Battle of Ab Darrah Pass
1511 battle during Timurid-Uzbek wars
Battle of Ab Darrah Pass, or Battle of Pul-i Sangin, was the battle that took place in 1511, in the place called Ab Darrah (present-day Panjshir, Afghanistan) between Uzbeks and Babur of Timurids. The battle ended with the decisive Timurid victory which enabled Babur to regain Transoxiana and briefly reunite the whole of the ancestral part of the Timurid Empire. Such a decisive and significant battle is not mentioned in Babur’s Memoirs (Baburnama), in which there is a break from the year 1508 to the beginning of 1519.
Muhammad Shaybani, the Khan of the Uzbeks, had set up the Khanate of Bukhara and was so powerful and successful in his military exploits that he wrested Samarkand, Herat, and Bukhara from the Timurid dynasty. He captured Khurasan as well but by 1510, he found in Shah Ismail I, the founder of a new Safavid Persian Empire, a serious threat. He decided to confront this threat head on and marched towards Merv where his army was ambushed by the Persians. Some 17,000 Qizilbash ambushed and defeated a superior Uzbek force numbering 28,000, The Uzbek ruler, Muhammad Shaybani, was caught and killed.
When news of the defeat of their Khan reached the Uzbeks in Bukhara and Samarkand the result was shock and panic. Those Mughals who had supported Muhammad Shaybani and presently stationed in Khurasan left for Kunduz. News of these new developments arrived in Babur’s Kabul.
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