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Timur ; chg, ''Aqsaq Temür'', 'Timur the Lame') or as ''Sahib-i-Qiran'' ( 'Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction'), his epithet. ( chg, ''Temür'', 'Iron'; 9 April 133617–19 February 1405), later Timūr Gurkānī ( chg, ''Temür Küregen''), was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal. Timur is also considered a great patron of art and architecture as he interacted with intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid Renaissance.

Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana (in modern-day Uzbekistan) on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South, and Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Southern Russia, defeating in the process the Khans of the Golden Horde, the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the late Delhi Sultanate of India and emerging as the most powerful ruler in the Islamic World. From these conquests, he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly after his death.

Timur was the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, and his empire set the stage for the rise of the more structured and lasting Islamic gunpowder empires in the 16th and 17th centuries. Timur was of both Turkic and 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 Khan. He clearly sought to invoke the legacy of the latter's conquests during his lifetime. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan and according to Gérard Chaliand, saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir.Gérard Chaliand, ''Nomadic Empires: From Mongolia to the Danube'' translated by A.M. Berrett, Transaction Publishers, 2004. translated by A.M. Berrett. Transaction Publishers, p. 75. .
p. 75.

p. 75.
"Timur Leng (Tamerlane) Timur, known as the lame (1336–1405) was a Muslim Turk. He aspired to recreate the empire of his ancestors. He was a military genius who loved to play chess in his spare time to improve his military tactics and skill. And although he wielded absolute power, he never called himself more than an emir.", "Timur Leng (Tamerlane) Timur, known as the lame (1336–1405) was a Muslim Turk from the Umus of Chagatai who saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir."

According to Beatrice Forbes Manz, "in his formal correspondence Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers." To legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referring to himself as the "Sword of Islam". He was a patron of educational and religious institutions. He converted nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime. Timur decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at the Siege of Smyrna, styling himself a '' ghazi''. 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 even attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty in China.

Timur's armies were inclusively multi-ethnic and were feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, sizable parts of which his campaigns laid waste. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time. Of all the areas he conquered, Khwarazm suffered the most from his expeditions, as it rose several times against him. Timur's campaigns have been characterized as genocidal.

Timur 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, which then ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent.

Ancestry

Through his father, Timur claimed to be a descendant of Tumanay Khan, a male-line ancestor he shared with Genghis Khan. Tumanay's great-great-grandson Qarachar Noyan was a minister for the emperor who later assisted the latter's son Chagatai in the governorship of 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 alleged descent from this marriage, Timur claimed 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, Johannes de Galonifontibus, 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 (modern Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan), some south of Samarkand, part of what was then the Chagatai Khanate. His name ''Temur'' means "Iron" in the Chagatai language, his mother-tongue (cf. Uzbek ''Temir'', Turkish ''Demir''). 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. Historian Beatrice Forbes Manz suspects 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.

He 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 by Timur later returning to his birthplace following the death of his father in 1360, 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 have given him the names of Timur the Lame and Tamerlane by Europeans.

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 Transoxania. At about this time, his father died and Timur also became chief of the Berlas. Tughlugh then attempted to set his son Ilyas Khoja over Transoxania, but Timur repelled this invasion with a smaller force.

Rise to power

It was in this period that 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 (former governor of Mawarannah) close to Tashkent.
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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 Transoxania. To reinforce this position, Timur claimed the title Guregen (royal son-in-law) when he married Saray Mulk Khanum, a princess of Chinggisid descent.

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. Otherwise he was described as a spiritual descendant of Ali, thus claiming the lineage of both Genghis Khan and the Quraysh.

Period of expansion

Timur spent the next 35 years in various wars and expeditions. He 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 northwest led him to the lands near the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga. Conquests in the south and south-West encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Northern Iraq.

One of the most formidable of Timur's opponents was another Mongol ruler, a descendant of Genghis Khan named Tokhtamysh. After having been a refugee in Timur's court, Tokhtamysh became ruler both of the eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde. After his accession, he quarreled with Timur over the possession of Khwarizm and Azerbaijan. However, Timur still supported him against the Russians and in 1382 Tokhtamysh invaded the Muscovite dominion and burned Moscow.

