Page:The Tarikh-i-Rashidi - Mirza Muhammad Haidar, Dughlát - tr. Edward D. Ross (1895).djvu/66

 Rh neighbouring nations, and the country that the true Moghul loved to call his own.

Thus, at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Khans of Chaghatai were rapidly declining in power, and could scarcely maintain themselves in their central kingdom of Mávará-un-Nahr, this eastern division, or Moghulistan, appears scarcely to have felt their sway. The hereditary Dughlát Amirs who, as we have seen, had been set up by Chaghatai, governed in detail, with more or less power, in the different cities and districts of the region south of the Tian Shan (or Eastern Turkistan), and left scarcely a trace behind them in any history but that of one of their own clan—Mirza Haidar. They acted in the name of the Chaghatai Khan of the time, and though nominally hereditary, they seem in practice to have held office very much at the pleasure of the tribesmen whose affairs they administered; while the popularity of each one probably depended more on the degree of independence he was able to secure for the small section that regarded him as its chief, than on his hereditary rights. Still in the early days, the power of some of them must have been considerable, and it seems to have risen in degree, as that of the Chaghatai Khans declined. They fought among themselves as a matter of course, and the people suffered, no doubt, from the consequent disorder. It would be quite natural therefore that Isán Bugha, a Moghul by descent, when forced to retire from Mávará-un-Nahr, should turn his steps towards Moghulistan, and its companion province south of the mountains.

Just at this point the histories of the period are discordant. As remarked above, the identity of Isán Bugha is to some extent uncertain. He is known to have been a son of Davá Khan, and is believed to have had some brothers. Abul Gházi Khan, the historian King of Khwárizm of the seventeenth century, speaks of him as "Il Khwája, surnamed Isán Bugha." On the other hand, Khwándamir makes Isán Bugha continue to reign over the western branch of the Chaghatai until his death, and alludes to one Imil Khwája (apparently another son of Dava) as haying established himself in Moghulistan. It is possible that Imil, or Il, may denote one and the same person;