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Babur: Salt, Social Closeness and Friendship

This article explores whether the concept of ‘friendship’ is a useful and basic category for the analysis of South Asian history. It begins with a variety of characteristics of relationships that social science has identified as friendship. It then explores the Baburnama, focusing on the social closeness or social distance of several groups and individuals, such as queens, allied leaders, blood kin, clerics and recruits. None were socially close enough to Babur to merit the term friendship. In contrast to these more distant relations, some of the men in proximity to Babur were, indeed, very close. Babur uses two Turkish terms to describe these men. The first term is Içki, which translates as ‘Inner men’, that is, the small group of men (perhaps fifteen in number) who fought next to Babur in battle and often ate with him. They formed his guard at night. The second term is kukäldash, which translates as ‘breast brother’, meaning the few men who shared the same wet nurse as Babur. These men grew up with Babur and were his closest friends. He mourned bitterly when one was killed. Overall, Babur did have friends and companions who were loyal through thick and thin. They formed the very centre of his household troops and the centre of his army.