Zahiruddin Muhammad, later to be famous as Babur, was born on February 14 [O.S.

], 1483 in the city of Andijan, Andijan Province, Fergana Valley, in contemporary Uzbekistan.

He is the eldest son of Umar Sheikh Mirza, ruler of the Fergana Valley, the son of Abū Saʿīd Mirza (and grandson of Miran Shah, who was himself a son of Timur) and his wife Qutlugh Nigar Khanum, daughter of Yunus Khan, the ruler of Moghulistan (and great-great grandson of Tughlugh Timur, the son of Esen Buqa I, who was the great-great-great grandson of Chaghatai Khan, the second born son of Genghis Khan).

Babur meaning "tiger” in Persian, is also transliterated as Baber or Babar).

Babur hails from the Barlas tribe, which is of Mongol origin and had embraced Turkic and Persian culture.

He had converted to Islam and resides in Turkestan and Khorasan.

Aside from the Chaghatai language, Babur is equally fluent in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite.

Hence Babur, though nominally a Mongol (or Moghul in Persian language), draws much of his support from the local Turkic and Iranian people of Central Asia, and his army is diverse in its ethnic makeup.

It includes Persians (known to Babur as "Sarts" and "Tajiks"), ethnic Afghans, and Arabs, as well as Barlas and Chaghatayid Turko-Mongols from Central Asia.

In 1494, at eleven years old, Babur becomes the ruler of Fergana, in present-day Uzbekistan, after Umar Sheikh Mirza dies in an accident.

During this time, two of his uncles from neighboring kingdoms, who had been hostile to his father, and a group of nobles who want his younger brother Jahangir to be the ruler, threaten his succession to the throne.

His uncles are relentless in their attempts to dislodge him from this position as well as from many of his other territorial possessions to come.

Babur is able to secure his throne mainly through help from his maternal grandmother, Aisan Daulat Begum, although there is also some luck involved.