkish translation in 1943. Vekayi Babur'un hatirat, (Ankara, 1943). For Babur's verse, see Azimdzhanova, S., Indiīskiī divan Babura (Tashkent, 1966);Google ScholarDenison, E. Ross, “A Collection of Poems by the Emperor Babur,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, N.S., 6 (1910), 1–42;Google ScholarSaibek, Hasanov, trans., Babur, 2 vols. (Tashkent, 1982);Google Scholar and Annemarie, Schimmel, “Babur Padishah, the Poet, with an Account of the Poetical Talent in His Family,” Islamic Culture, 24 (04 1960), 125–38.Google Scholar Babur's treatise on Turkic prosody has been edited with an introduction by Steblevoi, A. V., Traktat ob aruze (Moscow, 1972).Google Scholar A Russian translation of the work is contained in the first volume of Hasanov's, Babur, pp. 91–107.Google Scholar

5 John, Pope-Hennessy, Cellini (New York, 1985), p. 16.Google Scholar

6 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. lviii.Google Scholar

7 Forster, E. M., ‘The Emperor Babur,” in Abinger Harvest (New York, 1964), p. 303. I am indebted to Guy Welbon of the University of Pennsylvania for introducing me to this delightful essay which stimulated my interest in studying Babur's life.Google Scholar

8 Roy, Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography (London, 1960), p. 22.Google Scholar In his monumental study of autobiography Georg Misch recognized the Baburnama as autobiographical literature in his work Geschichte der Autobiographic, 4 vols. (Frankfurt, 1962), III, 2: 960–61. It is more common for scholars of autobiography to proceed from the assumption that the genre is “a phenomenon peculiar to Western culture,” as John, Paul Eakin remarks in his eloquent work, Fictions in Autobiography (Princeton, N.J., 1985), p. 224.Google Scholar

9 Pascal, Design and Truth in Autobiography, chap. 3, “The Classical Age of Autobiography.”

10 Ibid., p. 1.

11 Ibid., p. 10. Eakin repeatedly restates this point even more strongly, describing “autobiography… as a ceaseless process of identity formation in which new versions of the past evolve to meet the constantly changing requirements of the self in each successive event” ( Fictions in Autobiography, p. 36). See also the invaluable bibliographic essay by William, O. Spengemann, “The Study of Autobiography,”Google Scholar in idem, The Forms of Autobiography (New Haven, Conn., 1980), pp. 170–245.

12 Pascal, , Design and Truth in Autobiography, p. 19.Google Scholar Eakin, in the course of making this same point, quotes Eric Erikson's discussion of identity formation in Young Man Luther. Erikson wrote: “By accepting some definition as to who he is, usually on the basis of a function in an economy, a place in the sequence of generations, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectively reconstruct his past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned him, or better, he seems to have planned it” ( Fictions in Autobiography, p. 109, n. 32). For an extended discussion of personal identity formation, see Jonathan, Glover, I: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity (London, 1988);Google Scholar Adam Morton's review of Glover's book, “Creators of Ourselves,” Times Literary Supplement, 01 27–02 2, 1989, p. 77.

13 Pascal, , Design and Truth in Autobiography, p. 17.Google Scholar

14 Ibid., p. 31.

15 A number of scholars distinguish between autobiography and memoir. Karl Joachim Weintraub considers the difference to be that of introspection, which is characteristic of autobiography. “Autobiography and Historical Consciousness,” Critical Enquiry, 1,4 (06 1975), 821–48. Roy Pascal believes the distinction reflects a contrast in emphasis and focus. He writes: “The line between autobiography and memoir or reminiscence is much harder to draw–or rather, no clean line can be drawn… In the autobiography proper, attention is focused on the self, in the memoir or reminiscence, on others” ( Design and Truth in Autobiography, p. 5).

16 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 445, n. 1; p. 678, n. 4 & 6.Google Scholar

17 Beveridge, The Bābar-nāma, fol. 2.

18 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nūma in English, p. 678.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 92.

20 Ibid., p. 382.

21 Ibid., p. 135.

22 lbid., p. 300.