Orthodox tradition states that later, in 1395 Timur, having reached the frontier of the Principality of Ryazan, had taken Elets and started advancing towards Moscow. Great Prince Vasily I of Moscow went with an army to Kolomna and halted at the banks of the Oka River. The clergy brought the famed Theotokos of Vladimir icon from Vladimir to Moscow. Along the way people prayed kneeling: "O Mother of God, save the land of Russia!" Suddenly, Timur's armies retreated. In memory of this miraculous deliverance of the Russian land from Timur on 26 August, the all-Russian celebration in honor of the Meeting of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God was established.

Conquest of Persia

After the death of Abu Sa'id, ruler of the Ilkhanate, in 1335, there was a power vacuum in Persia. In the end, Persia was split amongst the Muzaffarids, Kartids, Eretnids, Chobanids, Injuids, Jalayirids, and Sarbadars. In 1383, Timur started his lengthy military conquest of Persia, though he already ruled over much of Persian Khorasan by 1381, after Khwaja Mas'ud, of the Sarbadar dynasty surrendered. Timur began his Persian campaign with Herat, capital of the Kartid dynasty. When Herat did not surrender he reduced the city to rubble and massacred most of its citizens; it remained in ruins until Shah Rukh ordered its reconstruction around 1415. Timur then sent a general to capture rebellious Kandahar. With the capture of Herat the Kartid kingdom surrendered and became vassals of Timur; it would later be annexed outright less than a decade later in 1389 by Timur's son Miran Shah.

Timur then headed west to capture the Zagros Mountains, passing through Mazandaran. During his travel through the north of Persia, he captured the then town of Tehran, which surrendered and was thus treated mercifully. He laid siege to Soltaniyeh in 1384. Khorasan revolted one year later, so Timur destroyed Isfizar, and the prisoners were cemented into the walls alive. The next year the kingdom of Sistan, under the Mihrabanid dynasty, was ravaged, and its capital at Zaranj was destroyed. Timur then returned to his capital of Samarkand, where he began planning for his Georgian campaign and Golden Horde invasion. In 1386, Timur passed through Mazandaran as he had when trying to capture the Zagros. He went near the city of Soltaniyeh, which he had previously captured but instead turned north and captured Tabriz with little resistance, along with Maragha. He ordered heavy taxation of the people, which was collected by Adil Aqa, who was also given control over Soltaniyeh. Adil was later executed because Timur suspected him of corruption.

Timur then went north to begin his Georgian and Golden Horde campaigns, pausing his full-scale invasion of Persia. When he returned, he found his generals had done well in protecting the cities and lands he had conquered in Persia. Though many rebelled, and his son Miran Shah, who may have been regent, was forced to annex rebellious vassal dynasties, his holdings remained. So he proceeded to capture the rest of Persia, specifically the two major southern cities of Isfahan and Shiraz. When he arrived with his army at Isfahan in 1387, the city immediately surrendered; he treated it with relative mercy as he normally did with cities that surrendered (unlike Herat). However, after Isfahan revolted against Timur's taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers, he ordered the massacre of the city's citizens; the death toll is reckoned at between 100,000 and 200,000. An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers constructed of about 1,500 heads each. This has been described as a "systematic use of terror against towns...an integral element of Tamerlane's strategic element", which he viewed as preventing bloodshed by discouraging resistance. His massacres were selective and he spared the artistic and educated. This would later influence the next great Persian conqueror: Nader Shah.

Timur then began a five-year campaign to the west in 1392, attacking Persian Kurdistan. In 1393, Shiraz was captured after surrendering, and the Muzaffarids became vassals of Timur, though prince Shah Mansur rebelled but was defeated, and the Muzafarids were annexed. Shortly after Georgia was devastated so that the Golden Horde could not use it to threaten northern Iran. In the same year, Timur caught Baghdad by surprise in August by marching there in only eight days from Shiraz. Sultan Ahmad Jalayir fled to Syria, where the Mamluk Sultan Barquq protected him and killed Timur's envoys. Timur left the Sarbadar prince Khwaja Mas'ud to govern Baghdad, but he was driven out when Ahmad Jalayir returned. Ahmad was unpopular but got help from Qara Yusuf of the Kara Koyunlu; he fled again in 1399, this time to the Ottomans.

