Fact Behind Fiction

Introduction

Caladan & Ferghana

House Atreides governed Caladan for over 25 generations before moving to Arrakis. Caladan had a stable environment - water rich, secure and generally prosperous. The Atreides built their reputation around honour rather than conquest and were a respected but not dominant house of the Landsraad. Their power-base lay in naval competence and governance - which enabled Duke Leto I to attract loyal retainers like Duncan Idaho, Gurney Halleck and Thufir Hawat. Frank Herbert portrays the duke as a model principled ruler compared to the corruption of the dominant families of the Landsraad.

Babur - founder of The Mughal Empire (more accurately called the Timurid Empire) was a descendant of warlords and warriors from his father’s and his mother’s side. Despite this notorious martial ancestry Babur inherited a small, vulnerable and unstable principality in Central Asia called Ferghana. The untimely death of his father - Umar Sheikh Mirza - placed the young prince in a dangerous position - surrounded by rivals and best by tribal factions.

Caladan and Ferghana were placed at the periphery of the power centre of their worlds. Caladan was one of many planets that made up the Imperium and the Atreides were just one of the noble houses of the Landsraad. Ferghana lay in close proximity to Samarkand and Bukhara where other more powerful descendants of Timur and Genghis held sway. However both homelands would serve as influential training grounds for the scions Paul and Babur. Despite being subordinate to larger and more aggressive powers, Caladan and Ferghana had symbolic weight - Babur with still a Timurid prince, and the Atreides were deemed a large enough threat to warrant a plot. Their prestige allowed them to either punch above their weight, or to be a threat to hegemonic players in their world. The symbolic standing of Paul and Babur absent equal material resources would go on to shape their world view and martial strategy.

Differences between Paul and Babur become evident in their relation to their father. While Paul was groomed from an early age with Leto I acting as a guide and an architect of succession, Babur had no such preparation, nor was Umar Sheikh Mirza the strategic visionary that Leto I was. The contrast between the fathers is reduced by their untimely death that leads Paul and Babur into exile. The involuntary exile becomes a crucible for their leadership skills and martial prowess. They are forced to reinvent themselves away from home and in hostile territory. They become political beings - forming alliances through conquest, marriage and circumstance. Their core group of warriors comprise of hardy men they have fought side by side with - Paul and the Fremen, and Babur with a ragtag but loyal band from Central Asia.

Exile

Paul Atreides and Babur

How do we approach the study of Muad’Dib’s father? A man of surpassing warmth and surprising coldness was the Duke Leto Atreides. Yet, many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son; the devotion with which men served him. You see him there—a man snared by Destiny, a lonely figure with his light dimmed behind the glory of his son. Still, one must ask: What is the son but an extension of the father? - Muad'dib, Family Commentaries by the Princess Irulan

Babur, the visionary founder of the Timurid Empire in Hindustan, had a fair share of early struggle following his father's tragic demise in AD 1494. Then on, Babur embarked on an unyielding pursuit of power amid treacherous political landscapes. - Babur, The Chessboard King by Aabhas Maldahiyar

Paul and Babur begin their ascension in chaos - circumstance, not legitimacy, have interrupted their life as princes, and made them rulers in exile. Their foundations are shaken and their kingdoms are ruled by others and they must rebuild from scratch.

The murder of Paul’s father Duke Leto I is preceded by a superficial elevation for House Atreides - from their home planet of Caladan to the resource rich and contested world of Arrakis (AKA Dune). This political chicanery is brought about by House Harkonnen through the Padishah Emperor (House Corrino), and results not only in the murder of Leto I, but also the dismantling of the Atriedes household and scattering of their courtiers. Paul and his mother Jessica are forced to flee into the desert and live as fugitives among the Fremen. The Fremen are native to Arrakis, and are considered peripheral and primitive by the imperium. At this point of time and place Paul begins his symbolic exile; not only does he become Fremen but emerges as a messianic figure from Fremen prophecy and makes his adopted culture a base of power.

A twelve year old Babur inherits the principality of Ferghana after Umar Sheikh Mirza falls to his death when a dovecote collapses into a ravine below the palace. Babur, writing in his autobiography The Baburnama describes his father’s demise with lyrical imagery. “On the fourth day of Ramadan, my father … was feeding his pigeons when the platform slipped, precipitating him from the top of the rock so that he flew with his pigeons and their house and became a falcon.”

