Tamerlan

Tamerlan (or Timur Lang , “Timur the lame one” comes from the Persan verb langidan has ŋ I D has N - to limp ) (1336 - February 1405), relative distant from Gengis Khan, regarded himself as his spiritual son. Its first name, Timur , mean " fer" in turco-Mongolian (cf Mongolian tömör and Turkish to demir ) and approaches that of Gengis Khan, Temüdjin . It is called also Amir Timur (Temur) (iron Emir). Born close to Samarkand in Ouzbékistan in 1336 and become emir of Transoxiane, it appeared a frightening war leader, building an immense empire resting on the force and terror. The historians often speak about " catastrophe timouride" so much its destruction and massacres were important. At the time of its conquests, he did not hesitate to completely massacre the population of the cities which resisted to him except notable for the craftsmen that he off-set in his Samarkand capital. It is for this reason that it showed also protective arts and letters which made the size of its capital, Samarkand.

After the death of Tamerlan in 1405 its empire, controlled by its descendants (the Timourides), was nibbled by the powers close until the final attack to the Uzbek of the dynasty of the Chaybanides.

Youth

Born in Kesh, more known under the name of Shahr-e Sabz, “the green city”, located at some 80 kilometers in the south of Samarkand in modern Ouzbékistan.

His/her father, Taragay, were with the head of the tribes Barlas. He was the great-grandson of Karachar Nevian and was distinguished among the other members from his clan as being the first to be converted with the Islam. Taragay could have assumed the military high rankings which were due for him by heritage, but like his Burkul father, he preferred to devote himself to his studies.

Under the paternal control surface, the education of the Tamerlan young person was such as at his twentieth year it was not only follower of the virile exercises in outside but had also acquired the reputation of an attentive reader of the Coran. At this period, if one can trust with the Mémoires (Malfu' At) , it showed the evidence of a tender nature and sympathetic nerve.

Military chief

However, towards 1358, he became a military chief. Tamerlan took part in campaigns in Transoxiane on behalf of the khan djaghataïde, a descendant of Gengis Khan. Its career for the ten or eleven years to come can thus be quickly summarized since the Mémoires . While being combined at the same time for the cause and by family ties with Kurgan, the destructor of Kazan, it invades the Khorassan with the head of an army of thousands of riders. It was there the second warlike forwarding in which he was the main actor. The achievement of its objectives brought to future operations, among lequelles the tender of Khwarizm and Urganj.

After the murder of Kurgan, the controversies which emerged among the many applicants with the sovereign capacity were stopped by the invasion of Tugluk Timur of Kashgar, a descendant of Gengis Khan. Tamerlan was detached on a mission with the camp of the invaders, detachment which had as a result its acreditation near the government of Transoxiane (in Arabic Mawarannahr, which is beyond the river).

With died his father, he inherited the hereditary load chiefs of Barlas. Mawaranahr was taken in Tamerlan and was entrusted to a son of Tughluk.

Accession with the capacity

The death of Tughluk facilitated the reconquest, to which a few years of perseverance and energy were enough, as well as the addition of a vast territory. During this period, Tamerlan and its Husayn brother-in-law, initially companions fugitive and wandering in common adventures full with interest and lovesong, became rival and adverse. At the end of 1369, Husayn was assassinated and Tamerlan, having been proclaimed officially sovereign to Balkh, went up on the throne to Samarkand, the capital of its possessions.

It is notable that Tamerlan never decreed the title of Khan, naming itself “to amir” (prince in Arabic) and acting in the name of the khan of Chagatai, Master of Transoxiane.

Period of expansion

The thirty following years had passed in several wars and forwardings. Not only, Tamerlan consolidated its capacity at his place by subjugating its enemies, but sought to extend its territory while encroaching on the grounds of close potentates. Its conquests in the south and south-west included about all the provinces of Perse, including Baghdad, Karbala and the Kurdistan.

One of its more frightening opponents was Tokhtamysh which, after having been a refugee at the court of Tamerlan, became leading is Kiptchak and Horde of Gold and disputed with Tamerlan on the possession of the Khwarizm. Tamerlan supported Tokhtamysh against the Russians. Tohktamysh, armed with the support of Tamerlan, invades the Russia and took Moscow in 1382. Later, Tohktamysh was turned over against Tamerlan and invades the Azerbaïdjan in 1385. It was not that in 1395 with the battle of the Kur river which the capacity of Tohktamysh was finally demolishes.

