Timur or Tamerlane - A Brief Biography Timur or Tamerlane By Kallie Szczepanski Updated April 24, 2016. Throughout history, few names have inspired such terror as "Tamerlane." That was not the Central Asian conqueror's actual name, though. More properly, he is known as Timur, from the Turkic word for "iron." Amir Timur is remembered as a vicious conqueror, who razed ancient cities to the ground and put entire populations to the sword. On the other hand, he is also known as a great patron of the arts, literature, and architecture. One of his signal achievements is his capital at the beautiful city of Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbekistan . A complicated man, Timur continues to fascinate us some six centuries after his death. Early Life: Timur was born in 1336, near the city of Kesh (now called Shahrisabz), about 50 miles south of the oasis of Samarkand, in Transoxiana. The child's father, Taragay, was the chief of the Barlas tribe.

The Barlas were of mixed Mongolian and Turkic ancestry, descended from the hordes of Genghis Khan and the earlier inhabitants of Transoxiana. continue reading below our video 10 Facts About the Titanic That You Don't Know Unlike their nomadic ancestors, the Barlas were settled agriculturalists and traders. Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Arabshah's 14th century biography, "Tamerlane or Timur: The Great Amir," states that Timur was descended from Genghis Khan on his mother's side; it is not entirely clear whether that is true. Disputed Causes of Timur's Lameness: The European versions of Timur's name - "Tamerlane" or "Tamberlane" - are based on the Turkic nickname Timur-i-leng, meaning "Timur the Lame." Timur's body was exhumed by a Russian team lead by archaeologist Mikhail Gerasimov in 1941, and they found evidence of two healed wounds on Timur's right leg. His right hand was also missing two fingers. The anti-Timurid author Arabshah says that Timur was shot with an arrow while stealing sheep.

More likely, he was wounded in 1363 or 1364, while fighting as a mercenary for Sistan (southeastern Persia ) as stated by contemporary chroniclers Ruy Clavijo and Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi. Transoxiana's Political Situation: During Timur's youth, Transoxiana was riven by conflict between the local nomadic clans and the sedentary Chagatay Mongol khans who ruled them. The Chagatay had abandoned the mobile ways of Genghis Khan and their other ancestors, and taxed the people heavily in order to support their urban lifestyle. Naturally, this taxation angered their citizens. In 1347, a local amir named Kazgan seized power from the Chagatay ruler Borolday. Kazgan would rule until his assassination in 1358. After Kazgan's death, various warlords and religious leaders vied for power. Tughluk Timur, a Mongol warlord, emerged victorious in 1360.

Young Timur Gains and Loses Power: Timur's uncle Hajji Beg led the Barlas at this time, but refused to submit to Tughluk Timur. The Hajji fled, and the new Mongol ruler decided to install the seemingly more pliable young Timur to rule in his stead. In fact, Timur was already plotting against the Mongols . He formed an alliance with the grandson of Kazgan, Amir Hussein, and married Hussein's sister Aljai Turkanaga. The Mongols soon caught on; Timur and Hussein were dethroned and forced to turn to banditry in order to survive. In 1362, the legend says, Timur's following was reduced to two: Aljai, and one other. They were even imprisoned in Persia for two months. Timur 's Conquests Begin: Timur's bravery and tactical skill made him a successful mercenary soldier in Persia, and he soon collected a large following. In 1364, Timur and Hussein banded together again and defeated Ilyas Khoja, the son of Tughluk Timur. By 1366, the two warlords controlled Transoxiana.

Timur's wife died in 1370, freeing him to attack his erstwhile ally Hussein. Hussein was besieged and killed at Balkh, and Timur declared himself the sovereign of the whole region. Timur was not directly descended from Genghis Khan on his father's side, so he ruled as an amir (from the Arabic word for "prince"), rather than as khan . Over the next decade, Timur seized the rest of Central Asia, as well. Timur's Empire Expands: With Central Asia in hand, Timur invaded Russia in 1380. He helped the Mongol Khan Toktamysh retake control, and also defeated the Lithuanians in battle. Timur captured Herat (now in Afghanistan ) in 1383, the opening salvo against Persia. By 1385, all of Persia was his. With invasions in 1391 and 1395, Timur fought against his former protege in Russia, Toktamysh. The Timurid army captured Moscow in 1395. While Timur was busy in the north, Persia revolted.

