Timur
Timur (Timur Lang) (Tamerlane) (Timour) (Timur Lenk) (“Timur the Lame”) (Tamburlaine) (b. 1336, Kesh, near Samarkand, Transoxania [now in Uzbekistan] - d. February 19, 1405, Otrar, near Chimkent [now Shymkent, Kazakhstan]). Central Asian Turkic conqueror of Khurasan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria (r. 1370-1404). Born near Samarkand in a family that claimed descent from Jenghiz Khan, he established dominion over Transoxiana during ten years of fighting. On the partition of the Qipcaq in 1375, he took the part of Ghiyath al-Din Toqtamish, khan of the Crimea (r.1376-1395), who afterwards became his opponent.
Timur's conquest of Persia began in 1380 with the occupation of Khurasan, followed by that of Gurgan, Mazandaran and Sistan. During the years 1386 and 1387, Fars, Iraq, Luristan and Azerbaijan were conquered, Isfahan being severely punished for rebellion by the massacre of 70,000 inhabitants. Timur is said to have had a lively disputation with Hafiz in Shiraz.
In 1392, Timur set out on what is known as the “five years’ war,” the main episodes being the massacre of heretics in the Caspian provinces, the destruction of the Muzaffarid dynasty, and the Mesopotamian campaign. The Jalayirid Ghiyath al-Din Ahmad fled into Syria, where he became a vassal of the Burji Mameluke Barquq. When the latter refused to extradite him, Timur invaded western Asia and took Edessa, Takrit, where he erected a pyramid of skulls, Mardin and Amid (Diyarbakr). Attacked by Toqtamish, he invaded Qipcaq territory in 1395, occupied Moscow for over a year, invaded Georgia and suppressed several risings in Persia.
Convinced that the Muslim rulers of India were much too tolerant, he set out in 1398, crossed the Indus and took Delhi, which was plundered and destroyed. A rebellion which had broken out in Syria, and the invasion of Azerbaijan by the Jalayirid Ahmad, who had returned to Baghdad, made Timur turn westwards again. He ravaged Georgia and took Sivas, Malatya, Aleppo, Hamat, Homs and Baalbek. He defeated the Mameluke Faraj (r.1399-1412), sacked Damascus, where he met Ibn Khaldun, and in 1401 took Baghdad by surprise. Here he wrought a great massacre.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I attacked the Byzantine emperor, an ally of Timur, and molested the Turkish princes of Anatolia. Returning from Georgia, Timur defeated Bayezid at the battle of Ankara in 1402. The Ottoman fell into his hands, but he treated him with respect. In 1404, Timur returned to Samarkand, where he received, among others, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, ambassador of Henry III of Castile, who has left a valuable account of the court of Samarkand.
A new campaign was planned, this time against China, which belonged to Timur’s suzerainty. In 1404, he crossed the Oxus on the ice, granted pardon to Toqtamish, but died soon afterwards. He is buried in the Gur-i Mir at Samarkand, which can still be admired. Timur favored the new Naqshbandiyya order, and on his campaigns he was accompanied by religious men, artists and men of letters.
Timur was a member of the Turkicized Barlas tribe, a Mongol subgroup that had settled in Transoxania (now roughly corresponding to Uzbekistan) after taking part in Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai’s campaigns in that region. Timur thus grew up in what was known as the Chagatai khanate. After the death in 1357 of Transoxania’s ruler, Amir Kazgan, Timur declared his fealty to the khan of nearby Kashgar, Tughluq Temür, who had overrun Transoxania’s chief city, Samarkand, in 1361. Tughluq Temür appointed his son Ilyas Khoja as governor of Transoxania, with Timur as his minister. But shortly afterward Timur fled and rejoined his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, the grandson of Amir Kazgan. They defeated Ilyas Khoja (1364) and set out to conquer Transoxania, achieving firm possession of the region around 1366. About 1370 Timur turned against Husayn, besieged him in Balkh, and, after Husayn’s assassination, proclaimed himself at Samarkand sovereign of the Chagatai line of khans and restorer of the Mongol empire.
