The Mughals, the Sufi Shaikhs and the Formation of the Akbari ...

FORMATION OF THE AKBARI DISPENSATION 149
became the shaikh al-Islam of the city of Samarqand, combining with
it the trusteeship of rich endowments settled on the tomb of Khwaja
Ahrar. 40
It is well known that between 1500 and his conquest of India, Babur
came into contact with Shah Isma’il Safavi and with his help avenged
himself upon the Uzbeks for the devastation they had wreaked on the
Timurids and their associates in Central Asia. Because of his close
relations with the Safavid Shah, who was not an orthodox Shi’a but
a zealous propagator of heterodox Shi’ism, Babur is also alleged to
have temporarily developed Shi’a leanings. It is also reported that
a Naqshbandi shaikh of the time, Ahmad ibn Jalal al-Din Khwajagi
admonished him for his seeking help from the Shah of Iran and asked
him instead to accept Shaibani Khan as a khalifa. 41 Bethatasitmay,
Babur nevertheless remained a lifelong devotee of Khwaja Ahrar. Of
interest here is an anecdote pertaining to Babur’s victory over Ibrahim
Lodi in the battle of Panipat in 1526. The anecdote is reported by a
seventeenth-century historian, Muhammad Sadiq. Sadiq writes that as
Babur’s army was too small in opposition to a huge and near-countless
Afghan brigade, he felt overwhelmed and feared that he might lose
the battle to the enemy. He then contemplated the image of Khwaja
Ahrar as he had heard it described. All at once there appeared a
horseman dressed in white, fighting against the Afghans, who were
thereupon completely routed. Later, after the fight, he narrated the
incident to one of his nobles. The noble told Babur that according to
his description, the horseman in white was Maulana Ahmad Khwajagi.
The same day, Babur sent one of his close courtiers to Khwajagi with
several gifts together with a portrait drawn on a piece of paper. Babur,
40 Algar, ‘A brief history of the Naqshbandi order’, in Gaborieau, Popovic and
Zarcone (eds.), Naqshbandis, pp. 15–6.
41 See Fazl-Allah ibn Ruzbihani Isfahani, Suluk al-Muluk, British Library, London
Ms. Or. 253,Preface,fol.3a. Isfahani writes that with Babur’s help, heresy, which is to
say Shi’ism, spread in Mawarannahr and that he, like the Iranian Shi’i leaders played
a detestable role in bringing the mosques and other religious centres of the region
beyond the river Jihun under the control of the heretic Shi’as. The region was thus afire
with their mischief (fitna). All this happened because he invited the red-capped Safavid
qizilbash to come to his help in his fight against the Uzbeks to recover Samarqand and
Bukhara. But for Ubaid-Allah Khan’s gallant struggle (jihad), the rites and symbols of
the true faith would have been completely routed in the region. See also the printed
edition of this text by Muhammad ‘Ali Muvahhid (Tehran: Intisharat-i Khwarzimi,
1362 Shamsi/1983), p. 50. For an English translation of this work, see Muhammad
Aslam, Muslim Conduct of State (Islamabad: University of Islamabad Press, 1974),
pp. 31–3.
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