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- [00:01]
William Dalrymple
If you want access to bonus episodes, reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter. Sign up to empire club@www.empirepoduk.com. want to shop Walmart? Black Friday deals first. Walmart plus members get early access to our hottest deals. Join now and get 50% off a one year annual membership. Shop Black Friday deals first with Walmart plus see terms@walmartplus.com okay, I have to tell you, I was just looking on.
- [00:37]
Anita Anand
Ebay where I go for all kinds.
- [00:38]
William Dalrymple
Of things I love. And there it was, that hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set. Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. Ebay had it. And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful.
- [01:00]
Anita Anand
Whatever you love, find it on eBay.
- [01:02]
William Dalrymple
EBay.
- [01:03]
Unknown
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- [01:44]
Anita Anand
Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
- [01:48]
William Dalrymple
And me, William Dripple.
- [01:50]
Anita Anand
So just in the last episode, we left you at a low point in the story of Hamayu First Sun. And he is the man who has made a promise to his father that no matter how shitty his brothers are, he's not going to kill them. And this is going to be a very great difficulty for him. He's in the deserts of Sindh. He's at his lowest point. But then he discovers love. He finds his wife far away from, you know, everything that he knows in exile. But his heart is full. And he's also got this rather wonderful enemy in the form of Sher Shah, the Lion King, if you like, if you translate it, who has usurped everything that his father fought for and his throne in India and established his own empire there instead. Now, just to pick up on this, this is not such a well known story as some of the other moguls Because Humayu is so often overlooked in the pantheon, isn't he?
- [02:44]
William Dalrymple
He is. And there's been a lot of interesting new work on Humayun. We've always thought of Humayun as this completely hopeless hippy, dippy, sort of would be mystic who's always sort of shooting ARR in the air to make predictions about the future. But he's also sort of brilliant and erudite and far more sort of bookish and fascinating and complicated than I think anyone guessed before. And the thing I like best about him is that even now when he's in exile in Sindh, the world he's abandoned, the new country that he's conquered is gone. The new city he's been planning, Dinpana, is gone. His fantastic palaces including a mystic palace in Agra that he's just built, all that is behind him. But he's got the thing that matters most to him, which is his two library camels. A library camel.
- [03:37]
Anita Anand
How marvellous.
- [03:38]
William Dalrymple
We all need a library camel on Empire Pod.
- [03:40]
Anita Anand
This is the precursor to the mobile library that goes to distant places. Is it? I mean, what he really literally had two camels laden with books.
- [03:47]
William Dalrymple
Laden with books. And there's a lovely moment when at the lowest point of his life later we will come across when he suffers a defeat. But say any more than that at this stage because I wouldn't like to.
- [03:58]
Anita Anand
No, because it's not like you at all. That's not, that's not you.
- [04:00]
William Dalrymple
I wouldn't ever spoil the ending. But there's this wonderful moment when a week later when finally he finally succeeds, the camels come back as sort of homing pigeons and find him and he gets all his books back. He's also rather a good poet, which I don't think any of us had realized before.
- [04:19]
Anita Anand
Oh really? Because his father was deeply critical of his writing, wasn't he? His dad was like one of those withering Indian dads who just, you know, you bring home an essay with an A on it and he goes, well, the syntax was poor.
- [04:31]
William Dalrymple
I've got for you here a little love poem he wrote. It's not clear whether this is directed at his new 14 year old wife who's just given birth to Akbar Hamida Begum or whether for someone of a completely different sex and age. But here it is. My fate has fallen with a moon faced beauty and fire has fallen into my heart. My house was brightened with the face of my beloved from the moon faced beauty has fallen Array in every direction my heart, O life draws me since my Heart has fallen to become captive to this attractor of hearts. The object of my heart I shall seize now with exhilaration has fallen into my hand. Do not seek reason and wit in me When Humayun has fallen into senselessness. And that, sadly, is a state that he seems to have been in quite.
- [05:21]
Anita Anand
A lot of his life in senselessness, I'm quite interested. So he's writing poetry again. He's got love in his life, clearly, whether it's with his wife or somebody else, we're not entirely sure. But there's love in his heart, but he has very little else. I mean, his pockets are empty. So when he meets people along the way. Because if you want to try and regain your kingdom, I'm sure that's in his mind that he's been traditionally reduced to nothing. But what does he have to offer if he wants to make allegiances? What does he have to woo, if you like, other leaders?
- [05:52]
William Dalrymple
Well, I think this is one of the reasons why he loves Hamida Begum as he does, and why Akbar in due course also will absorb his heart. Because both of them are associated with this moment when he had nothing and they came to him. Hamida Begum sees him in Sindh when he's lost everything. And at this lowest moment in winter in Sindh, when he's trying to cross some mountains towards Afghanistan, they get stuck in and they get separated from their supplies and he has to kill one of the horses and cook it in a helmet of one of his guards.
- [06:27]
Anita Anand
So that is absolutely the lowest of the low. You know, if you needed any more proof, that is living like a. Not just like a nomad, but like a beggar.
- [06:36]
William Dalrymple
But again, at this moment, even when he is in extremis, he's got with him a painter. We know there's a moment when a bird turns up and he loves the bird and he tells the painter to paint it. And there's just this one little note in Gulbadan, his sister's account of his life, but it shows that even when he's down to eating the horse flesh of his guards, he doesn't want to be anywhere without a Mogul painter. He's still writing poetry, he's got his two library camels. And also there's lovely details. Eberkoch has found that one of his inventions was he had this sort of movable palace which was like, I mean, quite a large and sort of substantial building which could be sort of ikea'd down and put in a crate and then erected. It was far more than A normal tent. And he also had this sort of other very substantial zodiac tent called the 12 signs tent. And I think these things are probably traveling with him.