He responded by leveling entire cities, and using the citizens' skulls to build grisly towers and pyramids. By 1396, Timur had also conquered Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mesopotamia and Georgia. Conquest of India, Syria, and Turkey: Timur's army of 90,000 crossed the Indus River in September, 1398 and set upon India. The country had fallen to pieces after the death of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351 - 1388) of the Delhi Sultanate , and by this time Bengal , Kashmir and the Deccan each had separate rulers. The Turkic/Mongol invaders left carnage along their path; Delhi's army was destroyed in December, and the city ruined. Timur seized tons of treasure and 90 war elephants, and took them back to Samarkand. Timur looked west in 1399, retaking Azerbaijan and conquering Syria . Baghdad was destroyed in 1401, and 20,000 of its people slaughtered. In July of 1402, Timur captured early Ottoman Turkey and received submission from Egypt.

Final Campaign and Death: The rulers of Europe were glad that the Ottoman Turk sultan Bayazid had been defeated, but they trembled at the idea that "Tamerlane" was at their doorstep. The rulers of Spain, France, and other powers sent congratulatory embassies to Timur, hoping to stave off an attack. Timur had bigger goals, though. He decided in 1404 that he would conquer Ming China . (The ethnic-Han Ming Dynasty had overthrown his cousins, the Yuan , in 1368.) Unfortunately for him, however, the Timurid army set out in December, during an unusually cold winter. Men and horses died of exposure, and the 68-year-old Timur fell ill. He died in February, 1405 at Otrar, in Kazakhstan . Timur's Legacy: Timur started life as the son of a minor chieftain, much like his putative ancestor Genghis Khan. Through sheer intelligence, military skill and force of personality, Timur was able to conquer an empire stretching from Russia to India , and from the Mediterranean Sea to Mongolia .

Unlike Genghis Khan , however, Timur conquered not to open trade routes and protect his flanks, but to loot and pillage. The Timurid Empire did not long survive its founder, because he rarely bothered to put any governmental structure in place after he destroyed the existing order. While Timur professed to be a good Muslim, he obviously felt no compunction about destroying the jewel-cities of Islam and slaughtering their inhabitants. Damascus, Khiva, Baghdad... these ancient capitals of Islamic learning never really recovered from Timur's attentions. His intent seems to have been to make his capital at Samarkand the first city of the Islamic world. Contemporary sources say that Timur's forces killed about 19 million people during their conquests. That number is probably exaggerated, but Timur does seem to have enjoyed massacre for its own sake. Timur's Descendants: Despite a death-bed warning from the conqueror, his sons and grandsons immediately began to fight over the throne when he passed away. The most successful Timurid ruler, Timur's grandson Uleg Beg, gained fame as an astronomer and scholar.

Uleg was not a good administrator, however, and was murdered by his own son in 1449. Timur's line had better luck in India, where his great-great-grandson Babur founded the Mughal Dynasty in 1526. The Mughuls ruled until 1857, when the British expelled them. ( Shah Jahan , builder of the Taj Mahal , is thus also a descendent of Timur.) Timur's Reputation: Timur was lionized in the west for his defeat of the Ottoman Turks. Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great and Edgar Allen Poe's " Tamerlane " are good examples. Not surprisingly, the people of Turkey , Iran and the Middle East remember him rather less favorably. In post-Soviet Uzbekistan, Timur has been made into a national folk hero. The people of Uzbek cities like Khiva, however, are skeptical; they remember that he razed their city and killed nearly every inhabitant. Sources: Clavijo, "Narrative of the Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of Timour, A.D. 1403-1406," trans.

