Babur, a Descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, Turns Toward India
Pushed out of Central Asia, a prince with two conquerors in his bloodline looks south
Quick facts
- Born
- 1483, Fergana Valley (modern Uzbekistan)
- Paternal ancestor
- Timur (Tamerlane)
- Maternal ancestor
- Genghis Khan, via the Chagatai line
- Took Kabul
- 1504
- Memoir
- The Baburnama, written in Turki
What happened
Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babur was born in 1483 in the Fergana Valley, in what is now Uzbekistan, a Timurid prince descended from Timur (Tamerlane) on his father's side and from Genghis Khan on his mother's side through the Chagatai line. As a young ruler he tried repeatedly to hold and then reclaim Samarkand, Timur's old capital, and lost both that city and his home territory of Fergana to stronger Uzbek rivals. Driven out of Central Asia, he occupied Kabul in 1504 and ruled there for two decades before turning his ambitions toward Hindustan, the plains of northern India. He wrote his own account of these years in Turki, the Baburnama, one of the first true autobiographies in Islamic literature. In November 1525 he set out from Kabul on the expedition that would end the Delhi Sultanate.
Why it matters
Babur's failure in Central Asia is the reason the Mughal Empire exists in India at all: a prince who could not hold Samarkand redirected a lifetime of military experience and Timurid legitimacy toward the far richer, less defended plains beyond the Khyber Pass. His mixed Timurid-Genghisid lineage gave his descendants a claim to rule that blended Persian courtly culture with the memory of the Mongol conquests.
How we know
Babur's own memoirs, the Baburnama, survive in his native Chagatai Turki and were translated into Persian in 1589-90 under his grandson Akbar; the Victoria and Albert Museum holds an illustrated imperial copy and the British Library holds another dated to the early 1590s with 143 surviving paintings.
Sources
- Victoria and Albert Museum. The arts of the Mughal Empire · Reputable sourcevam.ac.uk · The domain "vam.ac.uk" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Timeline: Mughal Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry.
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Related timelines
- The Mongol Empire → · Babur's mother's line traced back to Genghis Khan and the Chagatai Khanate that splintered from the Mongol Empire.