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Product Description
The great-great-great grandson of Tamerlane, the great Mongol ruler of Samarkand who defeated the Ottomans in 1402, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur Mirza (1483-1530)--better known as Babur Padisha--was the last Timurid of Central Asia and the first Mughal Emperor of India. In the Baburnama, Babur, a descendant of Genghis Khan and a refined, educated, and well-travelled prince, left behind an unparalled memoir of his life and times--the central document most often quoted by historians and scholars of Mughal India.
Now, Wheeler M. Thackston, Jr., has provided a sparkling new translation of this intimate and truthful record in an exquisitely illustrated and produced edition that faithfully preserves the spirit and beauty of the original work. Translated directly from Babur's Chaghatay Turkish, here is not only an extraordinarily detailed picture of life in Central Asia and India during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, but also the first real autobiography in Islamic literature, in which Babur provides keen insights into his own personality, frank assessments of the deeds and motivations of the people with whom he dealt, and keys to understanding the rise and development of Islamic culture. Readers will note, for example, that the interests Babur so eloquently expresses in his memoirs--his profound curiousity about the natural world and human personalities--also defined the directions that the artists of his time were to follow. This engrossing account is made all the more valuable by its rarity: to have a ruler's perspective on the events to which he is central is extremely unusual in the medieval Islamic world, particularly in an age like Babur's, which saw violent and major dynastic changes throughout Iran, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
An insightful look into a particularly stimulating period in the world's history, Baburnama will garner accolades from historians, students and scholars of the Islamic world, and anyone who loves a good story.
Amazon.com Review
Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur was the first Mughal, or Mongol, emperor of India. A devoted warrior who fought by the bloodthirsty standards of his time, Babur was also a gifted scholar and ethnographer, and his memoir, The Baburnama--which translator and editor Wheeler Thackston heralds as the first autobiography in Islamic literature--paints a fascinating portrait of the lands he conquered, such as Hindustan: "A strange country. Compared to ours, it is another world. Its mountains, rivers, forests, and wildernesses, its villages and provinces, animals and plants, peoples and languages, even its rain and winds are altogether different." They were different indeed, and we're fortunate to have this beautifully illustrated record of Babur's wonderment at the new places he saw.
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