Hordes of nomadic warriors dominate China, northern India and the Eurasian steppes.

The lands that will eventually become Tajikistan are part of Turkic or Mongol states during the centuries following the Mongol Conquests.

The Persian language remains in use in government, scholarship, and literature.

Among the dynasties that rule all or part of the future Tajikistan between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries are the Seljuk Turks, the Mongols, and the Timurids (Timur, or Tamerlane, and his heirs and their subjects).

Repeated power struggles among claimants to these realms take their toll on Central Asia.

The Mongol conquest in particular had dealt a serious blow to sedentary life and destroyed several important cities in the region.

The Timurids, although they had come in conquest, also patronize scholarship, the arts, and letters.
 

The Mongol Empire had been divided among Genghis Khan's three sons following his death in 1227.

Despite the potential for serious fragmentation, Mongol law maintains orderly succession for several more generations, and control of most of  Mawarannahr stays in the hands of direct descendants of Chaghatai, the second son of Genghis.

Orderly succession, prosperity, and internal peace prevail in the Chaghatai lands, and the Mongol Empire as a whole remains strong and united.

As the empire begins to break up into its constituent parts in the early fourteenth century, however, the Chaghatai territory also is disrupted as the princes of various tribal groups compete for influence.

One tribal chieftain, Timur (Tamerlane), emerges from these struggles in the 1380s as the dominant force in Mawarannahr.

Although he is not a descendant of Genghis, Timur becomes the de facto ruler of Mawarannahr and proceeds to conquer all of western Central Asia, Iran, Asia Minor, and the southern steppe region north of the Aral Sea.

The Near and Middle East (1252–1395 CE): Mamluk Power, Ilkhanid Persia, and the Gulf Thalassocracy

From the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates to the incense ports of Dhofar and the high walls of Cairo, the Near and Middle East in the Lower Late Medieval Age was a region of simultaneous devastation and renewal. Mongol armies and Black Death epidemics reshaped cities and frontiers, yet new centers of learning, commerce, and maritime enterprise rose from the wreckage, linking Iran, Syria, and Arabia in an intricate web of faith and exchange.

The Ilkhanate, founded in 1256, drew together Iran, Iraq, Armenia, and Azerbaijan under Mongol sovereignty. Its rulers—Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) and Öljeitü (r. 1304–1316)—converted to Islam and built monumental capitals at Tabriz and Sultaniyya, where Persianate administration and Mongol military discipline fused into a new imperial synthesis. Agrarian restoration followed: tax reforms, irrigation repairs, and standardized coinage encouraged recovery from the Mongol onslaughts of the previous century. When the dynasty collapsed after 1335, its fragments—the Jalayirids of Baghdad and Tabriz, the Chobanids of Azerbaijan, and the Muzaffarids of Fars and Isfahan—carried forward the artistic and bureaucratic legacy of the Ilkhans until Timur’s armies swept across the plateau in the 1380s and 1390s, subduing both Jalayirid Baghdad and Muzaffarid Shiraz by 1395.

In Syria, Egypt, and the Levant, the Mamluks—a military elite of Turkic, Circassian, and Kurdish origin—repelled the Mongols at ʿAyn Jālūt in 1260 CE and built an empire that stretched from Nubia to Anatolia. Under Sultan Baybars I (r. 1260–1277), a chain of fortresses secured the desert marches; the Crusader states fell one by one—Antioch in 1268, Tripoli in 1289, Acre in 1291—ending two centuries of Latin presence on the Syrian coast. Cairo, revitalized under the Qalawunid and later Circassian lines, became the pivot of a Sunni revival. Its madrasas, hospices, and waqf foundations endowed a new urban piety, while the Qalawun complex and the minarets of al-Nasir Muhammad defined the city’s skyline. In Jerusalem and Damascus, restoration of shrines and caravanserais followed, binding pilgrimage, scholarship, and trade into a single sacred geography.

Beyond the northern frontier, Cilician Armenia, long a crusader ally, succumbed to the Mamluks in 1375; Georgia and Armenia endured Mongol and later Timurid incursions but maintained resilient ecclesiastical traditions. On northeastern Cyprus, the Lusignan dynasty preserved a Latin outpost. Its ports of Famagusta and Kyrenia sustained Mediterranean commerce even as crusader dreams faded. There, Venetian and Genoese merchants turned to sugar cultivation, importing enslaved labor from the Black Sea and Africa—a precursor to Europe’s later plantation economies.

