Tamerlane

Turkic military leader and conqueror

• Born: April 6, 1336
• Birthplace: Kesh, near Samarkand, Transoxania (now in Uzbekistan)
• Died: February 19, 1405
• Place of death: Otrar, near Chimkent, Turkistan, Central Asia (now Shymkent, Kazakhstan)

Tamerlane combined extraordinary military talent with strong administrative leadership to create the first large independent Central Asian state to throw off the domination of the Mongols. In the process, he altered the regional balance of power and revived Central Asia’s main cities as international trading and cultural centers.

Early Life

Aḥmed ibn ՙArabshāh, captured by Tamerlane (TAHM-uhr-layn) at Damascus in 1401, later composed a generally critical history about him, entitled Kitāb ՙajāib al-maqdūr fī akhbār Tīmūr (1410; Tamerlane: Or, Timur the Great Amir, 1936). Writing soon after the death of Tamerlane, the historian described him as a brave, big-hearted youth friendly with the sons of the viziers, main advisers to the ruler at court. Contemporaries and later Central Asians called the formidable ruler Timur or Timur Lang (Timur the Lame), from which Europeans derived the form Tamerlane. His skeleton, found buried at Samarqand below a royal mausoleum, the Gur-e Amir, showed his damaged right leg attached to a tall, sturdy frame.

Tamerlane’s Barlas tribal origin sharply defined his outlook and behavior. Like the other nomadic tribesmen of the region, he virtually lived and usually fought on horseback. Habits of nomadic life kept the youth from any inclination toward ease and settled existence. Emulating the former Mongol masters of the area, Tamerlane displayed a distaste for urban residence. Migratory life also probably accounted for the almost ceaseless campaigning he undertook, starting from young adulthood. In his early years, aggressive opposition repeatedly drove Tamerlane into retreat with only a handful of followers.

Life’s Work

By the time Tamerlane reached the age of twenty-four, however, he had begun to acquire a reputation as an effective chieftain. He became prince of the Barlas clan in 1360 and continued to expand his influence during the next decade. Within Central Asia, he repeatedly had to fight the deadly rivals who held Khwārizm, just south of the Aral Sea, and the nomadic Moghuls (then called Jata or Jattah) of the plains and mountain passes east of Transoxiana. In his drive to ascendancy, he sanctioned the killing of his superior, the emir Ḥusayn of Transoxiana, and then married the emir’s widow. This royal link improved Tamerlane’s political position and added the honorific gurakan (son-in-law of the ruler’s family) to the new leader’s title. At Balkh in 1370, he took the throne of Central Asia.

Tamerlane’s idea of his natural domain apparently encompassed the subregions of Transoxiana, Khorāsān, Afghanistan, Turkistan, Iran, and the Transcaucasus, in whose Karabakh region he preferred to pass the winter. These areas served the Chaghatay and other tribal warriors as summer and winter pasturage. Within that periphery, his settled subjects found irrigable lands for farming and safe routes for travel.

Perhaps the most salient feature of Tamerlane’s leadership was his ability to employ the mobile military might of the Turkic Chaghatay tribes to build a state. With this tribal support, Tamerlane checked internal opposition. From Samarqand, his splendid capital, the Central Asians thrust into Kashgar (several times from the 1370’s to the 1390’), southern Russia (1395), Delhi (1398), Baghdad and Damascus (1401), and the environs of Ankara (1402). After widespread destruction, enslaving, and plundering, however, they remained in none of these places. Unlike earlier conquerors of the same region, such as Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan (whose relative Tamerlane proudly but on tenuous grounds claimed to be), Tamerlane chose not to colonize or govern these distant lands.

In campaigns north of the Caspian and Aral Seas, Tamerlane’s forces routed the vast armies of the Golden Horde , commanded by Toktamish Khan. Two great battles in 1391 and 1395, along with numerous lesser skirmishes, broke the hold of the Golden Horde. For some one hundred years, these offensive victories gave Central Asia a defense against the incursions of nomads north of Transoxiana. Equally significant, Tamerlane’s success released the Russians from the tight grip imposed by the Mongols’ Tatar successors, who had been centered at Sarai, near the great bend in the Volga River.

The emir spoke both the Turkic and Persian languages of Central Asia, but he never learned to read or write. To overcome this handicap and to satisfy his keen interest in history, he established the post of official reader of manuscripts (qissakhan). Despite his illiteracy, the conqueror learned the Qur՚ān and Islamic teachings so well from his spiritual counselors that he could discuss controversial points of dogma with them. Later historians, including Ibn ՙArabshāh, accused him of ruthlessly using religion for political purposes. In Syria, opponents regarded Tamerlane and his Central Asian forces as zealous Shīՙites, whereas in parts of Iran, Shīՙite defenders knew him to be a devout Sunni. He demonstrated his merciless commitment to Islamic doctrine when he drove into India. There, his troops slaughtered Hindus by the thousands as a pious act in response to the commandment to convert or kill infidels. Had his planned invasion of the Far East run its course, non-Muslims there might have suffered a similar fate.

In 1405, Tamerlane initiated a campaign directed toward China. Pushing eastward from his capital, he had scarcely reached Turkistan (regarded then as stretching beyond the Syr Darya River) when he died, not in combat but from illness. His successors fell to struggling for power in clashes that soon diminished Timurid authority and territory.

