page_title: Timur
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Timur / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Timur (Tamerlane) and his troops persuading him to launch a war against khan Tokhtamysh. 1533 Русский: Тамерлан и его воины. На миниатюре представлена сцена, когда воины просят Тамерлана начать войну с Тохтамышем.
context_page_description: Timur, later Timūr Gurkānī, sometimes spelled Taimur and historically best known as Amir Timur or Tamerlane, 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. As an undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history. Timur is also considered a great patron of art and architecture, as he interacted with intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid Renaissance. He is often credited with the invention of the Tamerlane chess variant, played on a larger 10×11 board.
  According to John Joseph Saunders, Timur was "the product of an Islamized and Iranized society", and not steppe nomadic.
  Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370.
context_section_description: Timur's legacy is a mixed one. While Central Asia blossomed under his reign, other places, such as Baghdad, Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Georgian, Persian, and Indian cities were sacked and destroyed and their populations massacred. He was responsible for the effective destruction of the Nestorian Christian Church of the East in much of Asia. Thus, while Timur still retains a positive image in Muslim Central Asia, he is vilified by many in Arabia, Iraq, Persia, and India, where some of his greatest atrocities were carried out. However, Ibn Khaldun praises Timur for having unified much of the Muslim world when other conquerors of the time could not. The next great conqueror of the Middle East, Nader Shah, was greatly influenced by Timur and almost re-enacted Timur's conquests and battle strategies in his own campaigns. Like Timur, Nader Shah conquered most of Caucasia, Persia, and Central Asia along with also sacking Delhi.
  Timur's short-lived empire also melded the Turko-Persian tradition in Transoxiana, and in most of the territories that he incorporated into his fiefdom, Persian became the primary language of administration and literary culture (diwan), regardless of ethnicity. In addition, during his reign, some contributions to Turkic literature were penned, with Turkic cultural influence expanding and flourishing as a result. A literary form of Chagatai Turkic came into use alongside Persian as both a cultural and an official language.
  Tamerlane virtually exterminated the Church of the East, which had previously been a major branch of Christianity but afterwards became largely confined to a small area now known as the Assyrian Triangle.
  Timur became a relatively popular figure in Europe for centuries after his death, mainly because of his victory over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. The Ottoman armies were at the time invading Eastern Europe and Timur was ironically seen as an ally.
  Timur has now been officially recognized as a national hero in Uzbekistan. His monument in Tashkent now occupies the place where Karl Marx's statue once stood.
  Muhammad Iqbal, a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired the Pakistan Movement, composed a notable poem entitled Dream of Timur, the poem itself was inspired by a prayer of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II:
  The Sharif of the Hijaz suffers due to the divisive sectarian schisms of his faith, And lo! that young Tatar (Timur) has boldly re-envisioned magnanimous victories of overwhelming conquest.
  In 1794, Sake Dean Mahomed published his travel book, The Travels of Dean Mahomet. The book begins with the praise of Genghis Khan, Timur, and particularly the first Mughal emperor, Babur. He also gives important details on the then incumbent Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.
caption: Emir Timur and his forces advance against the Golden Horde, Khan Tokhtamysh.
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