- [07:34]
Anita Anand
So what is this? Wait, no, no. What is a zodiac tent? What does that mean? What even is that?
- [07:40]
William Dalrymple
Well, one of the things that always makes historians fascinated by the Mughals is that they break stereotype and they embrace the Hindu ideas of the India they come to. And it's always said that traditionally the Akbar is the first to do this. But it seems that Humayun, although he's born in Afghanistan and comes as a. As a young man to India, that he immediately engages with Indian mystics and Indian astronomers and astrologers, that his very complicated ideas about wearing different colors on different days of the week actually comes as much from Hindu ideas as it does from Muslim ones. And among these ideas that he has, I think he's traveling with Hindu astrologers when he's on his way to Iran again, despite everything.
- [08:26]
Anita Anand
Oh, I see. So there's a tent full of those guys.
- [08:29]
William Dalrymple
It's a mobile version. Remember I talked about his sort of twister carpet. When he does, he rolls a dice and goes into different phases of the moons and all sorts of complicated astronomical stuff.
- [08:42]
Anita Anand
Yes. Postures of heavenly direction.
- [08:44]
William Dalrymple
Exactly. That's very nicely put. Actually, it's a cross sort of Christmas party game and a mystical practice.
- [08:51]
Anita Anand
I just had a thought about this man, because he is. He's much more interesting than I thought he was before we started this. My first knowledge of Hamayu was in Delhi the first time I went. And there were these roundabouts with sort of very overgrown. And you'd suddenly see a little bit of a ruin. And my cousin, I was like, what is that? That looks very old. And she said, oh, that's nothing. It's just the tomb of Hamayu. That wasn't even correct. It was the tomb of Amayo's mother.
- [09:16]
William Dalrymple
I have a friend that restored it. And when they got up to the roof, they found that the previous group of restorers on the Quiet, rather than putting in proper roof tiles, had cut butter flip flops and put them onto the roof, confident that no one would make the effort to go up and check their work.
- [09:33]
Anita Anand
Can I just tell people? Butter flip flops. So there's. Anyone who's got any connection with India will know, but they are the ubiquitous flip flop of everybody in India. They're just these rubber things.
- [09:43]
William Dalrymple
Plastic footwear. Yeah, rubber.
- [09:44]
Anita Anand
Plastic thongs and rubber on the bottom. And they had used that as shingle. I Think that's rather marvelous. Okay, so can I just ask. His situation, obviously, is not great, but he's got the added problem which we discussed just in the last episode, in that he's got these brothers, Kamran, Pindel and Asghari, who are the most disloyal, awful people that he's not allowed to kill. So what are they up to while he's on his knees, you know, as it were, and, you know, popping in and out of his Zodiac tent for some solace? What are they doing?
- [10:17]
William Dalrymple
So Kamaran has seized Kabul. He was originally sent there as the governor, but now he's just so ruling it as the Lord. He gives absolutely no help to Humayun. And in fact, he sends the other brother, Askari, to cut him off when he works out what Humayun's plan is, which is to go all the way through Sindh to Iran and to appeal for help to the Safavids of Isfahan, which is, of course, what his father did. Babur did the same thing in Extremists when they were trying to recapture Samarkand. And Babur fell out with all the people of Samarkand because he converted to Shia Islam. So I think the other brothers realized that this is Humayun's plot, that he's going to go and try and offer to convert in order to get support to win India back. And Askari tries to cut him off, but he doesn't do it. But it's as he's fleeing to Iran that there is one of the most tragic stories about quite how hopeless Humayun is. It is actually probably the most hopeless thing he does in all his very erudite, brilliant, but hopeless life. And the one thing that he has successfully brought away, other than his sort of fancy zodiac carpet and tent and the painter and all the other Camel.
- [11:33]
Anita Anand
Library, let's not forget the Camel Library.
- [11:35]
William Dalrymple
And the Camel Library. The one thing of value and importance that can really change his situation is he's brought a bag of enormous Indian diamonds. All the best diamonds that Babor won, including this famous diamond called the Babur diamond that many experts believe is the Koh I Noor. It's not proven, it's not provable, really, but it's a whopper. Whether it is or is not the Koh I Noor sitting in the Tower of London at this moment, there is an enormous diamond with Humayun as he flees. And one morning when he gets up on his way to Iran, about to cross the border, he goes to the riverbank to do his ablutions as his servant records. And he does his business, gets back on his horse and gallops away. And it's only when he's about sort of half a mile off that his servant realizes.
- [12:30]
Anita Anand
I feel a little lighter. I feel a little lighter than when I got. What is it that I. Hang on, it's not keys. I've got my keys, I've got my specs. What is it that I own?
- [12:38]
William Dalrymple
And it's not his mobile phone. No, he left every single one of the diamonds on the riverbank and just walked off with that. Which you've got to love a man that can do that.
- [12:49]
Anita Anand
You do. But you've also got to maybe question that, because in the story of Koh I Noor, which we have told and written a book about, there are other tales of people who have mislaid the diamond supposedly and then suddenly found them in a waistcoat in a drawer because they threw them in the dirty laundry. I mean, do we believe this story? Are these from sort of reputable, sour?