In 1383 Tamerlan took Herat, in Perse (in current the Afghanistan), which after the death of Abu Said (1335), Master of the Dynastie Ilkhanide, was controlled any more by no capacity.

India

In 1398, whereas Tamerlan was old of more than sixty years, Farishta says to us that “informed disorders and civil wars in India”, it “began a forwarding in this country” and the September 12th 1398, “arrived on the edges of the Indus”. It makes 100.000 prisoners, killed at once and its soldiers made pyramids of enemy heads… Its passage of river and its walk along its left bank, reinforcements that it provides to its grandson Pir Muhammad (who was invested with Multan), the catch of cities and villages, probably accompanied by the destruction of the houses and of the massacre of the inhabitants, the battle before Delhi and the victories easy, the triumphal entry in the cursed city, with its procession of horrors, all these circumstances belong to annals of the India. It is known as that the devastation of Delhi was not in the intentions of Tamerlan, but that its men could not quite simply be controlled after being arrived at the doors of the city. The victims are numerous and the survivors reduced in slavery.

Last campaigns

In April 1399, a few three months after having left the capital of Mahmud Toghluk, Tamerlan was of return in its capital beyond the Oxus (Amou-Daria). Corruption decreased drastiquement. According to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, the ambassador of Castille come to the court from Tamerlan in 1404, ninety elephants were only employed to transport the stones since certain careers to enable him to set up a mosque in Samarkand.

The war with the Turks and the Égyptiens, which occurred on its return of India, was made famous by the capture of Alep and Damas. It invades Baghdad in June 1401; after the capture of the city, 20.000 citizens were massacred. Tamerlan ordered that each soldier should amount with at least two human heads showing. In 1402, Tamerlan invades the Anatolia and demolished the Othoman sultan Bayezid Ier with the Bataille of Ankara; Bayezid was captured and died later in captivity. This victory temporarily saved (i.e. for about fifty years) the Byzantine Empire almost dying man, by cutting down the Turkish forces which projected the catch of Constantinople then. Tamerlan also took Smyrna with the Chevaliers of Rhodos. This was its last countryside.

In December 1404, Tamerlan undertook a military forwarding against the China, but the old warrior was attacked by the fever and the plague when he camped on the bank furthest away from Sihon (Syr-Daria) and died in Atrar (Otrar) mid-February 1405.

Although its designated successor was his small son Pir Muhammad B. Jahangir, it was finally his/her son Shah Rukh who succeeded to him.

Markham, in its introduction to the accounts of the embassy of Clavijo, tells that its body “was embaumé using musk and of water of pink, surrounded in linen, laid down in a coffin of ebony and envoy in Samarkand where it was buried”. Tamerlan transported its victorious weapons on a side of the Irtych and the Volga to the Persian Gulf and other side of the Hellespont to the Gange. However, its immense Empire hardly survived to him because he was never concerned with political effectiveness in the territories which he conquered and created forever of administration.

Contribution to arts

Tamerlan became largely known like a guard of arts. Most of the architecture which it commissioned is still present at Samarkand.

According to the legend, Omar Aqta, the calligrapher of the court of Tamerlan, transcribed the Coran with letters so small that the whole text of the book held on a seal. It is also known as that Omar had created so large Coran that a Brouette was necessary to transport it. Sheets of what was probably this large Coran were found, written with gold letters on enormous pages.

Wives and concubines

Tamerlan had 18 wives and of many concubines. The four wire of Tamerlan were: Djahangir (death in 1376), Omar Sheik 1st (death in 1391), Miran Shah (become insane, died in 1408) and Shah Rukh.

