The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor

Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur was the first Mughal, or Mongol, emperor of India. A devoted warrior who fought by the bloodthirsty standards of his time, Babur was also a gifted scholar and ethnographer, and his memoir, The Baburnama–which translator and editor Wheeler Thackston heralds as the first autobiography in Islamic literature–paints a fascinating portrait of the lands he conquered, such as Hindustan: “A strange country. Compared to ours, it is another world. Its mountains, rivers, forests, and wildernesses, its villages and provinces, animals and plants, peoples and languages, even its rain and winds are altogether different.” They were different indeed, and were fortunate to have this beautifully illustrated record of Baburs wonderment at the new places he saw.