Timur
Timur, (also known as Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur i Leng, Tamerlane, Tamburlaine, or Taimur-e-Lang, which translates to Timur the Lame, as he was lame after sustaining an injury in battle) (1336-February 1405) was a renowned 14th century Tatar conqueror, ruler of the Timurid Empire (1370-1405) in Central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Dynasty, which survived until 1506. Known for his daring military adventures, audacious campaigns and aggressive expansions, Timur was also responsible for bloodthirsty massacres of civilians and the plunders of whole nations.
The word Timur or Tumur means Iron in Mongolian and Turkish.
Early life
Timur was born at Kesh, better known as Shahr-e Sabz, 'the green city,' situated some 50 miles south of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan.Timur placed much of his early legitimacy on his genealogical roots to the great Mongol conqueror, Chinggis or Genghis Khan. What is known is that he was descended from the Mongol invaders who initially pushed westwards after the establishment of the Mongol empire. His father Teragai was head of the tribe of Barlas, a nomadic tribe that traced its origin to the Mongol commander Qarachar Barlas. Teragai was the great-grandson of Karachar Nevian and, distinguished among his fellow-clansmen as the first convert to Islam, Teragai might have assumed the high military rank which fell to him by right of inheritance; but like his father Burkul he preferred a life of retirement and study.
Under the paternal eye the education of young Timur was such that at the age of twenty he had not only become an adept in manly outdoor exercises but had earned the reputation of being an attentive reader of the Qur'an. Like his father, Timur was a Muslim and seems to have been influenced by Naqshbandi Sufism. At this period, if we may credit the Memoirs (Malfu'at), he exhibited proofs of a tender and sympathetic nature.
Military leader
About 1358, however, he came before the world as a military leader. Timur took part in campaigns in Transoxania with the khan of Chagatai, a descendant of Genghis Khan. His career for the next ten or eleven years may be thus briefly summarized from the Memoirs. Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Kurgan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he was to invade Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second warlike expedition in which he was the chief actor, and the accomplishment of its objects led to further operations, among them the subjection of Khwarizm and Urganj.
After the murder of Kurgan the contentions which arose among the many claimants to sovereign power were halted by the invasion of Tughluk Timur of Kashgar, another descendant of Genghis Khan. Timur was despatched on a mission to the invader's camp, the result of which was his own appointment to the government of Mawarannahr.
Timur's father had retired to a Muslim monastery, telling his son that "the world is a beautiful vase filled with scorpions." However, Timur was a man of action who did not follow the same path.
By the death of his father, Timur also became hereditary head of the Barlas tribe. The exigencies of his quasi-sovereign position compelled him to have recourse to his formidable patron, whose reappearance on the banks of the Syr Darya created a consternation not easily allayed. Mawaranahr was taken from Timur and entrusted to a son of Tughluk; but he was defeated in battle by the bold warrior he had replaced at the head of a numerically far inferior force.
Rise to power
Tughluk's death facilitated the work of reconquest, and a few years of perseverance and energy sufficed for its accomplishment, as well as for the addition of a vast extent of territory. During this period Timur and his brother-in-law Husayn, at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures full of interest and romance, became rivals and antagonists. At the close of 1369 Husayn was assassinated and Timur, having been formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh, mounted the throne at Samarkand, the capital of his dominions.
It is notable that Timur never claimed for himself the title of Khan, styling himself amir and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxania.
Period of expansion
The next thirty years or so were spent in various wars and expeditions. Timur not only consolidated his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes, but sought extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates. His conquests to the west and north-west led him among the Mongols of the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga; those to the south and south-West encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Kurdistan.One of the most formidable of his opponents was Tokhtamysh, who after having been a refugee at the court of Timur became ruler both of the eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde, and quarrelled with Timur over the possession of Khwarizm. Timur supported Tokhtamysh against Russians and Tokhtamysh, with armed support by Timur, invaded Russia and in 1382 captured Moscow. Later, Tokhtamysh turn against Timur and invaded Azerbaijan in 1385. It was not until 1395, in battle of Kur River, that the power of Tokhtamysh was finally broken.
In 1383 Timur had captured Herat. After the death of Abu Sa'id (1335), ruler of Ilkhanid Dynasty, there was a power vacuum in Persia.
India
In 1398, when Timur was more than sixty years of age, Ferishta tells us that, "informed of the commotions and civil wars of India," he "began his expedition into that country," and on the September 12, 1398 "arrived on the banks of the Indus."His passage of the river and upward march along the left bank, the reinforcement he provided for his grandson Pir Muhammad (who was invested in Multan), the capture of towns or villages accompanied, it might be, with destruction of the houses and the Massacre of the inhabitants, the battle before Delhi and the easy victory, the triumphal entry into the doomed city, with its outcome of horrors-all these circumstances belong to the annals of India. It is said that the devastation of Delhi was not Timur's intent, but that his men could simply not be controlled after arriving inside the city gates.
(external link below for a read of Timur's invasion of India from his memoirs-MULFUZAT-E-TIMUR)
Last campaigns and death
In April 1399, some three months after quitting the capital of Mahmüd Toghluk, Timur was back in his own capital beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya). It need scarcely be added that an immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away. According to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, ninety captured elephants were employed merely to carry stones from certain quarries to enable the conqueror to erect a mosque at Samarkand.
The war with the Turks and Egyptians, which followed the return from India, was rendered notable by the capture of Aleppo and Damascus. He invaded Baghdad in June of 1401; after the capture of the city, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred. Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show. In 1402, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I in the Battle of Ankara; Bayezid was captured and subsequently commited suicide in captivity. Timur also captured Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. This was his last campaign.
In 1368 the Ming had driven the Mongols out of China. The first Ming Emperor demanded, and got, many Central Asian states to pay homage to China as the political heirs to the former House of Kublai. Timur more than once sent to the Chinese Government gifts which could have passed as tribute. But Timur hankered to restore the Mongol Empire, and eventually planned to conquer China. In December 1404 Timur started military expeditions against the Ming Dynasty of China, but the old warrior was attacked by fever and plague when encamped on the farther side of the Sihon (Syr-Daria) and died at Atrar (Otrar) in mid-February 1405.
Of Timur's four sons, two (Jahangir and Umar Shaykh) predeceased him. His third son, Miran Shah, died soon after Timur, leaving the youngest son, Shah Rukh. Although his designated successor was his grandson Pir Muhammad b. Jahangir, Timur was ultimately succeeded in power by his son Shah Rukh. His descendant Babur became emperor of India.
Markham, in his introduction to the narrative of Clavijo's embassy, states that his body "was embalmed with musk and rose water, wrapped in linen, laid in an ebony coffin and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried." Timur had carried his victorious arms on one side from the Irtish and the Volga to the Persian Gulf and on the other from the Hellespont to the Ganges River.
Contributions to the arts
Timur became widely known as a patron to the arts. Much of the architecture he commissioned still stands in Samarqand, now in present-day Uzbekistan.According to legend, Omar Aqta, Timur's court calligrapher, transcribed the Qur'an using letters so small that the entire text of the book fit on a signet ring. Omar also is said to have created a Qur'an so large that a Wheelbarrow was required to transport it. Folios of what is probably this larger Qur'an have been found, written in gold lettering on huge pages.