Timur

Timur (1320s 17/18 February 1405), also known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror, first ruler of the Timurid dynasty, and the founder of the Timurid Empire, which ruled over modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia. He was undefeated in battle and is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal and deadly. Timur is also considered a great patron of the arts, for he interacted with scholars and poets such as ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru. His reign led to the Timurid Renaissance. Born into the Turkicized Mongol confederation of the Barlas in Transoxiana (now in Uzbekistan) in the 1320s, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370¹ and from there he led a series of military campaigns defeating the Khans of the Golden Horde, the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, as well as the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent, thus becoming the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world. These conquests led to the creation of the Timurid Empire, which fragmented shortly after his death. He spoke several languages, including the Karluk Turkic language Chagatai (an ancestor of modern Uzbek and Uyghur), as well as Classical Mongolian and New Persian, which he used for diplomatic correspondence.…

Timur (1320s 17/18 February 1405), also known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror, first ruler of the Timurid dynasty, and the founder of the Timurid Empire, which ruled over modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia. He was undefeated in battle and is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal and deadly. Timur is also considered a great patron of the arts, for he interacted with scholars and poets such as ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru. His reign led to the Timurid Renaissance. Born into the Turkicized Mongol confederation of the Barlas in Transoxiana (now in Uzbekistan) in the 1320s, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370 and from there he led a series of military campaigns defeating the Khans of the Golden Horde, the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, as well as the Delhi Sultanate in the Indian subcontinent, thus becoming the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world. These conquests led to the creation of the Timurid Empire, which fragmented shortly after his death. He spoke several languages, including the Karluk Turkic language Chagatai (an ancestor of modern Uzbek and Uyghur), as well as Classical Mongolian and New Persian, which he used for diplomatic correspondence. Timur was the last of the major nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, and his empire set the stage for the rise of the more organized and lasting Muslim gunpowder empires of the 16th and 17th centuries. Timur was of Mongol descent , and, while probably not a direct descendant on either side, he shared a common ancestor with Genghis Khan on his father's side, though some authors have suggested his mother may have been a descendant of the Khan. He clearly sought to revive the legacy of Genghis Khan and saw himself as the restorer of the Mongol Empire. According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur considered himself Genghis Khan's heir. Timur referred to himself as the "Sword of Islam". He was a patron of religion and the arts, but styled himself a ghazi ( ) in the last years of his life. By the end of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate, and the Golden Horde, and had even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty in China. Timur's armies were multi-ethnic and much feared, and laid waste to sizable parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of millions of people. Of all the areas he conquered, Khwarazm suffered the most, as it repeatedly rose against him. He was the grandfather of the Timurid sultan, astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449, and the great-great-great-grandfather of Babur (1483–1530), founder of the Mughal Empire. ==Ancestry== Historian Peter Jackson considers it generally accepted that Timur was of "unimpeachable Mongol ancestry". Timurid histories, such as Yazdi's Zafarnama, Hafiz-i Abru's Zubdat at-tawarikh, and the Muiz al-Ansab, trace his paternal descent from Tumbinai Khan, a male-line ancestor of Genghis Khan. However, while Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tawarikh and the Secret History of the Mongols assign a common ancestry with Genghis Khan to Timur's tribe as a whole, no written evidence from Timur's lifetime or earlier makes such a link to him directly. tribe Timur's ancestor Qarachar Noyan, written in Timurid works as Tumanay's great-great-grandson, was a military commander under Genghis Khan, and was later assigned to the latter's son Chagatai in Transoxiana. Though there are not many mentions of Qarachar in 13th and 14th century records, later Timurid sources greatly emphasized his role in the early history of the Mongol Empire. These histories also state that Genghis Khan later established the "bond of fatherhood and sonship" by marrying Chagatai's daughter to Qarachar. Through his claimed descent from this marriage, Timur could assert kinship with the Chagatai Khans. The Barlas had longstanding ties to the Chinggisid political order. Members of Timur's family had served its rulers from the thirteenth century onward, including in the imperial guard, while later generations also occupied military and administrative positions. The origins of Timur's mother, Tekina Khatun, are less clear. The Zafarnama merely states her name without giving any information regarding her background. Writing in 1403, John III, Archbishop of Sultaniyya, claimed that she was of lowly origin. The Mu'izz al-Ansab, written decades later, says that she was related to the Yasa'uri tribe, whose lands bordered that of the Barlas. Ibn Khaldun recounted that Timur himself described to him his mother's descent from the legendary Persian hero Manuchehr. Ibn Arabshah suggested that she was a descendant of Genghis Khan. The 18th century Books of Timur identify her as the daughter of 'Sadr al-Sharia', which is believed