To the east, the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula entered a maritime renaissance. Along the coast of Fars, the island kingdom of Hormuz relocated its capital offshore about 1301, evolving into the dominant Gulf thalassocracy. From its island fortress, Hormuz taxed all shipping between India, Iran, and Arabia, exporting horses, pearls, and dates while importing Indian cottons, pepper, and spices. The Nabhani dynasty held the interior of Oman, while the Mahra sultans ruled the eastern Yemeni littoral and Socotra, policing the monsoon routes. In Hadhramaut, the oases of Shibam and Tarim prospered under Rasulid overlordship from Taʿizz and Zabīd, producing dates and jurists alike; the Bā ʿAlawī families of Tarim fused Sufi sanctity with mercantile enterprise, laying the foundation of the later Hadhrami diaspora that would link Arabia, India, and the Malay world. In Dhofar, frankincense groves continued to yield the aromatic resin that had perfumed temples since antiquity, while Socotra’s dragon’s-blood and aloe maintained niche trades to Gujarat and Calicut. The dhow fleets of al-Shihr and Mirbat rode the monsoons between Hormuz, Malabar, and the Swahili coast, tying the Gulf to the wider Indian Ocean.

Meanwhile, on the Nile’s southern frontier, the Mamluk intervention in Nubia after 1276 CE ended the independence of Christian Dongola. Arab tribes—Beja, Jaʿalin, and Juhayna—migrated southward, intermarrying with Nubian nobles and spreading Islam through commerce rather than conquest. By the fourteenth century, Arab-Nubian Muslim dynasties ruled the valley, while the nomadic Juhayna ranged between the Nile and the Red Sea hills. Conversion, commerce, and intermarriage rather than war defined this gradual Arabization of the Sudanese corridor. Southward migrations of Luo and other Nilotic peoples followed, diversifying the upper Nile’s cultural landscape.

Throughout the region, plague and climate tested resilience. The Black Death (1347–1351) decimated populations from Tabriz to Cairo, emptying markets and caravanserais, yet irrigation and trade revived quickly where canal and qanāt systems endured. In Iran and Mesopotamia, the Tigris–Euphrates canal tracts and Fars orchards continued to yield grain, dates, and cotton. Syrian iqṭāʿ-holders restored orchards and olive groves; artisans in Aleppo and Damascus revived the glass, textile, and metal industries that made them famous from Genoa to Samarkand. The overlapping networks of merchants, Sufi orders, and urban guilds maintained a measure of stability when dynasties faltered.

Religiously, Islam’s geographic breadth encouraged plural expression. The Ilkhanids’ conversion sanctioned a synthesis of Persian bureaucratic culture and Mongol political forms. The Mamluks enshrined Sunni orthodoxy through law colleges and endowments; the Suhrawardi and Kubrawi Sufi orders crossed linguistic frontiers, linking Khurasan to Cairo. Christian and Jewish communities—Armenian, Georgian, Nestorian, Coptic, and Rabbanite—remained active in manuscript art, translation, and trade. The multicultural workshops of Tabriz and Damascus produced illuminated Qurʾans and Gospel codices alike, hallmarks of a cosmopolitan Middle East.

By 1395 CE, the region had re-formed into a constellation of complementary powers. Mamluk Syria and Egypt stood as guardians of Sunni learning and Mediterranean commerce; Jalayirid Baghdad and Muzaffarid Shiraz sustained Persianate art until Timur’s armies imposed a new imperial order. Hormuz ruled the Gulf as an island empire of merchants, while the Hadhrami and Dhofari coasts linked Arabia to India and Africa. Cyprus remained Latin and commercially vibrant, the last echo of crusader Christendom. Along the Nile, Arab-Nubian fusion gave rise to new societies that would shape the Sudan for centuries.

