Latest / The Story of Uzbekistan: Silk Road Kingdoms and Soviet Legacy — Fexingo History / The Last Timurid: Babur's Fight for Samarkand
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Timurid Renaissance — Ulugh Beg's observatory, the madrasas of Samarkand. But what happened after the Timurids fell? That's the story of Babur. Not the Mughal emperor yet — just a teenage prince trying to hold onto his father's kingdom. Luna: Babur as in the founder of the Mughal Empire? I didn't realize he started in Uzbekistan. Lucas: Exactly. zahir ud din Muhammad Babur was born in 1483 in the Ferghana Valley, a direct descendant of Timur on his father's side and maybe Genghis Khan on his mother's. His father, Umar Shaikh Mirza, ruled Ferghana from a fortress called Aksikent. When Umar Shaikh died in a freak accident — his pigeon loft collapsed and he fell down a cliff with it — Babur inherited the throne at age eleven. But his uncles and cousins immediately moved to carve up his territory. Luna: Eleven years old. And he had to fight off his own relatives. Lucas: Right. Babur's memoirs, the Baburnama, are incredibly vivid about this period. He describes how he held on to Ferghana while his uncle Sultan Ahmed Mirza, the Timurid ruler of Samarkand, marched against him. But then Ahmed Mirza died suddenly, and Babur saw an opening. At fourteen, he marched on Samarkand and took the city without a major battle — the nobles just switched sides. It was 1497, and Babur was the new king of Samarkand, the jewel of the Timurid world. Luna: So he's fourteen and rules Samarkand. That's incredible. But it didn't last, did it? Lucas: No. Within months, his nobles back in Ferghana rebelled, and Babur had to march to put down the revolt. While he was gone, a rival Timurid, Sultan Ali Mirza, took Samarkand. Babur tried to recapture both Ferghana and Samarkand simultaneously and ended up losing both. For a couple of years he was essentially a homeless prince, wandering the mountains with a small band of followers. He writes about the humiliation of having to beg for food from villagers. Luna: That's a long way from the Mughal Empire. How did he climb back? Lucas: Through sheer persistence. In 1500, he allied with some Mughal tribes from the steppe — the term 'Mughal' here just means Mongol, but they were Turkicized — and managed to take Samarkand again, this time by a clever trick. He and his men scaled the city walls at night, overpowered the guards, and opened the gates. But his triumph was short-lived. The real threat wasn't his Timurid cousins — it was the Uzbeks. Luna: The Uzbeks under Shaibani Khan? We've mentioned him in earlier episodes. Lucas: Yes. Muhammad Shaybani, or Shaibani Khan, was the leader of the Uzbek confederation that had been sweeping south from the steppes. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan through Shiban, and he had a powerful, mobile army. In 1501, Babur faced Shaibani Khan at the Battle of sar e pul, just north of Samarkand. Babur's army was outnumbered and poorly equipped — he describes how some of his men had only wooden swords. He lost badly. Luna: So Samarkand fell to the Uzbeks. That must have been devastating. Lucas: It was the end of an era. Babur writes that he wandered the streets of Samarkand in disguise after the battle, watching the Uzbeks take over. He finally fled south, ending up in Kabul in 1504. That became his new base. Over the next few years, he built up a small kingdom in Afghanistan, always dreaming of reclaiming Samarkand. He even made a pact with the Safavid Shah Ismail I of Persia, who was a Shi'a — Babur was Sunni, but he needed allies. Luna: Shah Ismail — the one who founded the Safavid Empire. So Babur allied with him against the Uzbeks? Lucas: Yes. In 1510, Shaibani Khan was killed in battle by Shah Ismail's forces. The Safavids took control of Khurasan and even held Samarkand for a time. Babur saw his chance. He marched north with Persian support and recaptured Samarkand for the fourth time in 1511. But his alliance with the Shi'a Persians made him unpopular with the Sunni population. When he tried to introduce Persian-style coinage and the Shi'a call to prayer, his support collapsed. The Uzbeks regrouped under a new leader, and Babur was forced to abandon Samarkand for good in 1512. Luna: After that, he turned his attention to India. Lucas: Exactly. He realized that Central Asia was lost to the Uzbeks. In his memoirs, he writes a famous line: 'Since Samarkand could not be had, I turned my face toward Hindustan.' He spent the next decade consolidating in Kabul, then launched his invasion of India, culminating in the Battle of Panipat in 1526. But that's a story for another show. What's remarkable is that Babur never forgot Uzbekistan. He wrote about its fruits, its rivers, its cities with such longing. The Baburnama is one of the great autobiographies of world history, and half of it is about his youth in Ferghana and Samarkand. Luna: I'd love to hear more about the Baburnama itself. What kind of details does he give? Lucas: Everything. He describes the melons of Samarkand, the snow in the mountains, the way people dressed. He tells you exactly how many men each commander had, what the weather was like on the day of a battle, which horses were fast. It's incredibly honest — he admits when he was scared, when he made mistakes. For example, after losing Samarkand the first time, he writes about getting drunk with his companions and then feeling terrible about it. He was a poet, a writer, a musician — not just a warrior. Luna: So in a way, the Timurid Renaissance didn't end with the Uzbeks. It continued in Babur's memoirs, and then in Mughal India. Lucas: Absolutely. The Mughals brought Persianate culture, Timurid architecture, and Central Asian garden styles to India. The Taj Mahal has its roots in the gardens of Samarkand. So the story of Uzbekistan doesn't end with the Uzbeks conquering Samarkand — it echoes down through Babur's dynasty. And we can still read his own words, in his own language, Chagatai Turkic, to understand what it felt like to be the last Timurid prince trying to hold onto a world that was slipping away. Luna: It's a very human story. A teenager who loses everything and then builds an empire. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why Babur is still remembered in Uzbekistan today. They see him as a tragic hero — a native son who founded one of the greatest empires in history, but could never go home.