Markham (1859). Marozzi, "Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World" (2006). Saunders, "History of the Mongol Conquests" (1971). Tamerlane (Timur) the Great - Timeline Index Timeline Index 1336 - 1405 69 years Tamerlane (Timur) the Great Timur meaning "iron" or Tamerlane in English, was a 14th-century conqueror of much of western and central Asia, founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370ï¿½1405) in Central Asia, and great great grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived until 1858 as the Mughal Empire of India. He ruled over an empire that, in modern times, extends from southeastern Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Kuwait and Iran, through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, North-Western India, and even approaches Kashgar in China.

More on this Website Gur-e Amir, the Tomb of Amir Timur, Samarkand | Amir Timur, … | Flickr pav21 By: pav21 Gur-e Amir, the Tomb of Amir Timur, Samarkand Amir Timur, Tamerlane or Timur the Lame, was a 14th century Turco-Mongol conqueror of much of western and Central Asia and founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370–1405) in Central Asia, which survived until 1857 as the Mughal dynasty of India. Done Tamerlane | Tranquebar Tranquebar Ahmed ibn Arabshah / J. H. Sanders Pris Pris med medlemskort Tamerlane or Timur the Great Amir is a translation by J.H.Sanders of the 14th-century account in Arabic by Ahmed ibn Arabshah.

The book is one of the first biographies of Timur, (1336-19 February 1405), commonly called Tamerlane, or Timur the Lame, 14th century Turco-Mongol conqueror of much of western and Central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370-1405) in Central Asia, which survived until 1857 as the Mughal dynasty of India. First edition, hard cover, 1936 xviii + 341 pages, map across two pages at the start of book. The image on the right is an illustration from the book. Book cover Profile for Tamerlane from After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 (page 1) Timur, Timūr, Temür, [close] Timur, Timūr, Temür, Timur (died 18 February 1405), historically known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia.

He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty. Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana during the 1320s or 1330s, Timur gained control of the Western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South and Central Asia and emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Delhi Sultanate. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, whichl fragmented shortly after his death. [close] Timur (died 18 February 1405), historically known as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty. Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana during the 1320s or 1330s, Timur gained control of the Western Chagatai Khanate by 1370.

From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South and Central Asia and emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire and the declining Delhi Sultanate. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, whichl fragmented shortly after his death. edit descriptions of this character No photos have been uploaded yet. Books with Tamerlane Samarkand - the capital of Tamerlane, a pearl of the Silk Route | Travel Photo Report Samarkand Dec 26, 11 • Category: Central Asia , Samarkand , Uzbekistan • Tags: Bibi-Khanym Mosque , Central Asia , Samarkand , Tamerlane , The Silk Route , Timur , Timurid Dynasty , Uzbekistan I have never really connected Smarkand with Uzbekistan. I knew it is there, but when i think of Uzbekistan, i think about the Soviet Socialistic Republic of Uzbekistan. While thinking of Samarkand, which was the capital of Tamerlane Empire, i always imagine the Silk Route. A month ago i went to Tashkent for a business trip.

Unfortunately i have not seen much of it as I was working till late each evening. Well i managed to see some of it going around by taxis. One of the strongest impressions is food. It is extremely delicious. Travelling for more is very often about. I can choose or not a destination just because of food. As i had only 1 day free i have decided to use it for visiting Samarkand. A regular train takes almost 4 hours between Tashkent and Samarkand. But i was lucky as just recently an express line called Registan was opened. It takes 2h20mins one way. Return ticket is 76USD (official exchange rate: 1USD=1400) or 49 USD (unofficial rate: 1USD=2700). People are supposed to exchange money at banks or official exchange points. When you arrive you are supposed to fill in a declaration of how much of which currency you have. and theoretically they may ask for receipts from banks. The inflation has been quite high so if you exchange a couple of hundreds you get a bag of money. Uzbek currency The ticket included free breakfast and tea. But i had to pay for water.

A man sitting next to me, made a bit of a scandal when he was requested money for water and told a young man from the staff that the service was terrible and he refuses to pay….. After a bit more than 2 hours we arrived. Samarkand train station The system of entering stations is similar to what I experienced earlier in China. One has to have a valid ticket to enter. So i saw the inside of the train station only in the evening on the way back. So i took a taxi and went straight to the Registan square, on of the most famous places. Registan square, Samarkand The name Registan (ریگستان) means “Snowy place” in Persian. The Registan was a place of public executions, where also people gathered to hear royal proclamations, heralded by blasts on enormous copper pipes called dzharchis.