For the next 10 years, Timur fought against the khans of Jatah (eastern Turkistan) and Khwārezm, finally occupying Kashgar in 1380. He gave armed support to Tokhtamysh, who was the Mongol khan of the Crimea and a refugee at his court, against the Russians (who had risen against the khan of the Golden Horde, Mamai); and his troops occupied Moscow and defeated the Lithuanians near Poltava.
In 1383, Timur began his conquests in Persia with the capture of Herāt. The Persian political and economic situation was extremely precarious. The signs of recovery visible under the later Mongol rulers known as the Il-Khanid dynasty had been followed by a setback after the death of the last Il-Khanid, Abu Said (1335). The vacuum of power was filled by rival dynasties, torn by internal dissensions and unable to put up joint or effective resistance. Khorāsān and all eastern Persia fell to him in 1383–85. Fars, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Georgia all fell between 1386 and 1394. In the intervals, he was engaged with Tokhtamysh, then khan of the Golden Horde, whose forces invaded Azerbaijan in 1385 and Transoxania in 1388, defeating Timur’s generals. In 1391 Timur pursued Tokhtamysh into the Russian steppes and defeated and dethroned him. However, Tokhtamysh raised a new army and invaded the Caucasus in 1395. After his final defeat on the Kur River, Tokhtamysh gave up the struggle. Timur occupied Moscow for a year. The revolts that broke out all over Persia while Timur was away on these campaigns were repressed with ruthless vigor. Whole cities were destroyed, their populations massacred, and towers built of their skulls.
In 1398 Timur invaded India on the pretext that the Muslim sultans of Delhi were showing excessive tolerance to their Hindu subjects. He crossed the Indus River on September 24 and, leaving a trail of carnage, marched on Delhi. The army of the Delhi sultan Mahmud Tughluq was destroyed at Panipat on December 17, and Delhi was reduced to a mass of ruins, from which it took more than a century to emerge. By April 1399 Timur was back in his own capital. An immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away; according to Ruy González de Clavijo, 90 captured elephants were employed to carry stones from quarries to erect a mosque at Samarkand.
Timur set out before the end of 1399 on his last great expedition, in order to punish the Mamelūke sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I for their seizures of certain of his territories. After restoring his control over Azerbaijan, he marched on Syria. Aleppo was stormed and sacked, the Mamelūke army defeated, and Damascus occupied (1401), the deportation of its artisans to Samarkand being a fatal blow to its prosperity. In 1401 Baghdad was also taken by storm, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred, and all its monuments were destroyed. After wintering in Georgia, Timur invaded Anatolia, destroyed Bayezid’s army near Ankara (July 20, 1402), and captured Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. Having received offers of submission from the sultan of Egypt and from John VII (then co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire with Manuel II Palaeologus), Timur returned to Samarkand (1404) and prepared for an expedition to China. He set out at the end of December, fell ill at Otrar on the Syr Darya west of Chimkent, and died in February 1405. His body was embalmed, laid in an ebony coffin, and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried in the sumptuous tomb called Gūr-e Amīr. Before his death he had divided his territories among his two surviving sons and his grandsons, and, after years of internecine struggles, the lands were reunited by his youngest son, Shāh Rokh.
Timur Lang see Timur
Tamerlane see Timur
Timour see Timur
Timur Lenk see Timur
"Timur the Lame" see Timur
Tamburlaine see Timur
Timur's conquest of Persia began in 1380 with the occupation of Khurasan, followed by that of Gurgan, Mazandaran and Sistan. During the years 1386 and 1387, Fars, Iraq, Luristan and Azerbaijan were conquered, Isfahan being severely punished for rebellion by the massacre of 70,000 inhabitants. Timur is said to have had a lively disputation with Hafiz in Shiraz.