23 For Yazdi's works see Storey, C. A., Persian Literature: A Biobibliographical Survey, 2 vols., (London, 1970), I: 283–87.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., pp. 101–9, 536. Khvandamir, a native of Herat, spent most of his life in that city. In 1527, he left for Qandahar and in 1528 arrived in India, where he was welcomed by Babur, accompanying the latter on his campaigns into Bengal. Khvandamir continued revising the Habīb al-siyar during this period, making use of at least the recently completed Ferghana section of the Babur nama. N. D. Mikhluko-Maklai analyzes the relationship between the two texts in his article, “Khondamir i ‘zapiski’ Bābura,” Tiurkologicheskie Issledovaniia (Moscow/Leningrad, 1963), 237–49. After Babur's death in 1530, Khvandamir became a member of Humayun's court circle.

25 George Makdisi discusses the composition and stylistic peculiarities of diaries in early Islamic culture. “The Diary in Islamic Historiography,” History and Theory, 25,2 (1986), 173–85. In commenting on an earlier draft of this article, Cornell Fleischer of Washington University suggested to me that, based upon his knowledge of the Ottoman archives, the stylistic peculiarities were, in general terms, similar to aide-memoire or other internal documents that had a limited circulation within the court.

26 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 91.Google Scholar

27 Ghiyās, al-Dīn b. Humām Muhammad Khvāndamīr, Tārīkh-i habīb al-siyar, ed. Humā⊃ī, J. (Tehran, 1333/1954), IV: 261.Google Scholar

28 Elias, N. and Denison, E. Ross, ed. and trans., A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlāt, 2nd ed. (repr. London, 1972), p. 2.Google Scholar

29 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 104–5.Google Scholar It seems characteristic that if Babur felt his experiences could serve as guides for political tactics, he did not transpose his reflections into the generalized, depersonalized style that characterized the “mirrors for princes” literature with which he may have been familiar, such as the Qābūs and Siyāsat nāmas. Both works were written in Iran in the 11th century. See Browne's, E. G. account of the texts, A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols. (repr. Cambridge, 1964), II: 212–17, 276–87.Google Scholar

30 Babur's sections on geography and the flora and fauna of Hindustan bear a general resemblance to Muslim geographical works such as that of Ibn, Hawkal, Configuration de la terre (Kitāb şūrat al-ard), ed. and trans. Kramers, J. N. and Wiet, G. (Paris, 1964). A poetic memoir written by one of Babur's virtual contemporaries is the Badāyi⊂ al-vaqāyi⊂ by Zayn al-Din Vāşifī. Maria Subtelny of Toronto University describes it in “Scenes from the Literary Life of Tīmūrid Herāt.” Vāşifī's work, completed in Tashkent in 1538–1539, is, like the Babur nama, an unofficial composition. It is also strongly autobiographical, frank and direct. I am indebted to Professor Subtelny for sending me a copy of this article and for introducing me to much of the scholarly literature on the Timurid period.Google Scholar

31 Alexander, Burnes, Travels into Bokhara … in the years 1831, 1832 and 1833, 2nd ed., 3 vols. (London, 1835).Google Scholar

32 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 31.Google Scholar

33 Beatrice, F. Manz describes Timur's invocation of divine sanction for his conquests in “Tamerlane and the Symbolism of Sovereignty,” Iranian Studies, 21, 1–2 (1988), 117. Babur invokes Timur to legitimize his own conquests but only rarely does he cite Chingizid or other steppe traditions as a way to explain or justify his own conduct.Google Scholar

34 Beveridge, The Bābar-nāma, fol. 54b. Reşit Arat translates this crucial sentence into 20th-century Turkish as follows: “Kendimi bileliden ben bu kadar iztirap ye meşakkat çekmemiştim” ( Vekayi Babur'un hatirati, p. 57).

35 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 120.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., p. 120. The sense of adolescence that Beveridge conveys in her translation accurately reflects the Chagatay text. “Meyn onka garīb ineyl peyda kildim, belkim onka özini zar ye sheyda kildim” (Beveridge, The Bābar-nāma, fol. 75b). Professor Arat translates these lines as follows: “Bende ona karşi garīb bir meyil peyda oldu; hattâ ona kendimi zār ye şeyda kιldιm” ( Vekayi Babur'un hatiratι, p. 79).

