Babur

Background

                         

 Babur wrote his memoirs and these form the main source for details of his life. They are known as the Baburnama and were written in Chaghatai Turkic, his mother-tongue,^{[12][unreliable source?]} though his prose was highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology and vocabulary.^[7] Baburnama was translated in Persian during the rule of Babur's grandsonAkbar.^{[12][unreliable source?]}

                          Babur was born on February 14 [O.S. ] 1483^[13] in the city of Andijan, Andijan P

rovince, Fergana Valley, contemporary Uzbekistan. He was the eldest son ofUmar Sheikh Mirza,^[14] 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 ofTughlugh Timur, the son of Esen Buqa I, who was the great-great-great grandson ofChaghatai Khan, the second born son of Genghis Khan).^{[11][15][page needed]}

Although Babur hailed from the Barlas tribe which was of Mongol origin, his tribe had embraced Turkic^[16] and Persian culture,^[17][18] converted to Islam and resided inTurkestan and Khorasan. His mother tongue was the Chaghatai language (known to Babur as Turkī, "Turkic") and he was equally fluent in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite.^[19]

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. It included Persians (known to Babur as "Sarts" and "Tajiks"), ethnic Afghans, Arabs, as well as Barlas and Chaghatayid Turco-Mongols from Central Asia.^[20] 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.