In 1392, Timur set out on what is known as the “five years’ war,” the main episodes being the massacre of heretics in the Caspian provinces, the destruction of the Muzaffarid dynasty, and the Mesopotamian campaign. The Jalayirid Ghiyath al-Din Ahmad fled into Syria, where he became a vassal of the Burji Mameluke Barquq. When the latter refused to extradite him, Timur invaded western Asia and took Edessa, Takrit, where he erected a pyramid of skulls, Mardin and Amid (Diyarbakr). Attacked by Toqtamish, he invaded Qipcaq territory in 1395, occupied Moscow for over a year, invaded Georgia and suppressed several risings in Persia.
Convinced that the Muslim rulers of India were much too tolerant, he set out in 1398, crossed the Indus and took Delhi, which was plundered and destroyed. A rebellion which had broken out in Syria, and the invasion of Azerbaijan by the Jalayirid Ahmad, who had returned to Baghdad, made Timur turn westwards again. He ravaged Georgia and took Sivas, Malatya, Aleppo, Hamat, Homs and Baalbek. He defeated the Mameluke Faraj (r.1399-1412), sacked Damascus, where he met Ibn Khaldun, and in 1401 took Baghdad by surprise. Here he wrought a great massacre.
Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I attacked the Byzantine emperor, an ally of Timur, and molested the Turkish princes of Anatolia. Returning from Georgia, Timur defeated Bayezid at the battle of Ankara in 1402. The Ottoman fell into his hands, but he treated him with respect. In 1404, Timur returned to Samarkand, where he received, among others, Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, ambassador of Henry III of Castile, who has left a valuable account of the court of Samarkand.
A new campaign was planned, this time against China, which belonged to Timur’s suzerainty. In 1404, he crossed the Oxus on the ice, granted pardon to Toqtamish, but died soon afterwards. He is buried in the Gur-i Mir at Samarkand, which can still be admired. Timur favored the new Naqshbandiyya order, and on his campaigns he was accompanied by religious men, artists and men of letters.
Timur was a member of the Turkicized Barlas tribe, a Mongol subgroup that had settled in Transoxania (now roughly corresponding to Uzbekistan) after taking part in Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai’s campaigns in that region. Timur thus grew up in what was known as the Chagatai khanate. After the death in 1357 of Transoxania’s ruler, Amir Kazgan, Timur declared his fealty to the khan of nearby Kashgar, Tughluq Temür, who had overrun Transoxania’s chief city, Samarkand, in 1361. Tughluq Temür appointed his son Ilyas Khoja as governor of Transoxania, with Timur as his minister. But shortly afterward Timur fled and rejoined his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, the grandson of Amir Kazgan. They defeated Ilyas Khoja (1364) and set out to conquer Transoxania, achieving firm possession of the region around 1366. About 1370 Timur turned against Husayn, besieged him in Balkh, and, after Husayn’s assassination, proclaimed himself at Samarkand sovereign of the Chagatai line of khans and restorer of the Mongol empire.
For the next 10 years, Timur fought against the khans of Jatah (eastern Turkistan) and Khwārezm, finally occupying Kashgar in 1380. He gave armed support to Tokhtamysh, who was the Mongol khan of the Crimea and a refugee at his court, against the Russians (who had risen against the khan of the Golden Horde, Mamai); and his troops occupied Moscow and defeated the Lithuanians near Poltava.