Timur historically known as Tamerlane in English was a 14th-century conqueror of West, South and Central Asia, and the founder of the Timurid dynasty (1370–1405) in Central Asia, and great-great-grandfather of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Dynasty, which survived as the Mughal Empire inIndiauntil 1857. In 1370, Timur the Lame decided to makeSamarkandthe capital of his empire, which extended fromIndiatoTurkey. During the next 35 years he built anew cityand populated it with artisans and craftsmen from all of the places he had conquered. Timur gained a reputation as a patron of the arts andSamarkandgrew to become the centre of the region of Transoxiana. During this time the city had a population of about 150,000. Tamerlane Empire (Timurid Empire) In this video you can see three madrasahs (from right to left): the Sher-Dor Madrasah, the Tilya-Kori Madrasah and the Ulugh Beg Madrasah.

Tilya-Kori Madrasah Tilya-Kori (“Gilded”) Madrasah was not only a residential college for students, but also played the role of grand masjid (mosque). It has a two-storied main facade and a vast courtyard fringed by dormitory cells, with four galleries along the axes. The mosque building (see picture) is situated in the western section of the courtyard. The main hall of the mosque is abundantly gilded. Inside yard of Tilya-Kori Madrasah An Uzbek souvenir The Ulugh Beg Madrasah has its imposing portal with lancet arch facing the square. The corners are flanked by the high well-proportioned minarets. The mosaic panel over the entrance arch is decorated by geometrical stylized ornaments. The square-shaped courtyard includes a mosque and lecture rooms and is fringed by the dormitory cells in which students lived. There are deep galleries along the axes. Originally the Ulugh Beg Madrasah was a two-storied building with four domed darskhonas (lecture rooms) at the corners. The madrasah was one of the best clergy universities of the whole Muslim Orient of the 15th Century CE.

Abdurakhman Djami, a prominent poet, scientist and philosopher studied there. Ulugh Beg himself gave lectures there. During Ulugh Beg’s government the madrasah was a centre of secular science. Ulugh Beg Madrasah Inside the Ulugh Beg Madrasah Inside the Ulugh Beg Madrasah Inside the Ulugh Beg Madrasah Inside the Ulugh Beg Madrasah Inside the Ulugh Beg Madrasah In the 17th century the ruler of Samarkand, Yalangtush Bakhodur, ordered the construction of the Sher-Dor and Tillya-Kori madrasahs. The Sher-Dor (Having Tigers) Madrasah was designed by the architect Abdujabor. The decoration of the madrasah is not as refined as that on the Ulugh Beg madrasah of the 15th century – the “golden age” of Samarkand architecture. Yet the harmony of large and small rooms, exquisite mosaic decor, monumentality and efficient symmetry, all place the structure among the finest architectural monuments of Samarkand.

Sher-Dor Madrasah Tiger of Sher-Dor Madrasah After exploring the Registan complex i went to the Juma (Jameh, Friday) Mosque, also called Bibi-Khanym Mosque which was the main one in Medieval Samarkand. The Juma (Jameh, Friday) Mosque A gate of the Juma (Jameh, Friday) Mosque Inside courtyard of the Juma (Jameh, Friday) Mosque And to finish my day I went to buy some souverniers and some food at a nearby market. Market in Samarkand Timur Timur 2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection .

Related subjects: Historical figures Statue of Timur in Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan Tīmūr bin Taraghay Barlas ( Chagatai Turkic: تیمور Tēmōr, " iron ") ( 1336 – February 1405) was a 14th-century warlord of Turco-Mongol descent, conqueror of much of Western and central Asia, and founder of the Timurid Empire ( 1370–1405) in Central Asia and of the Timurid dynasty, which survived in some form until 1857. He is also known as Timur-e Lang ( Persian: تیمور لنگ) which translates to Timur the Lame, as he was lame after sustaining an injury to the leg as a child. He ruled over an empire that extends in modern nations from south eastern Turkey , Syria , Iraq , Kuwait , Iran , through Central Asia encompassing part of Kazakhstan , Afghanistan , Russia , Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan , Kyrgyzstan , Pakistan , India , even approaching Kashgar in China .

