Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/151

 120 The sequel to the Tárikh-i-Rashidi is, perhaps, scarcely a subject which should encumber this Introduction, yet it may be worth while to sketch very briefly an outline of what took place in Moghulistan and Eastern Turkistan after the last pages of the book were written. At that time the author had been some six years regent of Kashmir, and had already been absent from the kingdom of the Moghuls for about fourteen years, but he continued, it would seem, to keep up communication with his friends in Kashghar till the end, and evidently took a deep interest in all that was happening there. So much was this the case, that in the last recorded chapters of his book, though-he omits much that might have been worthy of notice regarding the events that were passing around him in Kashmir, he gives some particulars of the course of affairs in what may be called his own country.

At the time when he left it, to conduct Said Khan's expedition into Ladak, Tibet and Kashmir, the Kirghiz and the Shaibán Uzbegs, who were the most inveterate enemies of his people, had been so far checked as to admit of the Khan turning his attention to other quarters. Still they were only checked and by no means subdued: in fact, their power was increasing as that of the Moghuls declined, and very shortly after Said Khan's eldest son, Rashid Sultan, came into possession of his father's kingdom, wars broke out afresh with the Kirghiz, and this time also with the Kazák Uzbegs. Again the Khan is said to have been victorious, and is described as defeating the Uzbegs in more than one great battle; but these victories, like the earlier ones, were mere checks to the enemy, and it seems evident that during Rashid's reign they gained in strength and became practically masters of the greater part, if not the whole, of Moghulistan; while the territory of the Khanate became almost entirely confined to the districts of Alti-Shahr.

This Rashid Sultan (otherwise Abdur Rashid Khan) succeeded his father in 1533, and long outlasted our author, for the length of his reign is given by Amin Ahmad Rázi, in the Haft Iklim, as thirty-three hajra years, which would bring the date of his death to 973, or 1565–6 As Ahmad Rázi's account of the dynasty, though exceedingly brief, is the only one that approaches a consecutive story, it may be followed here.