- [13:08]
William Dalrymple
So we do, because he then rewards the servant who gives it back to him, who's called Juha. He's very generous, Humayun. And not only can you remember, in the last episode we had that story of the water man who blows up his buffalo hide and uses it as a rubber ring to paddle Humayun to safety when he's driven into a river. So just like he rewards him, he rewards Juha. And Juhan, due course, becomes such a senior figure, he actually writes his own memoir where he tells this story and he says, as the Emperor was about to remount his horse, I saw a green flowered purse lying on the ground and a pen case by the side of it. And I rode up after him, and as soon as I'd overtaken him, I presented them. When His Majesty saw these articles, he was amazed and astonished and said, oh, my boy, you have done me the greatest possible favor. If these have been lost, I should have been subject to the meanness of this Persian monarch. In future, please take care of him. So he gives them to this boy to look after on the basis that he's more reliable. This young page boy is given all these things and I think we should continue with this story because in due course it absolutely is the diamonds which save Humayun. Shah Tamasp, who we've dealt with in earlier episodes of the Empire. Pod, is a grumpy religious extremist.
- [14:27]
Anita Anand
We did him for those who maybe want to go and revisit in our.
- [14:31]
William Dalrymple
Persian series, and initially When Humayun arrives in Persia, he's given a very lukewarm welcome because these guys, the thing that matters most to the Safavids is are you Sunni or Shia? They are this minority, the Shia, and they regard all Sunnis with enormous suspicion. And Humayun is a Sunni so initially he doesn't get a very warm welcome. And the thing that turns it around is the gift of this enormous diamond, the Babur diamond. And we read in Johor's account we remained several days encamped on the Shah's hunting grounds during which time His Majesty ordered his diamonds and rubies to be brought to him and having selected the largest diamond, placed it in a mother of pearl box. He then added several other diamonds and rubies and having placed them in a tray, gave them to the charge of Byron Beg to present to the Persian monarch with the message that they would brought from Hindustan purposely for His Majesty. When Shata Masp saw these precious stones, he was astonished and he sent for his jeweler to value them. The jewelers declared that they were above all price on which the Persians signified his acceptance to help Humayun. So this thing that he just left by the riverbank does literally turn his fortunes around.
- [15:52]
Anita Anand
Well, I mean it really does because when again I'm doing a Dalrymple, but let's just say he does return to India. If he were saying it does. If he were to return to India, I mean, having a Persian cavalry with you which is one of the best cavalries in the world is not a hindrance, let's put it that way. Okay, But Shah Tamas, as we have described in our previous Persian series, is a really grumpy, angry, difficult to get on with man. So how do these two, you know, hippie dippy who may, who sounds, you know, absolutely sweet, a bit hopeless. Yeah, ever so slightly hopeless. How do they get on? Because, you know, does he have to also embrace the religion of Tamasp and say, look, you know what, I know I am a Sunni but I want your help. So I'm willing to, I'm willing to think about Shias and I'm quite interested in Shias. I mean, how far does he have to go and how much is Thomas convinced by him?
- [16:47]
William Dalrymple
This is exactly the game he has to play. He knows what happened to his father Babur when he embraced Shia Islam or certainly made an outward appearance of having embraced it.
- [16:57]
Anita Anand
Well, everyone turned against him and said, you're a treacherous man, we can't follow.
- [17:02]
William Dalrymple
Exactly. But he now is in a situation where he really does have no option. And so there is this month when the two of them travel through Iran and they travel through all the nicest places. I mean, when. When I have traveled through Iran, if I had to choose my favorite places. He goes to Persepolis, which at this stage of history was believed by the Persians to have been built by the hero Jamshid. He goes to another building we've talked about also in our Persian series, the extraordinary mausoleum of the Mongol Khan Ul Jtu at Sultania, which is definitely the seed which stays in Humayun's mind. And when he's planning his own tomb, as we now know he did, it's partly modeled on Sultania. So he's passing through all these places and he basically, he gets it right. He makes enough of a show of interest in Shia Islam and certainly tells striking his beard.
- [18:00]
Anita Anand
I'm fascinated by this without saying I'm actually converting to this. This is just fascinating.
- [18:05]
William Dalrymple
So certainly Shahtemas is persuaded that he's serious. And having made whatever private promise he did do, he gets given at the end of this long tour of places like Tabriz and Ardabil and all these gorgeous places in Iran that he visits. He's given 12,000 Persian cavalry to go and retake Kandahar. And so this is the beginning of the comeback. And Humayun has been now, for whatever it is, 18 months on the run ever since he lost the battle near Kanoj and has been fleeing ever westwards into Persia. Now, for the first time, can begin to head eastwards back to India.
- [18:44]
Anita Anand
Am I remembering it rightly that he also. And maybe this forges the relationship further. Does he have to leave his son Akbar, his newly minted son, in the Persian care as well? I mean, is that part of the deal?
- [18:58]
William Dalrymple
Not the Persian care, no. He's ended up with Askari, who's the least devious of the uncles, and the young Akbar, who's now, whatever he is, two years old or something. A toddler is sitting in the Balhisar in Kabul, hoping that his dad may come and his fortunes will change. And this begins at this moment with the Persian cavalry behind him. He takes Kandahar and defeats Askari and begins to look towards his first major step to reclaiming India, which is to try and capture Kabul.