Timur's legacy is a mixed one, for while Central Asia blossomed, some say even peaked, under his reign, other places such as Baghdad, Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Persian, Indian and Turkic cities were sacked and destroyed, and many thousands of people were slaughtered. Thus, while Timur remains a hero of sorts in Central Asia, he is vilified by many in Arab, Persian and Indian societies. At the same time, many Western Asians still do name their children after him, while Persian literature calls him "Teymour, Conqueror of the World" (تیمور جهانگشا). After his marriage into 13th-century Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan 's family, he took the name Timūr Gurkānī ( Persian: تيمور گوركانى), Gurkān being the Persianized form of the original Mongolian word kürügän, "son-in-law". Alternative spellings of his name are: Temur, Taimur, Timur Lenk, Timur-i Leng, Temur-e Lang, Amir Timur, Aqsaq Timur, as well as the Latinized Tamerlane and Tamburlaine.

Early life Timur was born in Transoxiana, near Kesh (an area now better known as Shahr-e Sabz), 'the green city,' situated some 50 miles south of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan . Timur placed much of his early legitimacy on his genealogical roots to the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan . What is known is that he was descended from the Mongol invaders who initially pushed westwards after the establishment of the Mongol empire. His father Taraghay was head of the tribe of Barlas, a nomadic Turkic-speaking tribe of Mongol origin that traced its origin to the Mongol commander Qarachar Barlas. Taraghay was the great-grandson of Qarachar Noyon and, distinguished among his fellow-clansmen as the first convert to Islam , Taraghay might have assumed the high military rank which fell to him by right of inheritance; but like his father Burkul he preferred a life of retirement and study.

Taraghay would eventually retire to a Muslim monastery, telling his son that "the world is a beautiful vase filled with scorpions." Under a paternal eye, the education of young Timur was such that at the age of twenty he had not only become an adept in manly outdoor exercises but had earned the reputation of being an attentive reader of the Qur'an . Like his father, Timur was a Muslim and may have been influenced by Sufism. At this period, according to the Memoirs (Malfu'at), he exhibited proofs of a tender and sympathetic nature, though these claims are generally now held to be spurious. In addition, the spurious genealogy on his tombstone taking his descent back to Ali, and the presence of Shiites in his army led some observers and scholars to call him a Shiite. However, his official religious counselor was the Hanafite scholar Abd alJabbar Khwarazmi. There is evidence that he had converted to be Nusayri under the influence of Sayyed Barakah, a Nusayri leader from Balkh, who was a mentor of his.

He also constructed one of his finest buildings at the tomb of Ahmed Yesevi, an influential Turkic Sufi saint who was doing most to spread Sunni Islam among the nomads. Military leader Map of the Timurid Empire in 1405 (In Grey) In about 1360 Timur gained prominence as a military leader. He took part in campaigns in Transoxania with the khan of Chagatai, a descendant of Genghis Khan . His career for the next ten or eleven years may be thus briefly summarized from the Memoirs. Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Kurgan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he was to invade Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second military expedition which he led, and its success led to further operations, among them the subjection of Khwarizm and Urganj. After the murder of Kurgan the disputes which arose among the many claimants to sovereign power were halted by the invasion of Tughluk Timur of Kashgar, another descendant of Genghis Khan .

Timur was dispatched on a mission to the invader's camp, the result of which was his own appointment to the head of his own tribe, the Barlas, in place of its former leader Hajji Beg. The exigencies of Timur's quasi-sovereign position compelled him to have recourse to his formidable patron, whose reappearance on the banks of the Syr Darya created a consternation not easily allayed. The Barlas were taken from Timur and entrusted to a son of Tughluk, along with the rest of Mawarannahr; but he was defeated in battle by the bold warrior he had replaced at the head of a numerically far inferior force. Rise to power Tughluk's death facilitated the work of reconquest, and a few years of perseverance and energy sufficed for its accomplishment, as well as for the addition of a vast extent of territory. During this period Timur and his brother-in-law Husayn, at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures full of interest and romance, became rivals and antagonists.