37 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 120. The verses are as follows: “Hich kas chūn kharāb va⊂ashiq va rusva mubād,// Hich mahjūbī chū to bī rahm va bī pirvā mubād.” (Beveridge, The Bābar-nāma, fol. 75b).Google Scholar

38 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 121.Google Scholar Ehsan Yarshater points out that poets commonly addressed Persian love lyrics to males (“The Development of Iranian Literatures,” in Ehsan, Yarshater, ed., Persian Literature [Albany, N.Y., 1988], 25).Google Scholar The verse forms and vocabulary of such lyrics were, of course, highly stylized. Annemarie Schimmel suggested that this passage might be an adaptation of Sufi descriptions of spiritual wanderings. If Professor Schimmel is correct, this is good indication of how Babur, like Cellini, could adapt existing genres or imagery to his autobiographical purpose. Pope-Hennessy discusses Cellini's Vita as a variant of a well-known Florentine genre, the memoriali ( Cellini, p. 12).

39 Pascal, , Design and Truth in Autobiography, p. 51.Google Scholar

40 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 152.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 182.

42 Writing about the disloyalty of supporters in Kabul in 1507 Babur says, “I do not write this in order to make complaint: I have written the plain truth. I do not set these matters down in order to make known my own deserts; I have set down exactly what has happened. In this History I have held firmly to it that the truth should be reached in every matter …” (Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 318).Google Scholar Pascal and Eakin both dwell on the claims of Rousseau, the first “classical” autobiographer, that he was completely truthful. Eakin takes Pascal's observation that each autobiographer designs his own life as the theme of his work, arguing that it is impossible to know whether autobiographers actually present themselves accurately or truthfully. “Whether the self, that ‘certain intricate watermark,’ is literally dis-covered, made ‘visible’ in autobiography, or is only invented by it as a kind of signature, a kind of writing, is beyond our knowing” (Eakin, , Fictions in Autobiography, p. 278). This epistemological question is an issue that is distinct from the present discussion of Babur's perception and literary presentation of his individuality.Google Scholar

43 Bevericlge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 340.Google Scholar For a discussion of the Uzbek state, see Martin, B. Dickson, “Shāh Tahmāsp and the Ūzbeks (The Duel for Khurāsān with ⊂Ubayd Khān: 930–946/1524–1540),” Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1958, chap. 2, “The Political Situation Among the Uzbeks.”Google Scholar

44 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma, in English, p. 92.Google Scholar

45 Ibid., p. 295.

46 Ibid., p. 299.

47 Ibid., p. 310 and Beveridge, The Bābar-nāma, fol. 194b.

48 The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 334.

49 Ibid., p. 417. The “qalandar” whom Babur invited to his party represented a socially and religiously marginal group discussed by Simon, Digby in his fascinating article, “Elements of Social Deviance in the Religious Life of the Delhi Sultanate of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” in Yohanan, Friedmann, ed., Islam in Asia (Boulder, Cob., 1984), 60–108.Google Scholar

50 Azimdzhanova, S., Indiiskii; divan Babura (Tashkent: Fan, 1966), pp. 48–49. I have largely followed Azimdzhanova's translations here.Google Scholar

51 Ibid., p. 45.

52 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 620.Google Scholar The connection between Timurids and Khvaja Ahrar is summarized by Chekovitch, O. D. in his edition of Naqshbandi waqf documents, Samarkandskie dokumenty (Moscow, 1974), pp. 14–28. I am indebted to Thomas Allsen of Trenton State University for introducing me to this work and generously sharing with me his exceptional knowledge of sources for Central Asian history.Google Scholar

53 Azimdzhanova, , Indiĭiskiĭi; divan Babura, pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

54 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 648.Google Scholar

55 Azimdzhanova, , Indiĭskiĭi divan Babura, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

56 Ibid., p. 50.

57 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 645.Google Scholar

58 Henry, Beveridge, trans. and ed., The Akbar Nama of Abu-l-Fazl, 3 vols. (Delhi, 1987), 1: 223–24.Google Scholar For a discussion of court historiography in general and of that of Timur in particular, see Polyakova, E. A., “Timur as Described by 15th-Century Court Historians,” in Iranian Studies, 21, 1–2 (1988), 31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

59 ⊂Abd, al-Rahmān Ibn Khaldūn, The Muqaddimah, trans. Franz, Rosenthal (Princeton, N.J., 1969).Google Scholar N. Talbi writes of Ibn Khaldun's impact, “thus the atypical figure of Ibn Khaldūn in AraboMuslim culture has been unanimously considered, since his discovery in Europe, as that of an authentic genius… Certainly a ‘solitary genius,’ he does not belong to any definite current of Arabo-Muslim thought… His thinking represents a radical change, which unfortunately remained as unproductive as his political midadventures.” Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1971), 111: 830–31.