In 1383, Timur began his conquests in Persia with the capture of Herāt. The Persian political and economic situation was extremely precarious. The signs of recovery visible under the later Mongol rulers known as the Il-Khanid dynasty had been followed by a setback after the death of the last Il-Khanid, Abu Said (1335). The vacuum of power was filled by rival dynasties, torn by internal dissensions and unable to put up joint or effective resistance. Khorāsān and all eastern Persia fell to him in 1383–85. Fars, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Georgia all fell between 1386 and 1394. In the intervals, he was engaged with Tokhtamysh, then khan of the Golden Horde, whose forces invaded Azerbaijan in 1385 and Transoxania in 1388, defeating Timur’s generals. In 1391 Timur pursued Tokhtamysh into the Russian steppes and defeated and dethroned him. However, Tokhtamysh raised a new army and invaded the Caucasus in 1395. After his final defeat on the Kur River, Tokhtamysh gave up the struggle. Timur occupied Moscow for a year. The revolts that broke out all over Persia while Timur was away on these campaigns were repressed with ruthless vigor. Whole cities were destroyed, their populations massacred, and towers built of their skulls.
In 1398 Timur invaded India on the pretext that the Muslim sultans of Delhi were showing excessive tolerance to their Hindu subjects. He crossed the Indus River on September 24 and, leaving a trail of carnage, marched on Delhi. The army of the Delhi sultan Mahmud Tughluq was destroyed at Panipat on December 17, and Delhi was reduced to a mass of ruins, from which it took more than a century to emerge. By April 1399 Timur was back in his own capital. An immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away; according to Ruy González de Clavijo, 90 captured elephants were employed to carry stones from quarries to erect a mosque at Samarkand.
Timur set out before the end of 1399 on his last great expedition, in order to punish the Mamelūke sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I for their seizures of certain of his territories. After restoring his control over Azerbaijan, he marched on Syria. Aleppo was stormed and sacked, the Mamelūke army defeated, and Damascus occupied (1401), the deportation of its artisans to Samarkand being a fatal blow to its prosperity. In 1401 Baghdad was also taken by storm, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred, and all its monuments were destroyed. After wintering in Georgia, Timur invaded Anatolia, destroyed Bayezid’s army near Ankara (July 20, 1402), and captured Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. Having received offers of submission from the sultan of Egypt and from John VII (then co-emperor of the Byzantine Empire with Manuel II Palaeologus), Timur returned to Samarkand (1404) and prepared for an expedition to China. He set out at the end of December, fell ill at Otrar on the Syr Darya west of Chimkent, and died in February 1405. His body was embalmed, laid in an ebony coffin, and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried in the sumptuous tomb called Gūr-e Amīr. Before his death he had divided his territories among his two surviving sons and his grandsons, and, after years of internecine struggles, the lands were reunited by his youngest son, Shāh Rokh.
Timur Lang see Timur
Tamerlane see Timur
Timour see Timur
Timur Lenk see Timur
"Timur the Lame" see Timur
Tamburlaine see Timur
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Timurids
Timurids. The term is sometimes used for all the descendants of Timur, but it means more specifically the princes of his family who ruled in Persia and central Asia in the fifteenth century, and later India, where they were called “Mughals.” Timur’s sons and grandsons ruled in two great kingdoms, one in western Persia and Iraq, the other in Khurasan and Transoxiana. Under their rule the eastern Islamic world, notwithstanding many political troubles, was a splendid cultural unity. The so-called Timurid art covers the fields of architecture, music, miniature painting in the schools of Herat, Shiraz, and Tabriz, leatherwork, bookbinding and calligraphy. Some of the princes were artists and scholars themselves, like Ulugh Beg, an astronomer in his own right; Ghiyath al-Din BayBaysunghur (d.1433), the son of Shahrukh Mirza, a calligrapher of the first rank; and Husayn Bayqara (r.1470-1506), an artist and poet. All rulers were great patrons of letters and science. Zahir al-Din Babur, the last Timurid ruler of Farghana, survived the conquest of the dynasty by the Shaybanids in 1506 and founded in 1526 the line of the Mughal emperors in India.