The fourteenth century thus closed not in decline but in transformation—a world of rebuilt capitals, re-channeled rivers, and re-charted seas, where Persian administrators, Egyptian Mamluks, Gulf mariners, and Hadhrami saints together forged the polycentric Middle East that would carry its traditions into the early modern age.

Middle East (1252 – 1395 CE): Ilkhanid Persia, Mamluk Syria, Caucasian Frontiers, and the Persian Gulf Thalassocracy

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Middle East includes Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, eastern Jordan, most of Turkey’s central and eastern uplands (including Cilicia), eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, northeastern Cyprus, and all but southernmost Lebanon.

• Anchors: the Tigris–Euphrates basin, the Iranian plateau with Azerbaijan–Tabriz, the Caucasus (Armenia–Georgia–Azerbaijan), the Cilician uplands and Syrian plains, the Persian Gulf rim (Hormuz, al-Ahsa, Bahrain, Oman), and northeastern Cyprus as a crusader–Mamluk frontier node.

---

Climate and Environmental Shifts

• Transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age (~1300) brought more variable rainfall: steppe margins and uplands suffered droughts, but irrigated zones (Khuzestan, Tigris–Euphrates alluvium, northern Syria, Fars) remained productive with careful canal upkeep.

• Plagues, especially the Black Death (1347–1351), devastated urban populations in Tabriz, Baghdad, Aleppo, and Damascus, undermining tax bases and military manpower.

---

Societies and Political Developments

• Ilkhanate and Successor States:

  • Founded in 1256, the Ilkhanate encompassed Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and eastern Anatolia.

  • Under Ghazan (r. 1295–1304) and Öljeitü (r. 1304–1316), Islam became the state religion, reforms standardized taxes, and monumental capitals rose at Tabriz and Sultaniyya.

  • Collapse after 1335 led to regional successor dynasties: the Jalayirids (Baghdad–Tabriz), Chobanids (Azerbaijan), and Muzaffarids (Fars–Isfahan). By the 1380s–1390s, Timur’s invasions shattered them, culminating in victories over Jalayirids and Muzaffarids by 1395.

• Mamluk Syria and Cilicia:

  • Mamluks defeated Mongols at ʿAyn Jālūt (1260) and absorbed the Syrian coast, toppling the Crusader states: Antioch (1268), Tripoli (1289), and Acre (1291).

  • Cilician Armenia, long allied with crusaders, fell to the Mamluks in 1375, ending the kingdom.

  • Northeastern Cyprus remained in Latin hands under the Lusignan dynasty, serving as a crusader–commercial outpost until Ottoman advance.

• Caucasus (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan):

  • Georgia endured Mongol suzerainty and fragmentation; Timurid raids (from 1386) devastated Kartli and Kakheti but church culture persisted.

  • Armenia was divided between Ilkhanid and Turkmen spheres, later overrun by Timur.

• Eastern Jordan and Eastern Arabia:

  • Bedouin and tribal emirates balanced between Ilkhanid, Mamluk, and local suzerainty.

  • In al-Ahsa and Qatif, the Jarwanids (14th c.) controlled pearls and trade.

• Oman and Hormuz:

  • The Nabhani dynasty held the Omani interior; coastal ports came under Hormuz, which relocated to an island base c. 1301.

  • By the 14th century Hormuz had become the preeminent Persian Gulf thalassocracy, taxing Gulf trade and controlling routes between India, Iran, and Arabia.

---

Economy and Trade

• Agriculture:

  • Mesopotamia’s canals supported dates, wheat, and flax when maintained.

  • Fars, Isfahan, and Azerbaijan produced cotton, silk, and fruit.

  • Syrian plains yielded grain, olives, and fruits under iqṭāʿ assignments.

• Maritime trade:

  • Hormuz dominated Gulf tolls, channeling Indian pepper, cottons, and spices northward, and exporting Arabian horses, pearls, and dates.

  • Omani and Bahraini ports linked fisheries and pearl-beds to wider circuits.

• Overland caravans:

  • Tabriz–Sultaniyya–Rayy–Khurasan remained Silk Road arteries, routing Chinese silks and Central Asian horses westward.

  • Aleppo and Damascus linked the Indian Ocean–Persian Gulf circuits with Mediterranean trade (Genoese, Venetian).