Significance

Tamerlane’s principal achievement fulfilled what he considered to be the normal responsibilities of a sovereign: to establish and maintain a large, secure, prosperous state and to embellish it with artistic and cultural institutions of the highest quality. At the heart of his empire, Samarqand, Bukhara, Herāt, and smaller cities were graced with large numbers of talented intellectuals, artisans and artists, theologians and teachers, many of them foreigners, for whom Tamerlane served as a demanding patron. The civilization under the Timurid Dynasty that Tamerlane founded set the highest standards in western Asia in literary composition, miniature painting, and historiography.

Great architectural monuments of the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries still demonstrate his accomplishment in such fields. The most magnificent of the structures designed and built by Tamerlane’s order served religious purposes. A grand mosque rose in his birthplace, Kesh, and another, dedicated to a favorite wife, Bibi Khanum, in Samarqand. Tamerlane’s architects constructed a huge mausoleum in Yasi, Turkistan, to honor the sainted Ahmed Yesevi (d. 1166), a Turkish poet and mystic.

Politically, the durability of the state of Tamerlane and his successors was determined by certain factors characteristic of medieval Central Asia. Political power at that time was founded primarily on the military might of the nomadic tribesmen; at the same time, these tribes posed the greatest threat to a ruler. Tamerlane was able to bring the tribes under his control by replacing the potentially dangerous tribal chieftains with individuals personally loyal to him. As long as this practice was maintained, the stability of the state was assured. No one of his successors, however, could completely command the loyalty of these factions, and the unity of the realm gradually broke up during the century following Tamerlane’s death. Despite this factionalism, Samarqand continued to flourish as a great cultural center under the Timurid Dynasty until it was overrun by the Shaybanid Uzbeks at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Tamerlane’s longest-lasting legacy was the Turkic literary language called Chaghatay, which emerged during his rule and supplanted Persian. It survived as the primary language of the literary arts in Central Asia down to the twentieth century.

Bibliography

Barthold, Vasilii V. Four Studies on the History of Central Asia. Translated by V. Minorsky, and T. Minorsky. 3 vols. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1962-1963. A history of Turkistan and Semirechie that also discusses the origins of the Timurid state and the lives of Tamerlane and his successors, emphasizing his grandson Ulugh Beg. Also covers the history of the Turkmens. Illustrations, notes, index, chronological table.

Blair, Sheila S. and Jonathan M. Bloom The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994. An important scholarly study that explores the art and architecture of the Islamic world from 1250 to 1800. Chapter 4 discusses Tamerlane’s Bibi Khanum mosque in Samarqand.

Grousset, Rene. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Translated by Naomi Walford. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1970. A general chronological history of the Eurasian Plains empires through the eighteenth century. Chapter 11 surveys the history of Tamerlane’s conquests and the fate of his successors. Based on fifteenth and sixteenth century histories, with little analysis provided. Maps, bibliography, index.

Howorth, Henry H. History of the Mongols, from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. 1876-1927. Reprint. 4 vols. New York: B. Franklin, 1964. Vol. 2 discusses Toktamish, khan of the Golden Horde, perhaps Tamerlane’s most formidable adversary. Genealogical tables, maps, and extensive index.

Ibn Arabshah, Ahmed. Tamerlane: Or, Timur, the Great Amir. Translated by J. H. Sanders. 1936. Reprint. Lahore, Pakistan: Progressive Books, 1976. A translation of the medieval historian’s account of Tamerlane’s life. Written after the emir’s death, it is based on the works of earlier historians and on Ibn Arabshah’s own experience. The author took a very negative view of Tamerlane’s actions. Appendices give a conversion table for the Islamic calendar and a list of tribal names. There is also a chronological table of the main events in Tamerlane’s career.

Ibn Khaldūn. Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane: Their Historic Meeting in Damascus, 1401 A.D. Translated by Walter J. Fischel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952. A short work supplemented with many explanatory remarks and notes. It gives Ibn Khaldūn’s account of his meeting with Tamerlane during a siege at Damascus, and of his later service with the emir. Bibliography.

Jackson, Peter, and Laurence Lockhart, eds. The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 6, The Timurid and Safavid Periods. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Contains chapters devoted to the history of Tamerlane and his successors. Analyses also of science, religion, architecture, other arts, and literature in the period, primarily in Iran. Many explanatory notes, a long bibliography, and thorough index.

Lamb, Harold. Tamerlane: The Earth Shaker. New York: Robert M. McBride, 1928. A readable history tracing Tamerlane’s life from his rise to power until his death. Written in the style of a historical novel, based on nineteenth century interpretations of primary and secondary sources. There is some discussion of Tamerlane’s world, but Lamb slips into an uncritical use of primary documents. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, and index.

Manz, Beatrice Forbes. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. A scholarly study of Tamerlane as a nomadic conqueror and a successful political leader and administrator. Discusses state formation, tribal politics, tribal relations with central government, and struggles for succession. Bibliography, index.

Meddicott, J. A., and D. M. Palliser, eds. The Medieval State. Rio Grande, Ohio: Hambledon Press, 2000. A history of the idea of the state in the Middle Ages. Includes a chapter on Tamerlane’s political power and his empire. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index.

Timur, the Great. The Mulfuzat Timury. Translated by Charles Stewart. London: J. Murray, 1830. This work purports to be Tamerlane’s autobiography. Some historians have doubted its authenticity. Scholars, especially in Central Asia, however, continue to refer to it as a source for the study of Tamerlane’s life. May be difficult to locate.