- [19:32]
Anita Anand
And in Kabul is the other brother, Kamran, who has proven himself to be a snake at every possible turn, every possible moment. Then he could have been a good brother. He has been the worst, the absolute pits of brotherhood. So, I mean, with this advancing army that has already been successful in Kandahar. No small thing. So what does Kamran do when he sees the dust being kicked up by this cavalry of, you know, crack Persian cavalrymen? Does he stand or does he run?
- [20:02]
William Dalrymple
So, no, there's a battle and Humayun wins. Humayun is not a bad general, although. Although he does lose a couple, including the famous one, Tasha Shah, overwhelmingly in his life, he's a man who wins the battles that he sets out for. So despite being the hippie dippy mystic, despite being the bookish poet and the guy with, you know, he's always dreaming up mad inventions of floating gardens and collapsible palaces and IKEA tents and all this sort of thing. He is actually, like all the Timurids, he's an amazing battlefield commander. And he moves against Kamaran in Kabul and he leaves Kandahar in the hands of his great ally, Bayram Khan, and he gives his household and his baggage to his now 16 year old wife, Hamida Begum.
- [20:47]
Anita Anand
She's getting on a bit. Yep, she's cracking on a bit.
- [20:51]
William Dalrymple
16. And he sets off with his troops for Kabul. And on the way, they had the good luck to meet with a caravan of horse trade who'd just come from India and acquired Persian horses. And they offered to support Humayun's campaign by supplying him with a thousand horses against just a promissory note. So they're persuaded to give them all these new horses for the cavalry. And there is a battle on the outskirts of Kabul and quite a lot of Kamaran's men just go over to Humayun because I think everyone always regards him as a good egg. Everyone knows that this guy is the true heir of Babul, that he's a decent man. And they also know that Qumran is a slippery fox.
- [21:34]
Anita Anand
There's a real issue of loyalty in what you think of a man. And if you see a man betray his brother, that is not good propaganda. No matter what the ruler has done, people don't forgive it very easily. And that certainly seems to be the case when people keep joining him. Does Kamaran run away after losing the battle?
- [21:51]
William Dalrymple
After losing the battle, Qumran flees off to Sind, the same place that Humayun.
- [21:56]
Anita Anand
Was walking through, eating his camel in a helmet.
- [21:59]
William Dalrymple
Yeah. Beating his horse.
- [22:00]
Anita Anand
Horse and a helmet, I should say.
- [22:03]
William Dalrymple
And Humayun enters Kabul without having to fight any more battles on the 17th of November, 1545, and he's acclaimed by the population. Everyone comes out and cheers. And at that moment, he sees his son Akbar for the first time in two years he's just left this little baby in a swaddling clothes and now it's a little two year old running around.
- [22:24]
Anita Anand
Which I would suggest is quite irresponsible as a parent to do that. But. Okay, look, let's take a break here because it looks like all will be well and Hamayo will live happily ever after. Join us after the break because it of course is not. Of course it's not going to be that. Of course it's not.
- [22:39]
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- [23:06]
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- [24:08]
Anita Anand
Welcome back. So just before the break, we left you with success in Kandahar, success in Kabul. Bit by bit, Hamayo is claiming back territory from his treacherous brothers. And he's got his little boy back now as well, who's now a toddler who he last left with a really murderous and treacherous brother as a baby. And everything is looking good. And what I love about her, Maya William, and he reminds me a bit of you, is he has a huge success and then he kind of does a gap year again because he loves his tours and parties, doesn't he?
- [24:37]
William Dalrymple
He does. He likes both of them.
- [24:38]
Anita Anand
So couple turns into party central after this victory. What kind of thing does he do? I mean, it's wonderful. I mean, the sort of the wrestling matches and planting are particularly cute here. So what is it like?
- [24:50]
William Dalrymple
He likes all that sort of thing and likes to combine a bit of wrestling with taking quite a lot of opium. So the two.
- [24:56]
Anita Anand
Oh, my God. It's like drunken boxing.
- [24:59]
William Dalrymple
And it's over this period that it's realized because they try to educate Akbar at this point, Akbar's gone slightly wild. I think he's been out toddling around watching all these warriors, and he has far more interest in war and battles than he does in his books as a young kid. And they try and teach him to read and he can't. And he remains bizarrely illiterate, uniquely among the Mughal emperors, for his whole life.
- [25:29]
Anita Anand
Oh, this is so mad.
- [25:31]
William Dalrymple
He's basically dyslexic, I think, in modern terms.
- [25:34]
Anita Anand
Well, Eber Koch as well, has sort of said, you know, that she thinks he may be dyslexic, but you have to understand that, you know, if you've got tutors who are faced with this slightly wild boy who's finding it very hard to read that bed, absolutely no resemblance to the legacy of Akbar, who we're going to cover in an episode all of his own, who is known as one of the most learned, one of the most voracious hunters of truth of the entire Mughal dynasty, but does.
- [26:00]
William Dalrymple
This without ever being able to read or read properly.
- [26:03]
Anita Anand
I think it's crackers. Isn't that amazing?
- [26:05]
William Dalrymple
And the chroniclers of the time, or certainly Abul Faisal, who is the biographer of Akbar later in his life, writes that His Majesty was not destined for the formal knowledge of the world. And instead he shows great promise as a huntsman, as a kind of young warrior. He's doing all the right things and he's sitting there with his little baby sword and everything else, but they sack a couple of these old, poor old mullahs who are brought in to try and teach him. The first teacher, who's called Mullah Zader, Mullah Issam Al Din Ibrahim, who's a very sort of grand and great scholar, is sacked and accused of being more interested in flying pigeons than teaching the emperor, the future emperor. But subsequent tutors do no better.