Wives

Turmush Aga, mother of two wire and a girl:
  • second wire: Djahangir, (1356 - 1376)
  • first girl: Aka Biki Taghay Shah, died in 1381 marries Muhammad Beg Taychiyut, of which
    • Sultan Husayn, (1380 - 1405); married to Qutluq Sultan, girl of Miranshah and Urun sultan
  • fifth wire: Jahanshah, (1367 - died young person)

Uljay Tarkan Aga, (dead in 1366); girl of Amir Musla Qaraunas; including two girls:

  • second girl: Sultan Bakht Aga, (dead in 1430); marry Muhammad Mirke Arpadi then Sulayman Shah Dughlat
  • third girl: Saadat Sultan, dead young

Saray Malik Khanum, married 1370/1371 died after 1405, girl of Qazan Sultan Khan Chaghatay

Ulus Aga, girl of Buyan Sulduz, married into 1370/1371

Aga Islam, girl of Khizr Yasavuri, married into 1370/1371

Dil Shad Aga, married in 1375, died in 1383, girl of Shams Al DIN Dughlat; including 2 girls:

  • fourth girl: Saadat Sultan
  • fifth girl: Na, dead young

Tuman Aga, girl of Musa Taychiyut, married in 1378 (then Shaykh Nur Al DIN Jalayir)

Tukal Khanum, girl of Khizr Khwaja Khan Chaghatay, married in 1397

Tughdi Bega, girl of Aq Sufi Qunqirat

Daulat Tarkhan Aga

Burhan Aga

Aga sultan, including 1 wire:

  • sixth wire: NR, died in 40 days

Janibeg Aga

Munduz Aga

Chulpan Malik Aga, girl of hadji Beg Arkanut

Bakht Aga Sultan

Sultan Macaw Aga Nukuz

Nuruz Aga

Concubines

Tulun Aga, mother of
  • first wire: Omar Sheik 1st

Minglijak Khatun, girl of Hayut Yellowed Qurbani, mother of

  • third wire: Miran Shah
  • sixth wire: Bikijan, died with 1 year

Taghay Tarkhan Aga Qarakhitay, mother of

  • fourth wire: Shah Rukh
  • seventh girl: Qutlugh Sultan Aga

Khan Malik Tuqmaq, mother of

  • seventh wire: Ibrahim, (1384 - 1385)

Qatughan, mother of

  • eighth girl: Na, dead young

Na, mother of

  • ninth girl: Na

Burial

The body of Tamerlan was exhumed in 1941 by the Russian medical examiner Mikhail Gerasimov. The scientist found that the facial characteristics of Tamerlan were in conformity with Mongolian features, supporting the idea that it was downward of Gengis Khan. Gerasimov was able to reconstitute the appearance of Tamerlan starting from its cranium. It measured 1,72 meter, which is large for its time. The study also confirmed that he limped.

According to the legend, a curse weighed on the tomb of Tamerlan. An old popular tale tells indeed that before dying, the large war leader informs his close relations that great misfortunes would fall down on those which would try to open its tomb. It is that, the day when Gerasimov exhumed the body of Tamerlan, Hitler launched the Opération Barbarossa against the the USSR. Mikhail Gerasimov is thus considered, in former Soviet republics, like the person in charge of the release of the Second world war to have opened the cursed tomb of the Mongolian chief.

References

The generally recognized biographers of Tamerlan are Ali Vazdl, commonly called Sharif ud-DIN, author in Persian of the Zafarnama , translated by Pierre of the Cross into 1722 and French to English by J. Darby the following year; and Ahmed ibis Mohammed ibn Abdallah Al-Dimashici Al-Ajrani, commonly called Ahmed Ibn Arabshah (“arab Shah” means “emperor of the Arabs”) author in Arabic of Afaibu Al-Makhlnkat , translated by the Danish orientalist Colitis into 1636. In the work of the precedent, as Sir William Jones notices it, “the Tartar conqueror is represented as being liberal, benevolent and a famous prince”, whereas in the last it “is deformed and impious, of a mean extraction and hateful principles”. But the favorable version was written under the personal supervision of the grandson of Tamerlan, Ibrahim, whereas the other version was the production of its worst enemy.

Among the less considered biographies or biographical materials, one can quote a second Zafarnama , by Nizam Shami, which is the known most recent biography of Tamerlan, and only written of alive sound. Flight I of?? a Persian manuscript of 1495, the alleged biography of Tamerlan, the Tuzuk-i Temur , is a later manufacture, although the majority of the historical facts are right.

List of Khans Tatares of Persia

See too

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