to refer to the Hanafi scholar Ubayd Allah al-Mahbubi of Bukhara. Practically all of Timur’s contemporaries identified him as a Mongol, including Ibn Khaldun, who personally met Timur in Damascus in 1401, the Arab historian Ibn Arabshah, and the Castilian envoy Ruy González de Clavijo, who met Timur in 1404. In his work describing his encounter with Timur, Ibn Khaldun refers to him as the "sultan of the Mongols (Mughul) and Tatars (Ṭaṭar)", and describes the language of his court as the "Mongol language (al-lisān al-Mughulī)". He also uses the term "Chaghatay" (Jaqatay) alongside the designation "Mongol" (Mughul) when referring to Timur and his commanders. Clavijo also reports that after the death of Chagatai Khan ( ), the Timurid nomads began calling themselves Chaghatays and that they traced their origins to the Mongols of Genghis Khan (Tartaros). Ibn Arabshah refers to Timur’s army as "Tatars" and, quoting Timur’s own words, portrays both him and the Qara Tatars, a surviving group of Ilkhanid Mongols who lived in Anatolia, as belonging to the same people. The term Mughul was never used in the contemporary sense to refer to a speaker of the Mongolian language. In the Zafarnama, the Mongols who lived in the territory of modern-day Mongolia at the turn of the 15th century are referred to as Qalmaq, not Mughul. Nevertheless, Timur and his descendants (the Timurids) regarded themselves as belonging to the Mongol ulus and were perceived as such by their contemporaries. They identified themselves with the Chagatay Mongols, and those around them likewise recognized them as such. Timur’s Mongol identity was not constructed as an attempt to legitimize his rule; it reflected his ethnic origin and product of his Mongol descent. ==Religious views== in 1403. Zafarnama (1436) Timur was a practising Sunni Muslim, possibly belonging to the Naqshbandi Order of Sufism, which was influential in Transoxiana. His chief official religious counsellor and adviser was the Hanafi scholar Abd al-Jabbar Khwarezmi. In Termez, he had come under the influence of the spiritual mentor Sayyid Baraka, a leader from Balkh who is buried alongside Timur in Gur-e-Amir. Timur was known to hold Ali and the Ahl al-Bayt in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his "pro-Shia" stance. However, he also punished Shias for desecrating the memories of the Companions of the Prophet. Timur was also noted for attacking the Shia with Sunni apologism, while at other times he attacked Sunnis on religious grounds as well. In contrast, Timur held the Seljuk Sultan Ahmad Sanjar in high regard for attacking the Ismailis at Alamut, and Timur's own attack on Ismailis at Anjudan was equally brutal. Kazakh archaeologists studied a ritual burial mound in Ulytau, constructed by Timur during his campaign against the Golden Horde, with the assistance of specialists in chemistry and geology. They concluded that the site had a sacred significance for Timur. The mound was erected with the purpose of appealing to the spirits of his ancestors and seeking their support in the war against Tokhtamysh. This interpretation associates the practices attributed to Timur with beliefs rooted in the religious traditions of the Mongols of the 13th century and shamanism, raising questions about the extent to which he observed the norms of Islamic law (Sharia). Timur's contemporaries also questioned his adherence to Islam and did not recognize Timur as a Muslim. According to Ibn Arabshah: "He gave preference to the laws of Genghis Khan, considering them fundamental. Therefore, a large number of theologians issued a fatwa declaring him an unbeliever, although Islamic rites were openly practiced in his realm". Timur waged wars against other states with the aim of conquest and plunder. His main opponents were Muslim countries. The rulers and Islamic theologians of these countries undoubtedly held this against Timur, accusing him of unbelief or portraying him as a tyrant who was worse than the infidels. The Russian chronicles include the Tale of Temir-Aksak, in which Timur is characterized as an evil pagan. This information may have originated from the nomads of the Golden Horde. The question of Timur's religiosity was also addressed in his correspondence with the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I. The Ottomans wrote of Timur and his army that they were "worse than the infidels". In his work On the Burial of Timur, Vasily Bartold, drawing on the writings of Sharaf al-Din Yazdi, describes how, after Timur's burial, his wives and other noble women performed mourning rituals according to nomadic customs: they uncovered their heads and scratched their faces, blackened their faces, tore their hair, threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads with dust, and wrapped felt around their necks. During the "nomadic custom" following Timur's death, "even representatives of Islam, such as the shaykh al-Islam Abd al-Awwal and Isam al-Din, were compelled to wear mourning garments." It is likely that Timur's image was heavily Islamized by his descendants, above all by Shah Rukh. Forbes, Andrew, & Henley, David: "Timur's Legacy: The Architecture of Bukhara and Samarkand" (CPA Media). González de Clavijo, Ruy; Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406, translated by Guy Le Strange, with a new Introduction by Caroline Stone (Hardinge Simpole, 2009). . Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez De Clavijo to the Court of Timour, at Samarcand, A.D. 1403–6 Full text at Google Books. Marlowe, Christopher. Tamburlaine the Great. Ed. J. S. Cunningham. Manchester University Press, Manchester 1981. Marozzi, Justin. "Tamerlane", in: The Art of War: great commanders of the ancient and medieval world, Andrew Roberts (editor), London, England: Quercus Military History, 2008. . Paksoy, H. B. "Nationality or Religion: Views of Central Asian Islam" . Shterenshis, Michael V. "Approach to Tamerlane: Tradition and Innovation." Central Asia and the Caucasus 2 (2000). Yüksel, Musa Şamil. "Timur'un Yükselişi ve Batı'nın Diplomatik Cevabı, 1390–1405." Selçuk Üniversitesi Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi 1.18 (2005): 231–243.

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