- [26:50]
Anita Anand
Can I do a little bit of pop psychology? I mean, you can't stop me even if you wanted to. You know, I'm on one now. But I think that these formative years are so telling because Akbar will grow up to be a great aesthete. You know, he will treasure things that he can see and things that he can hear. He's going to be more tolerant than any who have come before him. And I wonder, because, look, they may have fired the teachers, but you can guarantee that that poor little boy who's not reading the Quran as he should or not reading the books is going to get frequent beatings for not doing his work and not concentrating. And I think that remoulds a man, actually.
- [27:26]
William Dalrymple
I'll just end by reading two little lines by Abul Faisal. He says His Majesty was not receptive to lines scribbled by a pen. God did not desire that his special protege be sullied with formal knowledge. And instead, His Majesty turned to pigeon flying, dog racing and hunting.
- [27:46]
Anita Anand
Well, why wouldn't he? I mean, you know, it's the equivalent of going to play football around the back with your mates. Let's get back to the dad, though. So he's sort of done his tour. He's had his opium wrestling matches. Everybody's had a massive party. Kabul has been very, very jolly with pink blooming Judas trees and, you know, just color and all sorts of wonderment that he brings.
- [28:06]
William Dalrymple
And there's one other good omen, which is an important thing, which we have many pictures of. It seemed to be. I mean, it's a weird moment to us, but it was clearly considered very significant at the time. Humayun, even in his lowest moments, had a pet cockerel, and he clearly didn't eat the pet cockerel when he had the option let the horse instead. And there's a moment when he hears that Kamran is coming for him again. The wicked brother has gathered an army in Sind and is marching on Kabul. And at that moment, when this news comes, the pet cockerel allegedly flies onto his shoulders and crows. So Humayun takes this is an omen that he's definitely going to win. And they set off together.
- [28:48]
Anita Anand
I'm looking at a picture of it. I'm looking at a picture of it right now. A white, snowy white cockerel on his shoulder and all of his retinue sort of looking in wonder. Behold the cock on your shoulder, they say. And this is suddenly, you know, this is now going to be the thing that grants him victory. Oh, that's amazing. So magic cockerel, as you say, there are depictions of the magic white cockerel. Okay, so what is Kamaran doing? He's not giving up. He's a scheming bastard, as we've established before.
- [29:18]
William Dalrymple
Scheming. Camran does indeed attack and is again defeated. And he's captured by Humayun, who To the horror of his courtiers, he then forgives for the third time and both brothers pour with tears. But inevitably, of course, Kamaran, being the the little shit that he is, within a month has fled the palace and is raising hell again. And this time there's a battle called the Battle of Kipchak. And Humayun loses it initially.
- [29:51]
Anita Anand
But what about the cock? What about the cock? What happened there? How could this happen?
- [29:56]
William Dalrymple
Clearly disappeared.
- [29:57]
Anita Anand
So why is he defeated? How is he defeated there?
- [29:59]
William Dalrymple
So there's this very again, this sudden moment in 1550 when it looks again as if Humayun's fortunes have given up on him. And he gets wounded in this battle and it's a very bloody wound. And he throws off his bloody turban, or his bloody turban at least, falls off maybe. And it's found and brought to Qumran, who thinks that Humayun is dead. And this means that Kamaran no longer keeps up his guard. And shortly afterwards, Sumayyan comes back, defeats Kamaran for the last time.
- [30:32]
Anita Anand
And there's no hugs this time. So can I just add to that? Because not only, you know, when he finds the blood soaked clothes, does he think, oh, good, my brother's dead. The one I hugged and promised to love and cherish just five minutes ago, he's dead. Hooray. But he then sort of, not only does he let his guard down, but he rushes back to Kabul to take the young prince Akbar. Because if he has Akbar, there's no other claimant who can come to the throne. So he is a terrible brother, but he's also a dreadful uncle as well, this man. Okay, So I just want everyone to feel better about what happened. So when he's defeated the second time, please tell me he's not hugged again.
- [31:08]
William Dalrymple
He's not hugged again. And this time, and this is interesting, that before Humayun can forgive him because he's made this formal vow to his dad that he obviously doesn't want to break despite everything. I think his army sees what's coming. And Kamaran is blinded by the troops who've had enough, right?
- [31:27]
Anita Anand
They take his eyes, they take his eyes out.
- [31:29]
William Dalrymple
And Humayun doesn't kill him again. Very honorably. He doesn't kill him, but he sends the blind Kamaran off to Mecca on a pilgrimage.
- [31:37]
Anita Anand
So that's Kamran, eyeless and without much sympathy from the audience. But what about little Hindel? So Hindel was the baby of Baba, the one that Baba on his deathbed says, I want to see Hindel, please Bring me Hindel, you know, the real apple of his father's eye. Even though Hermayya is the one who becomes emperor, I mean, where are his loyalties and what's he up to in all this time?
- [31:58]
William Dalrymple
So Hindal has finally stayed loyal to Humayun and he is always Humayun's favorite brother. And in that war, that final war between Qumran and Humayun, there's a moment when Kamaran's forces attack Humayun's camp at night and Humayun is actually not there, but Hindal is and he's killed.
- [32:18]
Anita Anand
Oh, he loses his baby brother, the only brother who was loyal. And him being a really sort of emotional cove. This would have been totally devastating for him.
- [32:27]
William Dalrymple
No, I think this was devastating. And we have again pictures of this in the miniatures. And this is one of the sort of sad moments of Humayun's life. But shortly afterwards, the missing library camels turn up and again.