At the close of 1369 Husayn was assassinated and Timur, having been formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh, mounted the throne at Samarkand, the capital of his dominions. It is notable that Timur never claimed for himself the title of khan, styling himself amir and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxania. Timur was a military genius but lacking in political sense. He tended not to leave a government apparatus behind in lands he conquered, and was often faced with the need to conquer such lands again after inevitable rebellions. Period of expansion Until his death, Timur spent the next 35 years in various wars and expeditions. Timur 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 north-west led him among the Mongols of 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 Kurdistan.

One of the most formidable of his opponents was Tokhtamysh who, after having been a refugee at the court of Timur, became ruler both of the eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde and quarrelled with Timur over the possession of Khwarizm. Timur supported Tokhtamysh against Russians and Tokhtamysh, with armed support by Timur, invaded Russia and in 1382 captured Moscow . After the death of Abu Sa'id ( 1335), ruler of the Ilkhanid Dynasty, there was a power vacuum in the Persia . In 1383 Timur started the military conquest of Persia. Timur captured Herat, Khorasan and all eastern Persia to 1385. In the meantime, Tokhtamysh, now khan of the Golden Horde, turned against Timur and invaded Azerbaijan in 1385. It was not until 1395, in the battle of Kur River, that the power of Tokhtamysh was finally broken, after a titanic struggle between the two monarchs.

In this war, Timur led an army of over 100,000 men north for about 500 miles into the uninhabited steppe, then west about 1000 miles, advancing in a front more than 10 miles wide. Tokhtamysh's army finally was cornered against the Volga River near Orenburg and destroyed. During this march, 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 in such northern regions. Timur led a second campaign against Tokhtamysh via an easier route through the Caucasus, and Timur destroyed Sarai and Astrakhan, and wrecked the Golden Horde's economy based on Silk Road trade. India In 1398 Timur, informed about civil war in India (started in 1394), began war against the Muslim Ruler in Delhi . He crossed the Indus River at Attock on September 24. The capture of towns and villages was very often accompanied by their destruction and the massacre of their inhabitants.

On his way to Delhi he met fierce resistance put up by the Governor of Meerut, Qilladar (Qilla means Fort; Qill-dar means Fort Commander) Ilyaas Awan Alvi, who engaged him in an intense battle which lasted nearly two months inflicting heavy losses on both sides. After the honourable and couragous death in battle of Ilaas Awan, Timur (though very much impressed by Ilyaas Awan's bravery) approached Delhi to meet with the armies of the Emperor, Sultan Nasir-u-Din Mehmud of Tughlaq Dynasty, who was already weak due to a fight for power in the Royal Family . The Sultan 's army was easily defeated and destroyed on December 17, 1394. Timur entered Delhi and the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in a mass of ruins. Before the battle for Delhi, Timur executed more than 50,000 captives, and after the sack of Delhi almost all inhabitants who were not killed were captured and deported. It is said that the devastation of Delhi was not Timur's intent, but that his horde could simply not be controlled after entering the city gates.

However, some historians have stated that he told his armies they could have free reign over Delhi. Timur left Delhi in approximately January 1399. In April 1399 he was back in his own capital beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya). An immense quantity of spoils was conveyed from India. According to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, ninety captured elephants were employed merely to carry stones from certain quarries to enable the conqueror to erect a mosque at Samarkand, probably the enormous Bibi-Khanym Mosque. Last campaigns and death Timur went to Kashmir from Delhi and forced hundreds to embrace Islam. Before the end of 1399 Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire , and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt . Bayezid began annexing the territory of Turkmen and Muslim rulers in Anatolia. As Timur claimed suzerainity over the Turkmen rulers, they took refuge behind him. Timur invaded Syria, sacked Aleppo, and captured Damascus after defeating the Mamluk's army. The city's inhabitants were massacred, except for the artisans who were deported to Samarkand.