The Timurids were a dynasty of Turkish origin in Transoxiana and Afghanistan, and (until 1405) northern India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, eastern Anatolia, and parts of the Caucasus from 1363 to 1506. Their main capitals were Samarkand and, from 1405, Herat. The founder of the dynasty was Timur (1328-1405) from the Transoxianan Turkish tribe of the Barlas. Emir of Kesh (Shahr-i Sabz) from 1360, he conquered large parts of Transoxiana from 1363 onwards with various alliances (Samarkand in 1366 and Balkh in 1369), and was recognized as ruler over them in 1370. Acting officially in the name of the Mongolian Chaghatai ulus, he subjugated Mongolistan and Khwarazmia in the years that followed and began a campaign westwards in 1380. By 1389, he had removed the Kartids from Afghanistan (Herat) and advanced into Iran and Iraq from 1382 (capture of Isfahan in 1387, removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, and expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad. In 1394, he triumphedover the Golden Horde and enforce his sovereignty in the Caucasus. In 1398, subjugated northern India and occupied Delhi, in 1400/1401 conquered Aleppo, Damascus and eastern Anatolia, in 1401 destroyed Baghdad and in 1402 triumphed over the Ottomans at Ankara. In addition, he transformed Samarkand into the “Center of the World.” In 1405, Timur died in Utrar during a campaign to conquer China. Following attempts by several grandsons to seize power, his son Shah Rukh (r. 1405-1447) won through, maintaining sovereignty in most of Timur’s territories from Herat, although Anatolia and Iran/Iraq were lost to the Qara Qoyunlu. Various cultural centers emerged under Timur’s grandsons, with Samarkand remaining important under the learned astronomer Ulugh Beg (1409-1449). Internal power struggles followed after 1447, but the government in Samarkand remained stable under Abu Said (1451-1469). His son, Sultan Ahmad (1469-1494), was oppressed by the Shaybanids, who captured Samarkand in 1497. The last chapter of cultural fecundity was opened in Herat under Husain Baiqara (1469-1506), whose court was an important artistic center. In 1506, Timurid rule was ended by the Shaybanids with the capture of Herat. A fifth-generation descendant of Timur, Babar became the first Mughal of India.
Timurids comprised the Timurid dynasty which controlled most of Iran and Central Asia from about 1385 to 1507, were the last Turco-Mongolian conquest dynasty to rule in Southwest Asia. Their reign was politically fragmented but rich in cultural achievement, and the synthesis of Turco-Mongolian and Islamic traditions that developed under their rule strongly influenced the dynasties that followed them.
The dynasty’s founder was Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane), who rose to power about 1370 in Transoxiana among the Turkish tribes of the part of the former Mongol empire known as the Ulus Chagatai. From 1380 to his death in 1405 Timur conquered much of Southwest Asia. The succession struggle that followed his death severely depleted the dynasty’s military and economic power. His youngest son, Shahrukh, emerged as victor. In 1409, Shahrukh took his father’s capital Samarkand, appointed his son Ulug Beg its governor, and then made his own capital in the eastern Iranian city of Herat. By 1421, he had established his rule throughout the Timurid realm.
The western Timurid provinces, however, were threatened by the nomadic Turkmen confederations of the Karakoyunlu and the Akkoyunlu. Shahrukh managed with some difficulty to maintain control over them, but later Timurid rulers were less successful. The Timurids also had to protect their realm from the threats of two Mongol successor states, the Uzbek horde north of the Aral Sea and the Mughal confederation on their eastern border.
Shahrukh’s death in 1447 brought another power struggle, complicated by Ulug Beg’s murder at the hands of his own son in 1449. The Timurid realm now broke up. Abu Sa’id, descended from Timur’s son Amiranshah, ruled Transoxiana; Shahrukh’s grandson Abu al-Qasim Babur controlled Khurasan; and another of his grandsons, Sultan Muhammad, held southern central Iran. In 1458, Abu Sa’id repulsed an invasion by the Karakoyunlu and then took over Khurasan, briefly reuniting most of the Timurid territories. In 1469, Abu Sa’id was killed campaigning against the Akkoyunlu. The realm now lost both its territories west of Khurasan and its internal unity. Transoxiana passed to Abu Sa’id’s sons, and Khurasan fell to Sultan Husain Baiqara, a descendant of Timur’s second son, Umar Shaikh, who ruled in Herat from 1470 to 1506.