- [32:41]
Anita Anand
Oh, phew. Because they'd been playing on my mind.
- [32:45]
William Dalrymple
Library camels have disappeared after the Battle of Kipchak and they turn up with his entire library, which includes all Babur's favorite books too. And I think the original manuscript of the Babbu Nama is on these library camels at this point, without which we'd have lost the greatest autobiography written in this whole Islamic world ever. Arguably the Babbal number is the great masterpiece. So anyway, the library cast.
- [33:09]
Anita Anand
Well, I'm glad about that because, you know, he needs something to read and he's also got eyes to read them. Sorry, that's too soon. It's too soon to make jokes, eye jokes, but, you know, I don't like Kamaran. So Kamaran's been dispatched off to Mecca. He has won battles. He's lost Hindle, but he's winning. Does he then think of India? Because look, he's been out of India. He's been drop kicked out of India since 1543. He basically hasn't had any communication with India. It's been, you know, Sher Shah has made sure that he has no foothold and, you know, he's lost to Shershah, so he's a little bit battle shy. I would have thought of facing up to this man again. Do things change?
- [33:45]
William Dalrymple
And not only that, Sher Shah has built a sort of Maginot Line between Kabul and India. And I've stayed in one of these fortresses and it is magnificent. It's the fort of Rotas, which is a sort of day's journey westwards from Lahore, and it's one of the greatest of all the fortresses of this time. It's in the middle of nowhere, so it's never been knocked down or had its walls sort of claimed for later projects. And when I was in my 20s, I spent a night within the walls there. I somehow managed to get the Pakistan Archaeological Survey. And this was built specifically to stop Humayun coming back to India. It was meant to be this impregnable fortress that you couldn't possibly go round or ignore. But in quick succession at this point, Shershah and his son both die. And this Afghan empire, which had been dominating India all the time, that Humayun is in exile, suddenly is thrown into chaos and the Maginot Line of Rotas is abandoned. So indeed, Humayun thinks this is the moment I've been waiting for.
- [34:58]
Anita Anand
Not unreasonably, not unreasonably. He thinks that, you know, the drawbridge is down. How quickly then does that campaign start?
- [35:06]
William Dalrymple
So he now no longer needs the help of the Persians. He's got enough supporters in Kabul and in Kandahar, and he hasn't got his.
- [35:14]
Anita Anand
Brothers trying to kill him at every turn.
- [35:16]
William Dalrymple
Every turn. So this is his great moment of triumph. And in 1554, he mounts his great attempt to retake his lost kingdom in India. And this time he chooses the best month for it. It's mid November, around this sort of time of year, which in the days before pollution, used to be the most gorgeous time here in Delhi, where I'm speaking from, but looking out onto coast, Diwali, terrible pollution outside, I got to tell you, I'm miserable. It is at the moment. And he moves towards India and he actually puts the 12 year old Akbar, 12 year old, in charge of the vanguard of the army.
- [35:58]
Anita Anand
This is just unthinkable. A woman came up to me and said, I heard you Talking about your 14 year old and talking about people leading battles. And I totally feel your pain. I've got one like that. This guy is 12, basically, strapped to a horse and sent in front of an army to charge.
- [36:15]
William Dalrymple
And I think he's good at it. This is what Akbar, he's not good at reading and writing. He is good at leading the vanguard of an army. And Humayun chooses to go down the Kabul river, which is. He loves boats and he's always been designing these boat palaces and boat gardens and boat bridges. So he sends Akbar on horse and he comes down the Kabul river, punting down the river. It's a wonderful river. I've driven along it. And in 2nd February, 1555, he reaches Lahore and there's another battle. And he defeats the last of Shershah's line, who pulled out his troops and lined them up along the plains just outside the walls of Lahore. And there's another month of brutal fighting. And eventually, on 23rd July, 1555, Humayuns enters Delhi and assumes the throne in the citadel, which he just begun when he was kicked out, Dinpana, which is.
- [37:14]
Anita Anand
Now called Purana Keela, Purana Keilah, meaning the old fort. Very simple.
- [37:18]
William Dalrymple
Yep. And he then gets his chance to continue all the building that he hadn't built before. And the first thing, of course, he needs being Humayun is he needs a library.
- [37:31]
Anita Anand
Well, it was either that or a Zodiac chicken. I mean, it was one of those. I didn't know which way you were going to swerve in the end there. It was going to be Planetary Poultry or some books on a camel. Okay, so it's books, right? And where does he get his books from? Does he send out across the realm? Send me your books.
- [37:50]
William Dalrymple
This time the library Camels are not lost and they walk into Piranha Key labs, usually in procession, and the Sherman Dal is erected pretty quickly. And this is going to be very important because we're going to have to come back to the Sherman Dial in less happy moments in a while. But this is the moment that Humayun has been saving up for. He didn't lose the faith, he didn't give up. At one point he thought he might just go off to Mecca and throw the whole thing. And we get, in the very brief period now that Humayun still has to rule, a wonderful taste of what he could have been if all this accidents and his brothers didn't betray him and all these terrible things didn't happen to him. So the first thing that happens is he imports Persian painters. And this is a very, very important moment because it's basically the moment when the Mughal miniature tradition, at the moment, those of you who are in London can go and visit this extraordinary, absolutely wonderful Mogul exhibition at the va. And there you see some of the greatest Islamic paintings ever produced by people like Bichiter and stuff.
