Timur
Timur, 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 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 Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, as well as the late Delhi Sultanate of India, 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 Chagatai, an ancestor of modern Uzbek, as well as Mongolian and 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 Islamic gunpowder empires of the 16th and 17th centuries. Timur was of Turkified-Mongol descent, and, while probably not a direct descendant of either, 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 thought of himself as Genghis Khan's heir.
Timur used Islam to legitimize his conquests, referring 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. Timur's campaigns have been characterized as genocidal.
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, founder of the Mughal Empire.
Ancestry
Historian Peter Jackson considers it generally accepted that Timur was of "unimpeachable Mongol ancestry". Subsequent 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 the Barlas as a whole, no written evidence from Timur's lifetime or earlier makes such a link to him directly.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 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.
Early life
Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh, some south of Samarkand, part of what was then the Chagatai Khanate. His name Temur means "Iron" in the Chagatai language, his mother-tongue. It is cognate with Genghis Khan's birth name of Temüjin. Later Timurid dynastic histories claim that Timur was born on 8 April 1336, but most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate in the late 1320s. Multiple scholars suspect the 1336 date was designed to tie Timur to the legacy of Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, the last ruler of the Ilkhanate descended from Hulagu Khan, who died in that year.Timur was a member of the Barlas, a Mongolian tribe that had been turkified in many aspects. His father, Taraghai was described as a minor noble of this tribe. However, Manz believes that Timur may have later understated the social position of his father, so as to make his own successes appear more remarkable. She states that though he is not believed to have been especially powerful, Taraghai was reasonably wealthy and influential. This is shown in the Zafarnama, which states that Timur later returning to his birthplace following the death of his father on 12 March 1360 AD, suggesting concern over his estate. Taraghai's social significance is further hinted at by Arabshah, who described him as a magnate in the court of Amir Husayn Qara'unas. In addition to this, the father of the great Amir Hamid Kereyid of Moghulistan is stated as a friend of Taraghai's.
In his childhood, Timur and a small band of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep, horses, and cattle. Around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries disabled him for life. Some believe that these injuries occurred while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timur's injuries and disability gave rise to the nickname "Timur the Lame" or Temūr Lang in Persian, which is the origin of Tamerlane, the name by which he is generally known in the West.
Military leader
By about 1360, Timur had gained prominence as a military leader whose troops were mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region. He took part in campaigns in Transoxiana with the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Qazaghan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he invaded Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second military expedition that he led, and its success led to further operations, among them the subjugation of Khwarazm and Urgench.Following Qazaghan's murder, disputes arose among the many claimants to sovereign power. Tughlugh Timur of Kashgar, the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, another descendant of Genghis Khan, invaded, interrupting this infighting. Timur was sent to negotiate with the invader but joined with him instead and was rewarded with Transoxiana. At about this time, his father died and Timur also became chief of the Barlas. Tughlugh then attempted to set his son Ilyas Khoja over Transoxiana, but Timur repelled this invasion with a smaller force.
Rise to power
In this period, Timur reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads while he ruled in their name. Also during this period, Timur and his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, who were at first fellow fugitives and wanderers, became rivals and antagonists. The relationship between them became strained after Husayn abandoned efforts to carry out Timur's orders to finish off Ilya Khoja close to Tashkent.Timur gained followers in Balkh, consisting of merchants, fellow tribesmen, Muslim clergy, aristocracy and agricultural workers, because of his kindness in sharing his belongings with them. This contrasted Timur's behavior with that of Husayn, who alienated these people, took many possessions from them via his heavy tax laws and selfishly spent the tax money building elaborate structures. Around 1370, Husayn surrendered to Timur and was later assassinated, which allowed Timur to be formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh. He married Husayn's wife Saray Mulk Khanum, a descendant of Genghis Khan, allowing him to become imperial ruler of the Chaghatay tribe.
Legitimization of Timur's rule
Timur's Turco-Mongolian heritage provided opportunities and challenges as he sought to rule the Mongol Empire and the Muslim world. According to the Mongol traditions, Timur could not claim the title of khan or rule the Mongol Empire because he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan. Therefore, Timur set up a puppet Chaghatayid Khan, Suyurghatmish, as the nominal ruler of Balkh as he pretended to act as a "protector of the member of a Chinggisid line, that of Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi". Timur instead used the title of Amir meaning general, and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxiana. To reinforce this position, Timur claimed the title güregen to a princess of Chinggisid line.As with the title of Khan, Timur similarly could not claim the supreme title of the Islamic world, Caliph, because the "office was limited to the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad". Therefore, Timur reacted to the challenge by creating a myth and image of himself as a "supernatural personal power" ordained by God. Timur's most famous title was Sahib Qiran, which is rooted in astrology a title that was used before him to designate Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the paternal uncle of Muhammad and which was taken by the Mamluk Sultan Baybars and by various rulers of the Ilkhanate to designate themselves. In that regard, he simply pursued an existing tradition in the Muslim world to designate conquerors.
The title was referring to the conjunction of the two "superior planets", Saturn and Jupiter, which was held to be an auspicious sign and the mark of a new era. According to A. Azfar Moin, Sahib Qiran was a messianic title, implying that Timur might potentially be the "awaited messiah descended from the prophetic line" who would "inaugurate a new era, possibly the last one before the end of time." Otherwise he depicted himself as a spiritual descendant of Ali, thus claiming the lineage of both Genghis Khan and the Quraysh.