Timurid and Turkmen rule ended in the early sixteenth century when the Safavids conquered Iran. The Uzbeks, who had become increasingly involved in Timurid affairs, took Samarkand in 1501 and Herat in 1507. The Timurid dynasty, however, continued. In 1526, Abu Sa’id’s grandson Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur conquered India and founded the Indian Timurid, or Mughal, dynasty.
The Timurids inherited two political and cultural traditions, the Turco-Mongolian heritage of their ancestors and the Islamic tradition of the lands they controlled. They used both of these to legitimate their rule. They carefully established their connection to the charismatic dynasty of Jenghiz Khan. In the Mongol tradition only Jenghiz Khan’s descendants were entitled to the sovereign title khan. Both Timur and his grandson Ulug Beg maintained Chinggisid puppet khans. Many Timurid rulers married Chinggisid princesses, and most added Turco-Mongolian titles to their names. At the same time, the Timurids sought legitimacy within the Islamic tradition through patronage of culture and religion. They treated religious leaders with marked respect and turned their courts into centers of literary and artistic activity.
The political power of religious leaders now grew markedly, especially that of the Sufi Naqshbandi order, which rapidly became a major force in eastern Iran and Transoxiana. The Central Asian head of the Naqshbandi, Khwaja Ahrar (d. 1490), held great wealth and decisivie influence over Abu Sa’id and his sons.
The dynasty and its Turkish followers also took an active interest in art and literature, which they both patronized and practiced. The numerous Timurid courts in Fars, Khurasan, and Central Asia provided support for a rich cultural and scientific life. Ulug Beg made Samarkand a center for astronomy and science. He built an observatory there and with his scientists developed a well-known set of astronomical tables.
The greatest cultural center was Herat. Here Shahrukh patronized literature and historical writing in both Persian and Turkish, and his son Baysonghur founded a library and atelier for the creation of manuscripts. Under Sultan Husain Baiqara, Herat attracted the finest talents of the age in literature, calligraphy, miniature painting, and music. The Persian poet and mystic Abd al-Rahman Jami and the Chagatai poet Ali Shir Neva’i, both men of outstanding talent, flourished at Sultan Husain’s court. It was there also that Chagatai (eastern Turkish) first became fully established as a language of high culture. The Timurids were also active builders. They left behind them many remarkable monuments distinguished for their imposing size and rich decoration.
The regional empires that followed the Timurids -- the Ottomans, Safavids, Uzbeks, and Mughals -- were ruled largely by Turks whose own heritage, like that of the Timurids, combined the Turco-Mongolian and Islamic traditions. Artists and writers who had served the Timurids received a ready welcome among their successors, and the Timurid courts, particularly Husain Baiqara’s, long remained symbols of cultural brilliance throughout the Turco-Iranian world.
