Babur (Mongolian, “tiger”), real name Zahiruddin Muhammad (1483-1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty of India and its first emperor (1526-1530). A descendant of Tamerlane on his father's side and of Genghis Khan on his mother's, Babur was 12 years old when he succeeded his father as sovereign of Fergana (now in Uzbekistan). He established himself at Kābul in 1504, having lost Fergana the year before, and from there made repeated attempts to conquer Samarqand, the capital of his Timurid ancestors. That failing, he turned southeast, to India, where the Delhi sultanate was crumbling. In 1526 he led his fifth raid into India and met Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (reigned 1517-1526) in the Battle of Pānīpat. Although Lodi commanded an army of 100,000 men and 100 elephants against Babur's 21,000, superior tactics as well as artillery made Babur victorious. During the next four years he conquered most of northern India and established his capital at Āgra, but he died in 1530 before he could consolidate his rule. He was succeeded by his son, Humayun.

Babur was said to be a man of compassion, who would not allow his troops to plunder or to harm innocent people. Highly cultured, he wrote poetry both in Persian and his Turkic mother tongue, and he also left a volume of memoirs that has been widely translated. His name is also spelled Babar and Baber.