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132 to Kábul and Ghazni near the Indian frontier, in Samarkand, Bukhárá, Hisár, Kunduz, and Farghána, Bábar was king. He abandoned all thoughts of India, despised his little Afghán throne, which he presented to his brother Násir; henceforth be resolved to reign in the seat of Tímúr on the imperial throne of Samarkand.

But the triumph was short-lived. The fates had decreed that, try as he might, Bábar should not hold Tímúr's sceptre. The obstacles were not all from without: they were partly of his own making. In the absence of his autobiographical reminiscences of this critical period, it is difficult to determine his exact position and policy, but from the statements of Haidar and Khwándamír, conﬁrmed in a striking manner by a coin in the British Museum, it is evident that he held the throne of Samarkand as the vassal of Sháh Ismá'il, and that in dress and even in religious doctrine he conformed to the rule of his suzerain. To Babar, who was an easy-going Muslim, too well read in Persian poetry to be shocked at heresy, the change probably meant very little, but to his subjects it represented the sort of effect that incense and monstrance would produce in an 'Auld Licht' kirk. For the Sháh belonged to the fanatical Shiah sect, abhorred by orthodox Sunnites, whilst the people of Samarkand and Bukhárá were the most bigoted Muslims of the straitest orthodoxy to be found outside