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Posted by Paula Stiles Sep 25, 2006 |
Tamerlane (A Latinized version of the Persian epithet "Timur the Lame") was one of the great conquerors of Central Asia. Like Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan, Tamerlane swept like wildfire across Asia, scorching all of the great civilizations on the edge.
Tamerlane was probably a Mongol (his recent exhumation supports this theory, as well as his lameness). He claimed descent from Genghis Khan, though whether he was remains unclear. Nominally a Muslim with Sufi and Shi'ite leanings, he also continued his people's original shamanistic practices.
Tamerlane's Islamic leanings did not prevent him from brutally sacking the Muslim cultural centers of Delhi, Aleppo and Baghdad. Believing that the defunct Seljuk Turks should still rule in the Middle East, he conceived a special dislike for the Ottomans. He met their sultan, Bajazet I, in battle in 1402, captured and defeated him and confined him to an iron cage in which he subsequently died.
Tamerlane was in the process of invading China when he died in 1405 at the ripe (and startling for such a vigorous warrior) old age of 69, survived by only two of his sons. His greatest descendant, Babur (1483-1530), founded the Mughal Dynasty in India in 1528, and wrote his own autobiography.
Tamerlane's legacy remains contested. He was a patron of the arts, including architecture and calligraphy, and his first biography was written during his lifetime. He was also devoted to the memory of the house of the Prophet Muhammad. Yet he apparently saw no contradiction in devastating Muslim cultural centers in India and the Middle East. His mixing and matching of religious influences indicates intellectual curiosity and possibly even philosophical tolerance of other beliefs. This did not stop him from leveling Baghdad in 1401, massacring 20,000 of its citizens. According to Edward Gibbon, he built "several lofty towers" made from 70,000 skulls in Ispahan.
Like Alexander the Great, Tamerlane was a highly successful conqueror, but useless when it came to establishing a new government in place of old ones. He left mainly death and devastation in the wake of his armies. Tamerlane is a fascinating paradox perhaps best appreciated from the distance afforded by six centuries of history.