Z ahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur

Z ahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur (14 February 1483 – 26 December 1530; sometimes also spelt Baber or Babar) was a conqueror from Central Asia who, following a series of setbacks, finally succeeded in laying the basis for the Mughal dynasty in the Indian Subcontinent and became the first Mughal emperor. He was a direct descendant of Timur through his father, and a descendant also of Genghis Khan through his mother; hence, he identified his lineage as Timurid and Chaghatay-Turkic. He was greatly influenced by Persian culture and this affected both his own actions and those of his successors, giving rise to a significant expansion of the Persianate ethos in the Indian subcontinent.
Etymology
Ẓahīr ad-Dīn Muḥammad (Persian: ﻇﻬﻴﺮﺍﻟﺪﻳﻦ محمد‎, also known by his royal titles as al-ṣultānu 'l-ʿazam wa 'l-ḫāqān al-mukkarram bādshāh-e ġāzī), is more commonly known by his nickname, Bābur (بابر). He used the royal title of Padshah.[3]
According to Stephen Frederic Dale, the name Babur is derived from the Persian word babr, meaning "tiger", a word that repeatedly appears in Firdawsī's Shāhnāma[4] and had also been borrowed by the Turkic languages of Central Asia.[5][6] This thesis is supported by the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, explaining that the Turko-Mongol name Timur underwent a similar evolution, from the Sanskrit word cimara ("iron") via a modified version *čimr to the final Turkicized version timür, with -ür replacing -r due to the Turkish vowel harmony (hence babr → babür).[citation needed]
Contradicting these views, W.M. Thackston argues that the name cannot be taken from babr and instead must be derived from a word that has evolved out of the Indo-European word for beaver, pointing to the fact that the name is pronounced bāh-bor[7] in both Persian and Turkic, similar to the Russian word for beaver (бобр – bobr). Babur's cousin, Mirzā Muḥammad Haydar, said that
At that time the Chaghatái (descendants of Genghis Khan) were very rude and uncultured (bázári), and not refined (buzurg) as they are now; thus they found Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad difficult to pronounce, and for this reason gave him the name of Bábar. In the public prayers (khutba) and in royal mandates he is always styled 'Zahir-ud-Din Bábar Muhammad,' but he is best known as Bábar Pádisháh.
Biography
Babur wrote his memoirs and these form the main source for details of his life. They are known as the Baburnama.
He wrote the Baburnama in Chaghatai Turkic, his mother-tongue, though his prose was highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology and vocabulary.
Early life
Babur was born on February 23 [O.S. February 14] 1483[9] in the town of Andijan, in the Fergana Valley in contemporary Uzbekistan. He was the eldest son of Omar Sheykh Mirzā,[10] ruler of the Fergana Valley, the son of Abū Saʿīd Mirza (and grandson of Miran Shah, who was himself son of Timur) and his wife Qutlugh Nigar Khanum, daughter of Yunus Khan, the ruler of Moghulistan (and great-great grandson of Tughlugh Timur, the son of Esen Buqa I, who was the great-great-great grandson of Chaghatai Khan, the second born son of Genghis Khan).[7][11][page needed]
The family tree of Babur
Although Babur hailed from the Barlas tribe which was of Mongol origin, his tribe had embraced Turkic[12] and Persian culture,[13][14] converted to Islam and resided in Turkestan and Khorasan. His mother tongue was the Chaghatai language (known to Babur as Turkī, "Turkic") and he was equally at home in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite.[15]
Hence Babur, though nominally a Mongol (or Moghul in Persian language), drew much of his support from the local Turkic and Iranian people of Central Asia, and his army was diverse in its ethnic makeup. They included Sarts (Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmen), ethnic Afghans, Arabs, as well as Barlas and Chaghatayid Turco-Mongols from modern-day Afghanistan and Central Asia.[16] Babur's army also included Qizilbāsh fighters, a militant religious order of Shi'a Sufis from Safavid Persia who later became one of the most influential groups in the Mughal court.[citation needed]
Babur is said to have been extremely strong and physically fit. He could allegedly carry two men, one on each of his shoulders, and then climb slopes on the run, just for exercise.[citation needed] He claimed to have swam across every major river he encountered, including twice across the Ganges River in North India.[17] His passions could be equally strong. In his first marriage he was "bashful" towards ʿĀʾisha Ṣultān Begum, later losing his affection for her.[18] Babur also had a great passion to kill people, cut heads of people and create pillars out of cut head. He claimed to have created several such pillars in his autobiography.