There was nothing lyrical about Babur’s own position as heir which was contested by rival Timurid cousins and aggressive warlords. After a few spirited battles and impressive victories Babur loses Samarkand - the legendary city of his ancestors that he briefly conquers. Babur’s sister is taken hostage - a terrible event that haunts him for years, his father’s kingdom Ferghana is now governed by another princeling and Babur spends years living and fighting as an itinerant claimant - opportunistically offering battle, retreating tactically and navigating the fragmented politics of Central Asia. He relies on personal charisma, military adaptation and forging alliances to survive and stay in the game.

Babur’s eventual capture of Kabul and subsequent conquest of India were not the result of teachings and armies inherited from his father, but the fruit of skills acquired through years of failure, exile and perseverance.

Conquest

Arrakis & Hindustan

To such an adventurer direction was dictated as much by fate as by forebearers. On his mother's side Babur was a distant descendant of Ghenghiz Khan, and on his father's he was a fifth generation of Timur, he who had in 1398 had sacked the Tughlaqs' Delhi. This latter conquest would furnish Babur with a cherished but highly dubious claim to legitimate sovereignty in northern India. - India: A History by John Keay

The trials that Paul and Babur faced in exile covered long years of their youth, and forged these princelings into hardened warriors. Their warcraft was martial, political, opportunistic, religious and economic, as is examined later. We will jump forward and examine the final confrontations that secured Paul Atreides’ ascendance on Arrakis and Babur’s conquest of India. These battles marked the culmination of long campaigns of adaptation, alliances and patience. Neither victory was inevitable, though they were decisive. Neither had a larger force, but their groundwork, strategic planning (time, terrain & intelligence), and their use of asymmetric conditions made their victories seem like foregone conclusions in hindsight.

Paul’s endgame includes drawing Houses Harkonnen and Corrino to Arrakis where he will have a ‘home’ advantage, and he times the conflict to coincide with brutal sandstorms that plague the entire planet. Paul and his Fremen army use guerilla tactics to attack the spice mining operations, which hits the Imperial economy, cuts off their logistics and affects morale. Houses Harkonnen and Corrino have no choice but to enter the battle and use their superior military might to secure their mines. They also bring in the crack special forces - the Sardaukar - to destroy the threat of the Fremen resistance once and for all.

Despite the superior numbers and better technology, the Harkonnen and Corrino forces are unable to deploy their forces effectively. The sandy terrain and the prevailing sandstorms have grounded their cutting edge air force. At this point Paul brings out his shock military cavalry - giant sandworms. These giant creatures are adapted to the sands of Arrakis over centuries and millennia of evolution, and blinding sandstorms are their playground. The psychological effect (on both sides) cannot be understated - the feared sandworms wreak havoc on Sardaukar discipline, and seeing Paul control the native sandworms only cements his position as a messianic leader in Fremen prophecy, and galvanizes the Fremen fighters.

The subsequent single-combat duel between Paul and Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Baron Harkonnen’s chosen heir) is just a formality - symbolic and ritualistic. Of course Paul prevails, and the fight only serves as a public assertion of the supremacy of his claim.

In contrast, Babur’s conquest and his victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 are rooted in the exploitation of structural fragmentation. It is Babur who travels to fight rather than draw in his opponents. He invades and selects a battleground, but his real weapon is hidden and he doesn’t forewarn his adversaries. The Delhi Sultanate is ruled by Ibrahim Lodi, and his administration has become fat and comfortable. The Sultanate’s internal politics aren’t stable, the nobility is restive and their military is unorganized and bloated.

Babur’s army is inferior in numbers but mobile, disciplined and battle-hardened. He uses a novel maneuver formation during battle - adapted from his knowledge of and exposure to Ottoman and Persian warfare - and creates a hybrid approach of entrenched guns and mobile cavalry to disrupt the massive Sultanate forces.

Like Leonidas and his Spartans at the Gate of Thermopylae - the Battlefield of Panipat was chosen for its narrowness which negated the threat of being outflanked. Babur’s fortifications were secured, and his troops were positioned for maneuver; they awaited the Lodi’s massive army that were funneled into the kill zone where artillery technology and disciplined firing broke their momentum. Babur’s cavalry flanked the defending army and routed the confused centre. Babur’s success in this military campaign exposed the timeless truths of warfare - technology and adaptation are force multipliers against a simple numerical advantage. But it was Babur’s political insight and intelligence operations that gave him a precise reading of the Lodi court and its factions, and that enabled him to make the correct local alliances.

An overlooked similarity between Paul and Babur’s art of war is their ability to exploit religious symbology to stir up their forces. Paul galvanizes the Fremen as he swiftly entrenches himself into their culture and adopts their way of life. He falls in love with a Fremen woman and though he never marries Chani, their children become his heirs. His use of Fremen mythology becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and the Fremen respond in kind - because in Paul they see a means to assert themselves and exercise agency over their homeland.

