page_title: Timur
section_title: Campaigns in the Levant
hierarchical_section_title: Timur / Campaigns in the Levant
caption_attribution_description: English: Battleground of Timur and Egyptian King, conserved in Golestan Palace, Tehran, Iran. فارسی: مینیاتور نمایش‌دهندهٔ نبرد میان تیمور و پادشاه مصر. حفاظت‌شده در کاخ گلستان تهران.
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: 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.
  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 cited the killing of Hasan ibn Ali by the Umayyad caliph Muawiyah I and the killing of Husayn ibn Ali by Yazid I as the reason for his massacre of the inhabitants of Damascus.
  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.
caption: Timur defeating the Mamluk Sultan Nasir-ad-Din Faraj of Egypt
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