Timur, destined to be one of the…
1372 CE
Timur, destined to be one of the world’s great conquerors, had been 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.
His father, Taraghay, had been the head of the Turkicized Barlas clan, a nomadic tribe in the steppes of Central Asia, remnants of the original Mongol invaders of Genghis Khan of whom many had embraced Turkic or Iranian languages and customs.
A conservative Muslim raised as a Turkish chief’s son in the traditions of the defunct Il-Khanid empire, Timur has inherited Mongol approaches to military strategy.
Turkic in identity and language and steeped in Persian culture, Timur had gained prominence as a military leader, taking part in campaigns in Transoxania with the khan of Chagatai, a fellow descendant of Genghis Khan.
(His name also appears as Timur Leng, or Lenk—Timur the Lame; wounded in battle as a young man, he walks with a limp—and, in its anglicized versions, Tamerlane, or Tamburlaine.)
He had become well-known for the barbarity of his wars, initiating these in his mid-twenties while vizier to the White Horse (Chagatai) Khanate and directing the conquest of Transoxiania and Turkistan.
Allying himself both in cause and by family connection with Kurgan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria, he had invaded Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen.
The success of this military expedition, the second that he commanded, had 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 had been halted by the invasion of the obscure but energetic Chagataite Tughlugh Timur of Kashgar, another descendant of Genghis Khan.
Timur had been dispatched on a mission to the invader's camp, the result of which had been 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 had been taken from Timur and entrusted to a son of Tughlugh, along with the rest of Mawarannahr; but he had been defeated in battle by the bold warrior he had replaced at the head of a numerically far inferior force.
Tughlugh's death in 1363 facilitated the work of reconquest, and a few years of perseverance and energy had sufficed for its accomplishment, as well as for the addition of a vast extent of territory.
It had been in this period that Timur had reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads, who are deferred to in theory but in reality ignored, while Timur rules in their name.
During this period Timur and his brother-in-law Husayn, at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures full of interest and romance, had become rivals and antagonists.
At the close of 1369, Husayn had been assassinated and Timur, having been formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh, had mounted the throne at Samarkand, the capital of his dominions.
Recognized as emir in 1370, although he will continue to officially act in the name of the Chagatai khans, Timur will use the Chagatai lands as the base for extensive conquests for over three decades, his goal the restoration of the Mongol Empire.
He not only consolidates his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes but seeks extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates; he is to spend the next three decades in various wars and expeditions.
His conquests to the west and northwest will lead him among the Mongols of the Caspian Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga.
Conquests in the south and southwest are to encompass almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad, Karbala and Kurdistan.
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