Stephen F. Dale

Paperback

9781107107267

This book is a concise biography of Babur, who founded the Timurid-Mughal Empire of South Asia. Based primarily on his autobiography and existential verse, it chronicles the life and career of a Central Asian, Turco-Mongol Muslim who, driven from his homeland by Uzbeks in 1504, ruled Kabul for two decades before invading ‘Hindustan’ in 1526. It offers a revealing portrait of Babur’s Perso-Islamic culture, Timurid imperial ambition and turbulent emotional life.

It is, above all, a humanistic portrait of an individual, who even as he triumphed in South Asia, suffered the regretful anguish of an exile who felt himself to be a stranger in a strange land.