page_title: History of Iran
section_title: Timurid Empire (1370–1507)
hierarchical_section_title: History of Iran / Medieval Iran / Timurid Empire (1370–1507)
caption_attribution_description: English: Timur. Forensic facial reconstruction by M.Gerasimov. 1941
context_page_description: The history of Iran or history of Persia, is intertwined with the history of a larger region, comprising the area from Anatolia, the Bosphorus, and Egypt in the west to the borders of Ancient India and the Syr Darya in the east, and from the Caucasus and the Eurasian Steppe in the north to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the south.
  Iran is home to one of the world's oldest continuous major civilizations, with historical and urban settlements dating back to 7000 BC. The south-western and western part of the Iranian Plateau participated in the traditional Ancient Near East with Elam, from the Early Bronze Age, and later with various other peoples, such as the Kassites, Mannaeans, and Gutians. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel calls the Persians the "first Historical People". The Medes unified Iran as a nation and empire in 625 BC. The Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus the Great, was the first true global superpower state and it ruled from the Balkans to North Africa and also Central Asia, spanning three continents, from their seat of power in Persis. It was the largest empire yet seen and the first world empire.
context_section_description: Iran remained divided until the arrival of Timur, an Iranified Turco-Mongol belonging to the Timurid dynasty. Like its predecessors, the Timurid Empire was also part of the Persianate world. After establishing a power base in Transoxiana, Timur  invaded Iran in 1381 and eventually conquered most of it. Timur's campaigns were known for their brutality; many people were slaughtered and several cities were destroyed.
  His regime was characterized by tyranny and bloodshed, but also by its inclusion of Iranians in administrative roles and its promotion of architecture and poetry. His successors, the Timurids, maintained a hold on most of Iran until 1452, when they lost the bulk of it to Black Sheep Turkmen. The Black Sheep Turkmen were conquered by the White Sheep Turkmen under Uzun Hasan in 1468; Uzun Hasan and his successors were the masters of Iran until the rise of the Safavids.
  Sufi poet Hafez's popularity became firmly established in the Timurid era that saw the compilation and widespread copying of his divan. Sufis were often persecuted by orthodox Muslims who considered their teachings blasphemous. Sufism developed a symbolic language rich with metaphors to obscure poetic references to provocative philosophical teachings. Hafez concealed his own Sufi faith, even as he employed the secret language of Sufism (developed over hundreds of years) in his own work, and he is sometimes credited with having "brought it to perfection". His work was imitated by Jami, whose own popularity grew to spread across the full breadth of the Persianate world.
caption: Facial reconstruction of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur from skull.
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