Babur’s ancestral home and first kingdom was the Fergana Valley, a small but strategic region in Transoxiana, now part of Uzbekistan. As a Timurid Prince (descendant of Timur), he succeeded his father, Umar Shaikh Mirza II, as the Emir of Fergana in 1494 at the tender age of eleven. However, his reign in Fergana was unstable due to the constant threat from his rival relatives and, most critically, the powerful Uzbeks led by Muhammad Shaybani Khan. After repeated attempts to hold onto Fergana and conquer Samarkand, Babur was ultimately driven out of his homeland, leading him to seek a new kingdom, which he found first in Kabul (1504) and later in India.