Babur rouses feelings of religious brotherhood by giving up alcohol at a time when he is at an inflection point; he symbolically drains his glass before his army and commits himself and his men as a brotherhood devoted to a higher, religious ideal. He also symbolically commits himself and his heirs to India by naming his recently born son Hindal, in honour of his new kingdom.

The First Battle of Panipat (1526) that established Babur in India.

Matriarchs

The Influence of Bene Gesserit & Aisan Daulat

Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: “The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a wellspring of cunning and resourcefulness.” - Muad'dib, Family Commentaries by the Princess Irulan

The Duniverse is permeated by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, who by design and mission control the major events, and it is their eugenic program that aims to bring about the manifestation of the Kwisatz Haderach by selective breeding among the royal houses of the Landsraad. For the Mughals - it is Babur’s matrilineal ancestry that gives his progeny and empire its name (from Mongol, more specifically one Genghis Khan - direct ancestor to Babur’s mother).

Paul’s mother Jessica takes his training above and beyond the calling of a Landsraad scion. His mental and physical conditioning, and his martial prowess far exceeds his peers even before the tragic events following his father’s murder. His nature is - of course the product of the Bene Gesserit breeding program - but he is also nurtured in the martial, political and intellectual arts that create unforeseen synergies in him. While his mother teaches him the ways of the BG sisterhood and his father schools him directly on legacy and leadership - they also arrange for Atreides courtiers to train him. The adventurer Duncan Idaho is Paul’s swordmaster, and Thufir Hawat - (mentat + master of assassins) teaches Paul how to be an intellectual supercomputer.

"Few among women will have been my grandmother's equal for judgement and counsel; she was very wise and farsighted and most affairs of mine were carried through under her advice." - Royal Mughal Ladies & Their Contributions by Soma Mukherjee, 2001

Aisan Daulat Begum was the de facto regent to her grandson Babur from the time of his father’s death in 1494 till her own demise in 1505. Her father was an influential chief, and she ensured that her brothers played crucial roles in Babur’s campaigns. She was a constant companion and guardian to the eleven year old king, handholding him through the political crisis till he had control of Ferghana. Her seniority and presence by Babur’s side inspired many a loyal courtier to inform her about plots to dethrone the young Babur.

She became a virtual spymaster and foil to the plots of princelings and noblemen (most famously - Hasan-I-Yaqub) on more than one occasion, often without the traitors ever realizing it was her. In retreat and exile Babur was chaperoned by Aisan Daulat Begum, and later he turned to her for advice as she carried generations of knowledge and a keen insight into family equations. It was her tales about his storied ancestors - Timur and Genghis Khan - that were Babur’s initial insights into battlecraft and warfare.

Looking at the upcoming threat Khwaja-i-qazi and Qasim Quchin accompanied by Ali-Dost Taghai met Babur's grandmother, Aisan Daulat Begum in the presence of other well wishers. The meeting concluded with the decision to give quietus to Hasan for disloyalty by his deposition. Babur's grandmother was a strong woman, and, in Babur's eyes, none could have matched her strength of perfect judgment and counsel. She was said to be very wise and far-sighted. Almost all affairs related to Babur were dealt with by her advice.

- Babur The Chessboard King by Aabhas Maldahiyar.

The influence diverges when it comes to the point of longevity. While Babur’s grandmother passes before his military successes peak - Paul’s mother keeps ascending in stature - becoming Reverend Mother to the Bene Gesserit even before Paul takes the throne, and remaining an influential and controversial figure - even in the lives of his children.

Trials of Kinship

Alia & Khanzada Begum

While the situation with the wives and concubines of Babur and Paul is not conventional, it is the events concerning their sisters that stand out as more interesting in their tragedy. Alia and Khanzada Begum are put through terrible trials. The sisters suffer, and their suffering becomes a burden for Paul and Babur.

Alia Atreides is exposed to the spice Melange and the Water of Life while she is in her mother’s womb - and the experience fundamentally reshapes her in ways that echo through the Duniverse. She develops powers of prescience more potent than Paul’s, but the context of her exposure to the spice takes her to uncontrollable extremes. Slowly she descends into a madness of prescience, and goes from being a potential support to Paul’s power in the Emperium to a threat to the stability of the BG project.