• Currency: Ilkhanid monetary reforms under Ghazan stabilized coinage; Mamluks minted dīnārs and dirhams; Hormuz issued its own copper and silver for Gulf trade.

---

Subsistence and Technology

• Hydraulics: canal dredging on the Tigris–Euphrates, qanāt networks in Iran, water-lifting wheels in Syria and Fars.

• Military: steppe cavalry and mamluk armies; siege artillery and early gunpowder bombs appeared in late-14th-century warfare.

• Craft industries: Syrian glass and textiles, Persian inlaid metalwork and miniature painting, Armenian manuscript arts.

---

Movement and Interaction Corridors

• Silk Road trunks: Tabriz ⇄ Baghdad ⇄ Aleppo ⇄ Damascus; branches to Sultaniyya and Khurasan.

• Persian Gulf: Hormuz ⇄ Basra ⇄ Wasit and Hormuz ⇄ Oman ⇄ India, timed to the monsoon.

• Caucasus passes: Darial and Derbent funneled steppe nomads and caravans.

• Cilicia–Levant routes: Sis ⇄ Aleppo–Damascus for trade and crusader/Mamluk conflicts.

• Northeastern Cyprus: Lusignan harbors (Famagusta, Kyrenia) tied to Genoese and Venetian networks.

---

Belief and Symbolism

• Islam:

  • Ilkhanid Islamization fused Persianate culture with Mongol rulership; Sufi orders (Suhrawardiyya, Kubrawiyya) proliferated.

  • Mamluks institutionalized Sunni madrasas and waqf endowments in Damascus, Aleppo, and Jerusalem.

• Christianity:

  • Armenian and Georgian churches endured under Mongol, Mamluk, and Timurid pressures.

  • Northeastern Cyprus and Cilician Armenia hosted Latin cathedrals and monasteries.

• Judaism: thriving communities in Baghdad, Damascus, and Tabriz engaged in scholarship and commerce.

---

Adaptation and Resilience

• Political layering: successor dynasties (Jalayirids, Muzaffarids) maintained irrigation and caravan routes after Ilkhanid collapse.

• Route redundancy: if Levantine ports faltered, trade diverted via Hormuz–Tabriz or the Black Sea (Trebizond).

• Urban–Sufi–guild networks: mediated crisis during plague years, sustaining social cohesion.

• Maritime resilience: Hormuz’s dominance ensured Gulf commerce continued despite upheavals inland.

---

Long-Term Significance

By 1395, the Middle East had reconfigured into polycentric powers:

• Mamluk Syria consolidated Sunni legitimacy and Mediterranean trade.

• Jalayirids and Muzaffarids carried Ilkhanid legacies until Timur’s conquests.

• Hormuz anchored the Persian Gulf as a global maritime crossroad.

• Armenia, Georgia, and Cilicia suffered fragmentation and invasion but preserved ecclesiastical traditions.

• Northeastern Cyprus remained Latin, a final outpost of crusader Christendom.

This constellation — Persianate successor courts, Mamluk Levant, Gulf thalassocracy, and Caucasian frontier polities — defined the region’s transition into the 15th century under Timurid shockwaves and the oncoming Ottoman challenge.

A brief resurgence of Georgian power in the fourteenth century ends when the Turkic conquerer Timur (Tamerlane) destroys Tbilisi in 1386.

The Chagatai Khanate had undergone a transformation after the Chagatayid Qazan Khan was killed in 1346.

In the west (Transoxiana), the mostly Turko-Mongol tribes, led by the Qara'unas amirs, have seized control.

In order to maintain a link to the house of Genghis Khan, the amirs have set several of his descendants on the throne, though these khans rule in name only and have no real power.

The eastern part of the khanate, meanwhile, has been largely autonomous for several years as a result of the khans' weakening power.

This eastern portion (most of which is known as "Moghulistan") is, in contrast to Transoxiana, primarily inhabited by Mongols and is largely Buddhist and Shamanist.

The most powerful family in the eastern part of the khanate during this time is a Mongol one, that of the Dughlat amirs.

The Dughlats hold several important towns as vassals to the khans, including Kashgar, Aksu, Yarkand, and Khotan.