- [38:58]
Anita Anand
I mean, I was saying the name.
- [38:59]
William Dalrymple
Yeah, you're saying it exactly right.
- [39:00]
Anita Anand
So Bichiter is, just to give you some context, is. What would you call him the da Vinci of his day? You know, he is the painter, the miniaturist of his day.
- [39:08]
William Dalrymple
So Bichita is absolutely one of the greatest of all Mughal paintings. And he features wonderfully in the Va Mogul show, which everyone should go and see. But the two painters who kickstart this are the two greatest painters from Persia at the time, and their names are Mir Said Ali and Khwajad Abad Al Samad. And they arrive just before Humayun sets off for Delhi in Kabul, and they follow him to Delhi, and they set up in Delhi this first Mughal atelier. And what seems to happen, art historians think, is that they train up Jain painters from Gujarat, because there are signs in the very early Mughal miniatures, particularly the Hamza Nama, which is commissioned by the young Akbar. It's shortly after this, signs that there are painters from the Gujarati Jain painting tradition, but they're studying under the Persians. And this, again, is very much what we're going to see in the Moguls episodes which follow. It's this amazing fusion that we get of the color and the brightness and the inventiveness of Indian painting meeting the formality and precision of the Persian style.
- [40:27]
Anita Anand
Yeah. And there is something very, very new happening. You're quite right, because there is a candor about this. And the only way I can sort of put this is he is a tiktoker before TikTok. Because what the court paintings do is they chronicle even, you know, quite tender minutiae moments of Hermayo's life. So you've got, you know, Hamayo and Hamida being reunited with Akbar. Somebody wasn't there at the time, but they've painted it. You know, little boy running to his parents. There's another wonderful miniature, it's one of my favorites, which is Akbar wrestling with his cousins for a drum on the floor. And he's clearly like a Todd. Isn't it beautiful?
- [41:00]
William Dalrymple
It's a gorgeous picture. I know that one.
- [41:02]
Anita Anand
They're basically. They're brawling with each other, these two little kids, while Hermia is sort of, you know, looking you kids in the background. But this is not courtly painting as it has been known before. He is chronicling and telegraphing bits of life that we haven't been privy to. And it's rather. It's rather touching and marvelous, actually.
- [41:23]
William Dalrymple
It is. And there's this. So much that is new that's happening in this painting at this time. You're getting a breaking down of the formality that's there in Persian painting. You've always had, under the best of Timurids and Persian painting, an extraordinary love of humanity and the recorded moment. Exactly like you're saying, but it's often quite sort of hidebound. And within these very tight bound, very formalized Mughal painting, somehow the straps are loosened. There's a greater humanity and. And greater interest in individual and wit.
- [41:57]
Anita Anand
There's wit and there's, you know, sort of amusement. You know, you've got a man watching his kid beating up another kid, and they're only little toddlers. It's not like very violent. It's just two little boys squabbling on the floor. And it looks more human than courtly, which is kind of sweet.
- [42:10]
William Dalrymple
And this is the moment now when Humayun can indulge all his fantasies about floating palaces, floating market gardens, floating gardens can really develop all his occult ideas. Remember, everyone in the world, including all over the west, believes still at in history that we are governed by the stars. And it is a sign of Humayun's learning rather than a sign of his gullibility that he has this interest in the occult. And what is fascinating is he brings into Mughal court custom a whole series of Hindu practices which will continue in Mughal court tradition, such as the weighing of the emperor. And this is one of the most common pictures you see in Mughal miniature. The Mughal emperor gets onto a pair of scales and he's weighed against gold, which is then distributed to the poor. I think not just gold against gold, coral and pearls, is it? There's something. Anyway, there's this whole sort of tradition. Now, everyone used to think that was started by Akbar, but we've now found evidence that in fact it's Humayun who introduces this practice from the Hindu kings. And he also has this sort of idea of himself as a Sun King. He plays tricks with light at core. The court language talks about him as a Sun King very much in the same manner that the French will use for Louis xiv, but with a whole lot of, I think, Zoroastrian ideas behind it. It's all very complex. Eberkoch writes absolutely beautifully about this. And then there's one other extraordinary moment when Humayun meets, at this point, one of the other most extraordinary men of the age, who is a shipwrecked Ottoman admiral called Sidi Ali Reis. And Sidi Ali Reis is a measure of the kind of inquisitiveness of people's minds at this time, has discovered from captured Western sailors in the Ottoman realms that there has been a discovery of a new continent called America.
- [44:16]
Anita Anand
It's amazing. This is so early as well in history.
- [44:21]
William Dalrymple
And Sidi Ali Reis has interviewed these sailors who. He's brought them out of whatever terrible galley they'd been cast into. And he honors them and they reveal to him the details of their expeditions. And Sidi Ali Rais and these sailors construct between them the first map of America made in a Muslim country. And bizarrely, this guy is shipwrecked off the coast of Gujarat and comes to Humayun's court at this. So you can imagine these two sort of bookish, brilliant men meeting at the Sherman, who've been through lots.
- [44:57]
Anita Anand
You know, what Sidi Ali Reyes writing is so completely delightful because he talks about such things as, you know, sort of having a whale sailing towards your ship at great speed and the water turning gray or trying to get around whirlpools. I mean, it's a real boy's own adventure. And you can just imagine the tales that he's spinning to Hermia, who is eating up every single word of these real adventures that he's had on the ocean.
