Babur and Scurry

Babur and Scurry

While some of the enormous discrepancies between Babur’s Islam and James Scurry’s Islam can be ascribed to differences in age and role, the strongest cause of such dissimilarities is a very similar political instability. Admittedly, Babur’s position as conqueror and Scurry’s status as prisoner are the obvious differences that inform their vastly different experiences. Although centuries lay between Babur’s victories and Scurry’s capture, both times were dominated by insecurity and warfare. Local rulers in both eras turned to Islam as a justifying cornerstone of their regimes, and as a tool and rallying cry against their enemies. It is this particular guise of Islam, as political instrument, that ultimately gives us Babur’s privileged piety and Scurry’s painful conversion.

Babur acknowledges his penchant for the secular pleasures of alcohol and profane poetry. Nevertheless, in the course of his memoirs, Babur turns to Islam increasingly to sanction his rule. If not as devout as his great-grandson Aurangzeb would be, he was well-read and even wrote an explanation of Islamic law in verse for his son.(26) A consummate warrior, Babur was also well educated and not unaware of the moral power of a righteous ruler. He writes of his conclusion that his lust for drink must be thrown off, and vows temperance. (73-74) This act is as much a conqueror’s claim for moral legitimacy, as the memoirs themselves, which are heavily salted with quotations from the Koran.

The Islam of Babur is also molded by his use of it as goad and inspira-tion for his soldiers. Babur never fails to remind his troops that God is on their side and that they should be fearless even in this strange country. (38) Babur’s army is not another invading army, similar to the Uzbekis who drove Babur from Samarkand, and his enemies are not honorable defenders of their homeland. Instead, according to Babur, the soldiers are an "Army of Islam" and the natives are labeled as "the unbelievers, the wicked", with epithets like accursed and hapless tossed in for good measure.(85) Babur conquers not for India’s riches, but "For the sake of Islam"(87) Babur’s experience of Islam is one of a master ruler manipulating a religion to provide political justifica-tion for his ruler and moral ammunition for the soldiers and for war.

250 years later, after the Battle of Plassey and after the dwindling of the Mughal empire, we see a young Indian-English boy experience a similarly violence-sanctioning Islam, this time on the receiving end.