The Dughlat amir Bulaji, after seeing the situation in Transoxiana, had decided in around 1347 to raise a khan of his own choosing.

His choice had fallen on Tughlugh Timur, who was at that time little more than an adventurer.

Tughlugh was converted by a Muslim cleric Mauláná Arshad-ud-Din, who unwittingly trespassed on the game-preserves of Tughlugh.

Tughlugh had ordered the cleric before him and demanded to know the reason for the cleric's interference with his hunting.

The cleric answered that he wasn't aware that he was trespassing.

At this point, Tughlugh noticed that the cleric was Persian, and Tughlugh said that "a dog was worth more than a Persian."

The cleric responded, "Yes, if we had not the true faith, we should indeed be worse than dogs."

Puzzled, Tughlugh ordered the cleric to explain the "true faith"; thus was Tughlugh taught the doctrines of Islam, whose concepts of ummah, ghazat (holy war), and jihad inspire his territorial expansionism into Transoxiana.

Thereafter, Tughlugh had embraced Islam.

The conversion is also politically convenient in that he brands the dissident princes which he kills as "heathens and idolaters".

This act results in the amirs of Moghulistan doing the same, although the general population of the region is slower in converting.

Tughlugh Timur—unlike 'Ali-Sultan, who murdered the Franciscan missionaries—appears to have been tolerant towards other religions and intellectuals and shared his Chagatayid and Yuan predecessors' interests in Buddhism.

In around 1363 he extends an invitation to the Tibetan lama, Rol-pai Dorji, who is going back from the court of the Yuan Dynasty headquartered in Dadu (modern Beijing).

The latter politely declines the invitation, however, due to the distance and the Khan's conversion to Islam.

The Moghuls (the Persian designation of Mongols) still preserve their Mongol identity during his reign and speak in the Mongolian language.

Tughlugh Timur soon dies at the age of thirty-four.

His tomb is located in Almaliq.

His conquest of Transoxiana proves to be short-lived, as Amir Husayn and Timur quickly wrest it from Ilyas Khoja.

The Qara'unas in Transoxiana had meanwhile lost their status as de facto leaders of the Chagatai ulus; they have been replaced by Buyan Suldus, an easygoing and ineffective amir.

Tughlugh Timur judges that he will face little resistance in Transoxiana and invades in March 1360.

As predicted, most of the tribal amirs declare their support for him; those that don't (notably Hajji Beg of the Barlas tribe) decide to flee.

The Moghuls decide to find someone else to administer Hajji Beg's former territories; they agree on Hajji Beg's young nephew Timur, who has submitted to them.

This, incidentally, is the first step in Timur's rise to power as amir of the Timurid Empire.

The Moghuls soon leave Transoxiana after a dispute ensues among their amirs.

In 1361, however, Tughlugh Timur and his army ride into the region for the second time.

This time the khan seems to have decided to depose the Transoxianan amirs and centralize power in his own hands.

He executes several amirs, including Amir Bayazid and Buyan Suldus, while Hajji Beg, who had returned following the departure of the Moghuls in 1360, again retreats.

When the Qara'unas Amir Husayn opposes him, Tughlugh Timur invades his extensive territories located south of the Amu Darya and defeats him in battle.

Amir Husayn flees; the Moghul army advances as far south as Kunduz in pursuit of him and plunders the region.

Having destroyed the power of the Transoxianan amirs and reunified the Chagatai Khanate, Tughlugh Timur appoint his son Ilyas Khoja as viceroy of Transoxiana and departs for Moghulistan.

It is believed that Timur tried to steal a sheep from a shepherd in around 1363 but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers.

Both injuries crippled him for life.

Some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan.

Timur's injuries have given him the names of Timur the Lame and Tamerlane by Europeans.

Timur gains prominence as a military leader whose troops are mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region.

According to Gérard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim, and he saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir.

Though not a Borjigid or a descendent of Genghis Khan, he clearly sought to invoke the legacy of Genghis Khan's conquests during his lifetime.

His name Temur means "Iron" in old Turkic languages (Uzbek Temir, Turkish Demir).

With the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate, he takes part in campaigns in Transoxiana.

His invasion of Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen is the second military expedition that he leads, and its success leads to further operations, …