- [45:20]
William Dalrymple
Do you remember our wonderful guest Mark Bayer, who came on the pod to talk about Suleiman the Magnificent? He opens his book on the Ottomans in the introduction with the story of the time when, after, I think, five years in the Topkapi archives, he'd befriended the librarians enough and they got out the Seyyid Ali Reis map of America, which also has, bizarrely, bits of the coast of Antarctica. I think there's a whole lot of sort of speculation on how this shoreline of Antarctica appears on this map, too. Anyway, it's one of the extraordinary moments. You can just imagine him and Humayun. So everything is back together. Humayun is busy planning his mystic palaces. He's adopting Hindu ideas like weighing the emperor. He's reading and trying to introduce into his court the different colors for the different stars at the different times and stations of the planets. He's playing this bizarre twister. And then one day he climbs to the top of the newly made Sherman Dal, his library in the center of the Purana Keela. And he's wearing one of his fancy long gowns that he wears now he's emperor and back in charge of his palace. And at that moment, the call to prayer comes when he's just on the top step and he turns a half step to go down the stairs again because he wants to go to the evening prayers. And he trips on a step in the long gown. Some people say opium was involved, but there's actually no evidence for that. And he tumbles down the newly made.
- [47:02]
Anita Anand
Sharp, presumably freshly cut stone stairs, and.
- [47:06]
William Dalrymple
He cracks his head and it's not immediately clear that this is fatal. There's a deep wound in the temple and blood has trickled from his ear.
- [47:16]
Anita Anand
But he regains consciousness. I mean, he doesn't. He's not sort of out and gone. He wakes up again, doesn't he? Does he manage to talk to his son or dictate something to his son? Doesn't he.
- [47:25]
William Dalrymple
Akbar is off hunting or something, I think at this point, as Akbar often does.
- [47:29]
Anita Anand
And He's. He's only 13. So, I mean, let's just put dates on these guys. So, you know, Akbar, having just a year ago led an army for his dad, is off hunting, age 13. And Hamayo is really very young. I mean, by our standards, he's only 48. He's only 48 years old. But he opens his eyes, you know, his head is crusted in blood, but he's not dead. He opens his eyes and he calls for a scribe because his son is off hunting. And he says, I want you to write a letter to my boy.
- [47:55]
William Dalrymple
And this letter survives and it says, to our dearest and most precious son, son beloved of fortune and under the protective gaze of God, apple of my eye, of the Sultanate and Caliphate, Jalaluddin Mohammed Akbar. Know that near the afternoon prayer on Friday the 11th of the current month, we went up to the roof of the library which is being rebuilt, and there we held interviews until the evening prayer. When it was time for the evening prayer, we were in a hurry to get down and we had gone a few steps down the stone staircase which contains 12 stairs, when the call for prayer was given. We wanted to sit down. As we were in the act of sitting, our royal foot caught in the hem of a fur coat and we rolled down to the bottom of the stairs. Divine protection preserved us and aside from a slight bruising of the head and shoulder, there is no other pain. Thanks to God for the limitless favor. It passed well and no injury was suffered, thank God. Our dear son should not allow himself to worry or suffer, suffer in any way, and he should be of easy mind. If any false report has arrived, he should not believe them. For through divine favor there is no cause for concern. Any condition that ensues will be reported on a daily basis. But he's fractured his skull and he has a haemorrhage.
- [49:15]
Anita Anand
He has an internal hemorrhage, his brain swells and he dies. So this little boy gets the letter, he thinks his father is okay. And then in an instant, when his father's eyes close for the last time, his life has changed forever. A 13 year old will be the new emperor of the Mughals and pretty lost. Although Humayu has left little blueprints for him to follow, which probably will be a comfort.
- [49:40]
William Dalrymple
Exactly that. And one of the things that's newly emerged from Eberkoff's extraordinary reassessment of Humayun is that Humayun was the person who came up with the ideas for Humayun's tomb, which is a short distance from where I'm talking, five miles away from here in Delhi. And Humayun's tomb is three quarters of the way to the Taj Mahal. You can see all the ideas which will become the most famous of all Mughal buildings, the most famous of all Islamic buildings, arguably the most beautiful building in the world. And it is Humayun's ideas that form that. And what's fascinating is that a lot of the ideas came from his travels in Afghanistan and Iran. If he hadn't had to lose the throne, if he hadn't had these terrible fortunes of crossing Sindh, nearly losing his diamonds, going to Persia, he'd never have seen Sultania, he'd never have seen the extraordinary buildings of Herat, which absolutely fascinate him as they did his father. And before he dies, he is coming up with plans which are realized in Humayun's tomb, which will create the building style for which the Mughals are best known. When you think of the Mughals, the thing you think of is not so much their political action or how they administered or their taxation system or any of the rest of it. It is the Taj Mahal that is their achievement in a single building. This superbly beautiful, unbeaten glory of this white marble and three quarters of the idea of the Taj are there in Humayun's tomb.
- [51:22]
Anita Anand
Oh, you can see it. You can see it, the outline. I mean, it's so familiar. It's in red brick rather than white marble.
- [51:28]
William Dalrymple
Exactly.
- [51:29]
Anita Anand
But you can absolutely see it is a whisper of what is to come. That's a lovely way to leave it. Anyway, listen, join us next time when we discuss the reign of a scared little boy who starts off at the age of 13 and has some very big, but, you know, really remarkably underestimated shoes to fill. We talk about Emperor Akbar till the next time we meet. It's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand, and.
- [51:51]
William Dalrymple
Goodbye from me, William Durumpel.