Babur’s harshest losses are at the hands of the powerful Uzbek warlord - Shaibani Khan, a hard man compared to the Timurid princes who’ve become accustomed to poetry, life in court and set-piece battle. They are no match for the practiced Uzbek warrior; one by one they fall and soon the entire Timurid land is in Uzbek hands. Babur’s dismay in defeat is compounded by the suffering of his sister Khanzada Begum who he allows to be taken hostage by the Uzbek warlord. She is forced into marriage with this arch nemesis of her family, and her predicament haunts Babur for years and Khanzada is frequently mentioned in his memoirs. Khanzada is reunited with Babur by the Safavid Shah Ismail the first, after he soundly defeats Shaibani Khan - sends the Uzbek’s limbs to the four corners of his empire and drinks out of the foe’s skull.

Khanzada Begum died in 1545 and was buried in Kabul at Bagh-e-Babur, at the burial site of her brother.

On a related topic, its important to note that Babur never matches Shaibani Khan in military prowess, but he succeeds where other Timurid princes failed - he survives. He also side-steps battlefield warfare by establishing controversial political alliances to remain a threat to the Uzbek warlord, and more crucially - Babur becomes a rallying point for the courtiers and soldiers of the fallen principalities. The number of Babur’s followers steadily climb while he’s in exile, and his roving gang becomes an army of sorts (though never a horde as Babur seems adept at taking on larger forces - Ibrahim Lodi and Rana Sanga - and prevail with technology, intelligence & luck).

The reunification of Babur & his sister Khanzada Begum.

The Sons & the Shadow

Leto II & Humayun as Heirs

Leto II (Paul’s son) and Humayun (Babur’s eldest son) are the unarguable successors to the newly established Atreides and Mughal Empires, however the untimely and mystical deaths of Paul and Babur leave their positions less than secured.

The source of insecurity over Leto II’s ascension is based on the chaos of the imperium and intrigue within the court. There are factions that compete for influence in the Atreides court - the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax, the Corrino family and Alia Atreides among others. Adding further complications is the resurrected Duncan Idaho, Leto’s twin Ghanima, the imposing presence of his grandmother the Reverend Mother Jessica and the appearance of the blind preacher who may or may not be his father. Leto himself is torn inside between his duty and responsibility towards the imperium, and his loyalty towards the Fremen.

Humayun - Babur’s chosen successor, eldest son and proven battlefield commander is elevated to emperor after the death of Babur. Four months before Babur’s death Humayun was gravely ill, and Babur offered his life in exchange for his son’s life to be spared. At his deathbed - Babur extracted a promise from Humayun - to be kind and to always forgive Babur’s other sons - Kamran, Askari and Hindal. This would be a taxing and defining event of Humayun’s campaigns as his brothers would remain a constant and traitorous thorn for most of their interactions.

Humayun’s fraternal feuds, and his manner of dealing with them would also give rise to the defining trait of how the eldest son would deal with younger brother - brutally at worst and at best having them politically castrated by sequestering them from real life in the Red Fort - not unlike the Japanese shoguns isolating the Japanese emperor and his imperial family. Adding to this predicament was the presence of the Afghan empire to the east of Delhi ruled by one Sher Shah (‘lion king’).

The trails of Leto II and Humayun would give rise to periods of the greatest stability and prosperity in the Duniverse and in India; and these subsequent periods would witness the nadir of their respective dynasties.

The Mughal Empire at its zenith (1700)

Bloodlines

The Double-Barreled Ancestry of Paul and Babur

And of course, then there is the emperor Babur, who founded the Mughal empire in India. None of this would have happened without Temur. This was not an ordinary man. He was a man of war, yes, but of culture, too. - Tamerlane by Justin Marozzi

The old woman studied Paul in one gestalten flicker: face oval like Jessica’s, but strong bones…hair: the Duke’s black-black but with browline of the maternal grandfather who cannot be named, and that thin, disdainful nose; shape of directly staring green eyes: like the old Duke, the paternal grandfather who is dead. - Dune by Frank Herbert

Both Paul and Babur inherit composite legacies that mark them out for greatness before they have achieved anything on their own.

Paul’s true ancestry remains unknown to him till his mother tells him that Baron Harkonnen is her father. Paul’s bloodline is rooted on one hand in a highly regarded and uprighteous family of the Landsraad; on the other hand his maternal grandfather is revealed to be a powerful yet repugnant and cruel man - second only to the Emperor. If Paul’s legacy as the Atreides heir wasn’t enough of a burden - his Harkonnen blood taints his self image - no matter how obvious his mother’s ancestry seems in hindsight. Nevertheless Paul remains more Areides by nature and nurture, and Fremen by choice and design, than Harkonnen.

Adding to Paul’s (and the reader’s) unease on this discovery - is the reasoning behind the Bene Gesserit’s breeding program, and calls into question the reader’s understanding of the Harkonnen line beyond the repulsive Baron. What makes the Harkonnen line so special that it warrants the Sisterhood’s attention for half the genetic pool of the Kwisatz Haderach?