This led to Tamarlane's being publicly declared an enemy of Islam. He 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 (many warriors were so scared they killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign just to ensure they had heads to present to Timur). In 1402, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara on July 20, 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. By 1368, the Ming had driven the Mongols out of China.

The first Ming Emperor Hongwu Emperor demanded, and got, many Central Asian states to pay homage to China as the political heirs to the former House of Kublai. Timur more than once sent to the Ming Government gifts which could have passed as tribute, at first not daring to defy the economic and military might of the Middle Kingdom. Timur wished to restore the Mongol Empire, and eventually planned to conquer China. In December 1404, Timur started military expeditions against the Ming Dynasty of China , but he was attacked by fever and plague when encamped on the farther side of the Sihon ( Syr-Daria) and died at Atrar ( Otrar) in mid-February 1405. His scouts explored Mongolia before his death, and the writing they carved on trees in Mongolia's mountains could still be seen even in the twentieth century. Of Timur's four sons, two (Jahangir and Umar Shaykh) predeceased him. His third son, Miran Shah, died soon after Timur, leaving the youngest son, Shah Rukh. Although his designated successor was his grandson Pir Muhammad b.

Jahangir, Timur was ultimately succeeded in power by his son Shah Rukh. His most illustrious descendant Babur founded the Mughal Empire and ruled over most of North India. Babur's descendants, Akbar , Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, expanded the Mughal Empire to most of the Indian subcontinent along with parts of Afghanistan . Markham, in his introduction to the narrative of Clavijo's embassy, states that his body "was embalmed with musk and rose water, wrapped in linen, laid in an ebony coffin and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried." His tomb, the Gur-e Amir, still stands in Samarkand. Timur had carried his victorious arms on one side from the Irtish and the Volga to the Persian Gulf , and on the other from the Hellespont to the Ganges River . Contributions to the arts Timur became widely known as a patron to the arts. Much of the architecture he commissioned still stands in Samarqand, now in present-day Uzbekistan . He was known to bring the most talented artisans from the lands he conquered back to Samarkand.

And he is credited with often giving them a wide latitude of artistic freedom to express themselves. According to legend, Omar Aqta, Timur's court calligrapher, transcribed the Qur'an using letters so small that the entire text of the book fit on a signet ring. Omar also is said to have created a Qur'an so large that a wheelbarrow was required to transport it. Folios of what is probably this larger Qur'an have been found, written in gold lettering on huge pages. Timur was also said to have created Tamerlane Chess, a variant of shatranj (also known as medieval chess) played on a larger board with several additional pieces and an original method of pawn promotion. Exhumation Timur's body was exhumed from his tomb in 1941 by the Russian anthropologist Mikhail M. Gerasimov. He found that Timur's facial characteristics conformed to that of Mongoloid features, which he believed, in some part, supported Timur's notion that he was descended from Genghis Khan . He also confirmed Timur's lameness. Gerasimov was able to reconstruct the likeness of Timur from his skull.

Famously, a curse has been attached to opening Timur's tomb. In the year of Timur's death, a sign was carved in Timur's tomb warning that whoever would dare disturb the tomb would bring demons of war onto his land. Gerasimov's expedition opened the tomb on June 19, 1941. Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, began three days later on June 22, 1941. Shortly after Timur's skeleton and that of Ulugh Beg, his grandson, were reinterred with full Muslims burial rites in 1942, the Germans surrendered at Stalingrad. The legend of Tamerlane's curse features prominently in the 2006 Russian blockbuster Day Watch. Fiction There is a popular Irish Reel entitled Timour the Tartar. Timur Lenk was the subject of two plays ( Tamburlaine the Great, Parts I and II) by English playwright Christopher Marlowe. Bob Bainborough portrayed Tamerlane in an episode of History Bites.