60 Alexander, Rogers and Henry, Beveridge, trans. and ed., The Tūzuk-i-Jahāngīrī 2nd ed. (New Delhi, 1968). Jahangir's less interesting memoirs might be interpreted as the product of one who represented a later, “decadent,” phase of Mughal dynastic history in Ibn Khaldun's schema of the rise and fall of dynasties.Google Scholar

61 Burnes, , Travels into Bokhara, II: 219.Google Scholar

62 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, pp. 626–27.Google Scholar Over a century and a half later Sir John Chardin reported a dramatic anecdote from the Safavid court that illustrated a high official's preference for clear, concise prose. Chardin was told of an instance in which a “molla” was severely beaten for having presented a petition written in the ornate, elliptical style of the eulogy “where the Sense was so confus'd and perplex'd with Compliments, and old Canting stuff, that it was a difficult Matter to penetrate into the Meaning thereof, with ever so great an Attention. After this miserable Wretch had receiv'd so severe a Punishment, the First minister caus'd him to be brought before him… ‘A Great Vizier’ said he to him, ‘has other Business to do than to read thy sorry Compliments, and to unravel and disentangle the Chaos of the Petitions thou writest: Use a more simple and clear Style, or else do not write for the Publick; for otherwise I'll cause thy Hands to be cut off’” ( Travels in Persia, 1673–77 [New York, 1988], p. 97).

63 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 584.Google Scholar Maria Subtelny has pointed out that Babur was not unique in his consciousness of having lived a chaotic wandering life and that the term qazaqlïq, translated by Beveridge as “guerilla days,” which he uses to describe his early career in Ferghana, was a well-developed concept among Turkic pastoralists. See her article, “Babur's Rival Relations: A Study in Kinship and Conflict in 15th–16th Century Central Asia,” Der Islam, 66, 1 (1989), 102–18.

64 von, Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, pp. 250–57.Google Scholar The phrase “courtly adab culture” is used advisedly here since adab refers to a wide variety of contexts in a way that is somewhat analogous to the use of dharma in South Asian Sanskritic culture. For a collection of articles on noncourtly adab see Barbara, Daly Metcalf, ed., The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley, 1984).Google Scholar

65 An opinion expressed by Charles, Pellat in his lengthy article, “Adab,” in Ehsan, Yarshater, ed., Encyclopaedia Iranica (London, 1985), 1: 433, 436. Pellat writes: “As regards the art of composition and rhetoric, the Iranians ideally gave weight to meaning and were wary of verbal ornamentation which might distract the reader or hearer from the subject… In the light of the foregoing, the desiderata of prose and verse style in Pahlavi and in Persian of the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries may be summarized as “revity … simplicity and imaginativeness.”Google Scholar

66 Beveridge, , The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 268.Google Scholar A. K. S. Lambton offers valuable insight into the influential role of women in Turco-Mongol society. See “The Constitution of Society (2) Women of the Ruling House,” in Lambton, A. K. S., ed., Continuity and Change in Medieval Persia (London, 1988).Google Scholar

67 The Bābur-nāma in English, p. 300.

68 Ibid., pp. 299–300.

69 Yunas Khan, who spent a long period of exile in Iran, combined Mughal steppe and Iranian urban culture in a manner that excited Babur's cousin Haydar Mirza's admiration. He wrote that Yunus Khan excelled in “penmanship, painting and other accomplishments conformable with a healthy nature, and was well trained in singing and instrumental music…. He was graced with good qualities and perfect manners, was unequaled in bravery and heroism and excelled especially in archery” (Elias, and Ross, , A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, p. 155).Google Scholar

70 Gene, A. Brucker, Renaissance Florence, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1983), p. 222.Google Scholar Brucker is summarizing the opinion of Paul Oskar Kristeller. See his Renaissance Thought: The Classic, Scholastic and Humanist Strains (repr. New York, 1961), p. 120.

71 Brucker, , Renaissance Florence, p. 222.Google Scholar

72 Edward, Said, Orientalism (New York, 1979).Google Scholar The failure of Western writers to accord individuality to the Muslims they discuss is an underlying theme of Said's work. The same failure is one of Ronald Inden's observations about Indological/Orientalist discourse in his essay, “Orientalist Constructions of India,” Modern Asian Studies, 20, 3 (1986), 401–46. Neither author discusses the broader assumptions of Western scholars that individuality was a uniquely Western trait that had its origins in that unique event, the Italian Renaissance.