“MĀ MARD-E SHARABEEM”: WINE, FRATERNITY, AND KINGSHIP IN BĀBUR'S TIMURID PRINCEDOM

Abstract

This analysis seeks to understand the semiotic positionality of wine in the memoirs of the Timurid prince Zahīr al-Din Muhammad Bābur. It conducts a textual analysis of specific episodes from the Bāburnāma, the first instance of an autobiography by an imperial actor in Islamic history. Using textual analysis and historical data, we find that Bābur’s drinking patterns exerted purposes of political performance and that his relationship with the substance changed when the needs of his country did. Originally, wine was an instrument through which Bābur connected with his Timurid legacy and a means of cultivating a bond of masculine fraternity, a vestige from his years in Kabul as a petty “vagabond” prince. Towards the end of his life, however, Bābur became more concerned with branding himself as a distinctly Muslim ruler, and thus, repented from his drinking albeit not without incurring melancholic affect. Broadly conceived, this study conversates on how actors under the Islamicate umbrella related their own positionalities and desires with the demands of superegoic structures like religious law and cultural norms.