Daily Times

By writing his epic poem Bibi Mubarika and Babur, Sahibzada Riaz Noor has not only done a favour to literature but also history. He has given us not only a poem rich in imagery, colour, and emotion but a history lesson full of insights. (For the sake of transparency, I must state that I wrote the Foreword and have leaned on it for this article).

The poem is in the Homeric vein—its characters heroic, its scope vast and the story consequential. The history throws light on a little-known aspect of the life of one of the great figures of world history, Babur or, as some prefer, Babar, the founder of the Mughal empire, arguably India’s greatest and most glorious empire. In the process, the poet has given us in Bibi Mubarika, Babur’s empress, a marvellous icon and role model, a woman of grit and honour, an empress with compassion and courage. The epic is called Bibi Mubarika and Babur. The poet deliberately put her name first in the title to restore her place in history and honour her.

Sahibzada Riaz Noor, together with his friend, mentor, and colleague, Ejaz Rahim, who wrote the excellent Prologue, have kick-started an entire poetic tradition in a land where English—inherited at birth—now languishes neglected. These two poets have picked up the dying language and not only resuscitated it but given it some of its most brilliant expressions as well. As both write in epic mode, there are universal references to, for example, Helen of Troy in Europe and Queen Cleopatra in Africa.

We hear the voice of Bibi Mubarika early in the poem as she establishes her narrative style and identity:

This is my history

Bibi Mubarika Yusafzai

Gulbadan’s Afghan Aghachi

In palace with title Bega Begi

Bibi as such did Humayun

In affable and solemn

Honoured deference

Refer to me or my address

As a rose creeper my tale

With the odyssey of Babur

Is intertwined that prince

Among princes proper

The powers of descriptions, imagery and empathy are demonstrated by the poet in describing the enchanted Pukhtun lands where Mubaraka grew up in her voice:

I opened my eye and grew up

In dales of pines and spruces

Cool waters feeding orchards

Of peaches plums and apricots

Grew up with friends fair

In nature’s pristine purity

Flowers and meadows green

Beatific youth was company mine

Bred in piety and learning

Graces of honour and arts

Though I was no queen yet

But best could I all hearts

My life of playful virtue

By a quake was struck suddenly

To my core deep me it shook

To betrothed to a Padishah Turk

Perhaps, there is no one better qualified to know an individual than a spouse. So many iconic male figures turn out to be loathed and hated by their spouses because of their behaviour. The test for Babur was to view him through the eyes of his wife Bibi Mubarika. She came from the Yusufzai Pathan tribe who had fought Babar and she played a role in reconciling the two. On his death, he was temporarily entered in Agra but Bibi Mubaraka had promised her husband that she would take him to Kabul to bury him there. It was an immense task fraught with problems of logistics of transport etc. In the background the newly founded Mughal Empire was wobbly and Babur’s son Humayun would lose the empire for a while, only regaining it after he made various compromises to win the support of the Persian monarch. With the empire itself facing uncertainty, the burial wish of Babur was of little priority. People it seems had simply forgotten Babur’s last wish.

This was the moment that Bibi Mubarika stepped out from behind the segregated pavilion of the women’s quarters and claimed her position in history. She was determined to honour her husband’s last wish. Not only would she honour her husband but she would accompany him on his last journey. As a cursory glance at a map will tell you, the journey from Agra to Kabul is fraught with dangers and challenges. There are mighty rivers to cross, dangerous passes to negotiate and some of the fiercest tribes along the route ready to raid and loot the traveller. It would take a person of great courage to even contemplate such a journey but then Bibi Mubarika was not only a Pathan but a Yousufzai Pathan, the tribe considered to be the quintessential Pathan tribe. And as we know at the heart of Pathan culture is Pukhtunwali or the way of the Pathans. And at the heart of Pukhtunwali is the notion of honour. In the noble act, Bibi Mubaraka was embodying Pukhtunwali and thus honouring her people. Because the spotlight has been so firmly fixed on Babur and his fascinating life, the heroic warrior, the autobiographer, the builder of an empire, Bibi Mubaraka is little known in history.

The epic is sprinkled with graphic descriptions of several key moments in Babur’s story. Despite his various military adventures and sometimes precarious position, Babur was consistently gracious and generous. Here is the time Babur wins the great battle at Panipat against Ibrahim Lodhi and in victory shows his characteristic chivalry:

A fallen fighter to venerate

We marched to the spot

Where Sultan Ibrahim Lodhi’s

Body had dropped

Lifting his head I remarked

‘Honour to your courage’

A brocade laid where he lay

A solemn burial we gave

Babur, sitting with his kin in the garden of Zarafshan after vanquishing all the possible threats from the west and east of Agra, stated in a moment of candour that:

I am weary of ruling,

To the Zarafshan garden,

I wish to retire,

With only an attendant one

The poet is careful while extolling Babur’s military genius to also underline his humanity to the defeated.

So orders to my troops

Were sent no hurt be brought

Neither to the herds nor flocks

Nor even to their cotton stalks