For Paul the double-barreled bloodline is an unrevealed, predetermined destination, and the imperfect culmination of the Sisterhood’s plan. On the other hand - Babur’s ancestry is a pit. He is just one of many Timurid princelings who battle mostly each other at war and poetry, and all of them end up losing the ancestral Timurid land to the warlike Uzbegs. Babur is constantly reminded that he is the descendant of two of the greatest warriors the world has known - Timur from his father’s side, and Genghis Khan from his mother’s. He spends the majority of his life proving worthy of their blood - mostly to himself, and consistently considering himself a failure even after presiding over Kabul and then conquering India. Babur seems as prolific in losing all battles over the ancestral Timurid homelands (thrice losing the prestigious seat of Samarkand), as he seems adept at conquering wealthier kingdoms like Kabul and India.

Like Paul, Babur is deeply proud of his paternal links to the Timurid civilization and refinement rather than Mongol conquest and power - however history will name him differently. Also - both of them have no guarantee of their place in the world and they must fight, feud, collude, plot, marry and otherwise centre their lives on the issue of their legacy.

Legacy in Letters

Paul, Babur, and the Written Word

In his Babur-nama, a personal memoir-cum-diary of such disarming frankness that it was once reckoned 'amongst the most enthralling and romantic works in the literature of all time', Babur leaps from the page with the zestful energy of a sowar (trooper) bounding into the saddle. Restless to the point of nomadism, he was a born adventurer to whom success was an ultimate certainty and failure but a temporary inconvenience. - India: A History by John Keay

The legacy of both Paul Atreides and Babur extends beyond empire, beyond rule, and into the realm of narrative. Their lives—real and imagined—have been preserved, debated, expanded, and reinterpreted through books. Each stands as a literary figure as much as a political one, and it is through the written word that their influence continues to evolve and resonate with modern readers.

Paul Atreides begins as a character in Dune (1965), Frank Herbert’s seminal science fiction novel. The book introduced not only Paul’s rise from ducal heir to Fremen messiah and emperor, but also the rich ecology, politics, and religion of Arrakis. Herbert’s sequels—Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune—extend Paul’s legacy across generations. Through these works, readers witness Paul’s self-imposed exile, the rise of his son Leto II, and the consequences of prophetic rule. The Dune series interrogates not only power and revolution but also prescience, ecology, and the dangers of hero-worship.

After Frank Herbert’s death, the series was continued by his son Brian Herbert and co-author Kevin J. Anderson. Their prequels, sequels, and side narratives expanded the Dune universe considerably, drawing from Herbert's notes and exploring events both before and after the main arc. While critical opinion is divided on these later works, they have kept the Dune mythos alive for new generations, leading to renewed public interest—culminating in film adaptations and popular discourse. Paul remains a figure of fascination: a reluctant messiah, a tragic emperor, and a cautionary tale about charismatic leadership and unintended consequences.

Babur, unlike Paul, left behind not a fictional universe but a first-hand account of his own life. The Baburnama, written in Chagatai Turkish and later translated into Persian and many other languages, is widely regarded as one of the greatest autobiographies in Islamic and world literature. Unlike the detached chronicles of many rulers, Babur’s memoir is intimate, candid, and reflective. He writes of love, nature, architecture, failure, and friendship as much as he writes of battles and sieges. His observations on cities, people, poetry, and court life give historians a textured view of early 16th-century Central and South Asia.

Since then, Babur has been the subject of countless biographies—some hagiographic, others critical—as well as fictional retellings that seek to dramatize or reinterpret his early trials and later triumphs. Scholars have studied his life as a lens into the Timurid-Mughal transition, Central Asian geopolitics, and Indo-Persian cultural synthesis. Modern translations of the Baburnama, such as those by Annette Beveridge and Wheeler Thackston, have made the text accessible to contemporary audiences, ensuring that Babur remains a figure of scholarly and literary interest.

Together, Paul and Babur represent two models of legacy: one imagined and extrapolated into the far future, the other lived and recorded in the first person. Yet both command enduring fascination. They offer readers more than stories of conquest—they offer meditations on identity, exile, legitimacy, and leadership. In an age marked by uncertainty, the struggles of a prince among desert rebels or a young ruler in exile still resonate. Readers return to them not only for insight into the past or the future, but to reflect on the nature of power, the cost of ambition, and the human search for meaning through lineage, belief, and transformation.

Their stories endure because they are more than historical or speculative—they are universal.

One of the many editions of the Baburnama.