Tokhtamysh–Timur war

In the meantime, Tokhtamysh, now khan of the Golden Horde, turned against his patron and in 1385 invaded Azerbaijan. The inevitable response by Timur resulted in the Tokhtamysh–Timur war. In the initial stage of the war, Timur won a victory at the Battle of the Kondurcha River. After the battle Tokhtamysh and some of his army were allowed to escape. After Tokhtamysh's initial defeat, Timur invaded Muscovy to the north of Tokhtamysh's holdings. Timur's army burned Ryazan and advanced on Moscow. He was pulled away before reaching the Oka River by Tokhtamysh's renewed campaign in the south.

In the first phase of the conflict with Tokhtamysh, Timur led an army of over 100,000 men north for more than 700 miles into the steppe. He then rode west about 1,000 miles advancing in a front more than 10 miles wide. During this advance, Timur's army got far enough north to be in a region of very long summer days causing complaints by his Muslim soldiers about keeping a long schedule of prayers. It was then that Tokhtamysh's army was boxed in against the east bank of the Volga River in the Orenburg region and destroyed at the Battle of the Kondurcha River, in 1391.

In the second phase of the conflict, Timur took a different route against the enemy by invading the realm of Tokhtamysh via the Caucasus region. In 1395, Timur defeated Tokhtamysh in the Battle of the Terek River, concluding the struggle between the two monarchs. Tokhtamysh was unable to restore his power or prestige, and he was killed about a decade later in the area of present-day Tyumen. During the course of Timur's campaigns, his army destroyed Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde, and Astrakhan, subsequently disrupting the Golden Horde's Silk Road. The Golden Horde no longer held power after their losses to Timur.

Ismailis

In May 1393, Timur's army invaded the Anjudan, crippling the Ismaili village only a year after his assault on the Ismailis in Mazandaran. The village was prepared for the attack, evidenced by its fortress and system of tunnels. Undeterred, Timur's soldiers flooded the tunnels by cutting into a channel overhead. Timur's reasons for attacking this village are not yet well understood. However, it has been suggested that his religious persuasions and view of himself as an executor of divine will may have contributed to his motivations.Virani, Shafique N. ''The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation'' (New York: Oxford University Press), 2007, p. 116. The Persian historian Khwandamir explains that an Ismaili presence was growing more politically powerful in Persian Iraq. A group of locals in the region was dissatisfied with this and, Khwandamir writes, these locals assembled and brought up their complaint with Timur, possibly provoking his attack on the Ismailis there.

Campaign against the Tughlaq dynasty

In 1398, Timur invaded northern India, attacking the Delhi Sultanate ruled by Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq of the Tughlaq dynasty. After crossing the Indus River on 30 September 1398, he sacked Tulamba and massacred its inhabitants. Then he advanced and captured Multan by October. His invasion was unopposed as most of the Indian nobility surrendered without a fight, however he did encounter resistance from the united army of Rajputs and Muslims at Bhatner
The History of India, edited by Kenneth Pletcher Senior Editor, Geography and History p. 131 under the command of the Rajput king Dulachand, Dulachand initially opposed Timur but when hard-pressed he considered surrender. He was locked outside the walls of Bhatner by his brother and was later killed by Timur. The garrison of Bhatner then fought and were slaughtered to the last man. Bhatner was looted and burned to the ground.

While on his march towards Delhi, Timur was opposed by the Jat peasantry, who would loot caravans and then disappear in the forests, Timur had 2,000 Jats killed and many taken captive.''History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period'' By Henry Miers Elliot pp. 489–49

/ref> But the Sultanate at Delhi did nothing to stop his advance.

Capture of Delhi (1398)

The battle took place on 17 December 1398. Before the battle, Timur slaughtered some 100,000 slaves who had been captured previously in the Indian campaign. This was done out of fear that they might revolt.

Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq and the army of Mallu Iqbal had war elephants armored with chain mail and poison on their tusks. As his Tatar forces were afraid of the elephants, Timur ordered his men to dig a trench in front of their positions. Timur then loaded his camels with as much wood and hay as they could carry. When the war elephants charged, Timur set the hay on fire and prodded the camels with iron sticks, causing them to charge at the elephants, howling in pain: Timur had understood that elephants were easily panicked. Faced with the strange spectacle of camels flying straight at them with flames leaping from their backs, the elephants turned around and stampeded back toward their own lines. Timur capitalized on the subsequent disruption in the forces of Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq, securing an easy victory. Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq fled with remnants of his forces.

The capture of the Delhi Sultanate was one of Timur’s largest and most devastating victories as at that time, Delhi was one of the richest cities in the world. The city of Delhi was sacked and reduced to ruins, with the population enslaved. After the fall of the city, uprisings by its citizens against the Turkic-Mongols began to occur, causing a retaliatory bloody massacre within the city walls. After three days of citizens uprising within Delhi, it was said that the city reeked of the decomposing bodies of its citizens with their heads being erected like structures and the bodies left as food for the birds by Timur's soldiers. Timur's invasion and destruction of Delhi continued the chaos that was still consuming India, and the city would not be able to recover from the great loss it suffered for almost a century.

Campaigns in the Levant

Before the end of 1399, Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Nasir-ad-Din Faraj. Bayezid began annexing the territory of Turkmen and Muslim rulers in Anatolia. As Timur claimed sovereignty over the Turkoman rulers, they took refuge behind him.

In 1400, Timur invaded Armenia and Georgia. Of the surviving population, more than 60,000 of the local people were captured as slaves, and many districts were depopulated. He also sacked Sivas in Asia Minor.

Then Timur turned his attention to Syria, sacking Aleppo, and Damascus. The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand.

Timur invaded Baghdad in June 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 him. When they ran out of men to kill, many warriors killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign, and when they ran out of prisoners to kill, many resorted to beheading their own wives. British historian David Nicolle, in his "The Mongol Warlords", quotes an anonymous contemporary historian who compared Timur's army to "ants and locusts covering the whole countryside, plundering and ravaging."

Invasion of Anatolia

In the meantime, years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and Bayezid. Both rulers insulted each other in their own way while Timur preferred to undermine Bayezid's position as a ruler and play down the significance of his military successes.

This is the excerpt from one of Timur's letters addressed to Ottoman sultan:

Finally, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402. Bayezid was captured in battle and subsequently died in captivity, initiating the twelve-year Ottoman Interregnum period. Timur's stated motivation for attacking Bayezid and the Ottoman Empire was the restoration of Seljuq authority. Timur saw the Seljuks as the rightful rulers of Anatolia as they had been granted rule by Mongol conquerors, illustrating again Timur's interest with Genghizid legitimacy.

In December 1402, Timur besieged and took the city of Smyrna, a stronghold of the Christian Knights Hospitalers, thus he referred to himself as '' ghazi'' or "Warrior of Islam". A mass beheading was carried out in Smyrna by Timur's soldiers.

With the Treaty of Gallipoli in February 1402, Timur was furious with the Genoese and Venetians, as their ships ferried the Ottoman army to safety in Thrace. As Lord Kinross reported in ''The Ottoman Centuries'', the Italians preferred the enemy they could handle to the one they could not.

During the early interregnum, Bayezid I's son acted as Timur's vassal. Unlike other princes, Mehmed minted coins that had Timur's name stamped as "Demur han Gürgân" (), alongside his own as "Mehmed bin Bayezid han" (). This was probably an attempt on Mehmed's part to justify to Timur his conquest of Bursa after the Battle of Ulubad. After Mehmed established himself in ''Rum'', Timur had already begun preparations for his return to Central Asia, and took no further steps to interfere with the ''status quo'' in Anatolia.

While Timur was still in Anatolia, Qara Yusuf assaulted Baghdad and captured it in 1402. Timur returned to Persia and sent his grandson Abu Bakr ibn Miran Shah to reconquer Baghdad, which he proceeded to do. Timur then spent some time in Ardabil, where he gave Ali Safavi, leader of the Safaviyya