George Frideric Handel made Timur Lenk the title character of his Tamerlano (HWV 18), an Italian language opera based on the 1675 play Tamerlan ou la mort de Bajazet by Jacques Pradon. Edgar Allan Poe 's first published work was a poem entitled "Tamerlaine". German-Jewish writer and social critic Kurt Tucholsky, under the pen name of Theobald Tiger, wrote the lyrics to a cabaret song about Timur in 1922, with the lines Mir ist heut so nach Tamerlan zu Mut — ein kleines bisschen Tamerlan wär gut which roughly translates as "I feel like Tamerlane today, a little bit of Tamerlane would be nice." The song was an allegory about German militarism, as well as a wry commentary on German fears of "Bolshevism" and the "Asiatic hordes from the East." He is referred to in the poem "The City of Orange Trees" by Dick Davis. The poem is about an opulent society and the cyclic nature of zeal, prosperity and demise in civilisation.

Tamerlane features prominently in the short story Lord of Samarcand by Robert E. Howard which features a completely fictional account of his last campaign and death. In the Nintendo GameCube video game Eternal Darkness, Pious Augustus recites a speech echoing Tamerlane's actual speech after sacking Damascus , implying that Tamerlane was the masked warlord. In Microsoft's Age of Empires II, Tamerlane is a hero available only in the Map Editor. The alternate history novel The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson portrays a Timur whose last campaign is significantly different from the historical truth. Preceded by: Amir Timur (Tamerlane) Museum – Tashkent, Uzbekistan | Atlas Obscura See more things to do in Uzbekistan » One of two doubly landlocked countries in the world – a landlocked country surrounded entirely landlocked countries, the other being Liechtenstein – Uzbekistan as a national idea did not exist until the Soviets created it in the 1920s, complicating the process of state formation in Uzbekistan today. (The soviets were also responsible for environmental disaster within Uzbekistan such as the draining of the Aral Sea.

) Uzbekistan officially came into existence in 1991, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and holds within its borders a mix of ethnic groups, including Uzbeks, Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks and Tatars. In order to help unify the diverse population held together by its soviet created borders the new Uzbek state looked to pre-Russian Central Asian past for unifying national myths, in order to encourage a cohesive Uzbek identity. The figure that emerged out of this search through Central Asian history was the highly controversial figure of Amir Temur (Tamerlane). A fourteenth-century conqueror of Western, South and Central Asia, Amir Temur’s main qualifications was that his huge empire was located in the modern Uzbek state. He founded the Timurid Empire and Timurid dynasty (1370–1405) in Central Asia. Central Asia blossomed economically and culturally under his reign. At the same time, Baghdad, Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Persian, Indian and Turkic cities were sacked and destroyed. Ironically, the unifying figure of Uzbekistan wasn’t Uzbek at all and instead belonged to the Barlas, a Turko-Mongolian tribe.

In fact, it was the fall of the Timurids that allowed the Uzbek Khaqanate to gain power and form the basis of modern Uzbeks. Nonetheless, Timur has been officially recognized as a national hero of Uzbekistan, because his imperial capital was located in Samarkand. His name has replaced Marx’s and Lenin’s on street signs and government buildings all over Uzbekistan. Opened in 2006, the Amir Timur Museum is one of the newest museums in Tashkent. It was established to commemorate the 660th birthday of Amir Timur. The museum’s blue dome and ornate interior reference Central Asian Islamic architecture. The museum collection consists of ancient manuscripts, paintings, and engravings of Timurid’s age. The collection also includes a 14th century Quran from Syria. Amir Timur’s military career is reconstructed in a celebratory manner. The gardens surrounding the museum contain a statue of Timur on horseback and some prominent fountains. Lingering Soviet influence is acutely felt in the Amir Temur museum. Murals reminiscent of social realism decorate the lobby of the museum. The museum also features an exhibit on president Islam Karimov.

Karimov came to power under the Soviet regime and has had a firm grip on the presidency since 1990. Located in the center of Tashkent. Sources Northrop, D., (2004). Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Hiro, D . (1994). Between Marx and Muhammad: The Changing Face of Central Asia 41.3397

Question: Tamerlane was a 14th-century conqueror of Western, South and Central Asia, founder of which empire?
Answer: The Timurid Empire