The rulers of the Timurid Empire were:
* Timur (Tamerlane) 1370–1405 (771–807 AH) – with Suyurghitmiš Chaghtay as nominal overlord followed by Mahmūd Chaghtay as overlord and finally Muhammad Sultān as heir
* Pir Muhammad bin Jahāngīr 1405–07 (807–08 AH)
The Timurid rulers of Herat were:
* Shāhrukh 1405–47 (807–50 AH; overall ruler of the Timurid Empire 1409–47)
* Abu'l-Qasim Bābur 1447–57 (850–61 AH)
* Shāh Mahmūd 1457 (861 AH)
* Ibrāhim 1457–1459 (861–63 AH)
* Sultān Abu Sa’id Gūrgān 1459–69 (863–73 AH; in Transoxiana 1451–69)
* Yādgār Muhammad 1470 (873 AH)
* Sultān Husayn Bayqarah 1470–1506 (874–911 AH)
* Badi ul-Zamān 1506–07 (911–12 AH)
* Muzaffar Hussayn 1506–07 (911–12 AH)
Herat is conquered by the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani
The Timurid rulers of Samarkand were:
* Khalīl Sultān 1405–09 (807–11 AH)
* Mohammad Taragai bin Shāhrukh-I 1409–49 (811–53 AH; overall ruler of the Timurid Empire 1447–49)
* 'Abd al-Latif 1449–50 (853–54 AH)
* ‘Abdullah 1450–51 (854–55 AH)
* Sultān Abu Sa’id 1451–69 (855–73 AH; in Herat 1459–69)
Abu Sa'id's sons divided his territories upon his death, into Samarkand, Badakhshan and Farghana
* Sultān Ahmad 1469–94 (873–99 AH)
* Sultān Mahmūd ibn Abu Sa’id 1494–95 (899–900 AH)
* Sultān Baysunqur 1495–97 (900–02 AH)
* Mas’ūd 1495 (900 AH)
* Sultān Alī Mīrzā 1495–1500 (900–05 AH)
Samarkand was conquered by the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani
Other Timurid rulers were:
* Qaidu bin Pir Muhammad bin Jahāngīr 808–811 AH
* Abu Bakr bin Mīrān Shāh 1405–07 (807–09 AH)
* Pir Muhammad bin Umar Sheikh 807–12 AH
* Rustam 812–17 AH
* Sikandar 812–17 AH
* Alaudaullah 851 AH
* Abu Bakr bin Muhammad 851 AH
* Sultān Muhammad 850–55 AH
* Muhammad bin Hussayn 903–06 AH
* Abul A'la Fereydūn Hussayn 911–12 AH
* Muhammad Mohsin Khān 911–12 AH
* Muhammad Zamān Khān 920–23 AH
* Shāhrukh II bin Abu Sa’id 896–97 AH
* Ulugh Beg Kābulī 873–907 AH
* Sultān Uways 1508–22 (913–27 AH)
Timurids. The term is sometimes used for all the descendants of Timur, but it means more specifically the princes of his family who ruled in Persia and central Asia in the fifteenth century, and later India, where they were called “Mughals.” Timur’s sons and grandsons ruled in two great kingdoms, one in western Persia and Iraq, the other in Khurasan and Transoxiana. Under their rule the eastern Islamic world, notwithstanding many political troubles, was a splendid cultural unity. The so-called Timurid art covers the fields of architecture, music, miniature painting in the schools of Herat, Shiraz, and Tabriz, leatherwork, bookbinding and calligraphy. Some of the princes were artists and scholars themselves, like Ulugh Beg, an astronomer in his own right; Ghiyath al-Din BayBaysunghur (d.1433), the son of Shahrukh Mirza, a calligrapher of the first rank; and Husayn Bayqara (r.1470-1506), an artist and poet. All rulers were great patrons of letters and science. Zahir al-Din Babur, the last Timurid ruler of Farghana, survived the conquest of the dynasty by the Shaybanids in 1506 and founded in 1526 the line of the Mughal emperors in India.
The Timurids were a dynasty of Turkish origin in Transoxiana and Afghanistan, and (until 1405) northern India, Iran, Iraq, Syria, eastern Anatolia, and parts of the Caucasus from 1363 to 1506. Their main capitals were Samarkand and, from 1405, Herat. The founder of the dynasty was Timur (1328-1405) from the Transoxianan Turkish tribe of the Barlas. Emir of Kesh (Shahr-i Sabz) from 1360, he conquered large parts of Transoxiana from 1363 onwards with various alliances (Samarkand in 1366 and Balkh in 1369), and was recognized as ruler over them in 1370. Acting officially in the name of the Mongolian Chaghatai ulus, he subjugated Mongolistan and Khwarazmia in the years that followed and began a campaign westwards in 1380. By 1389, he had removed the Kartids from Afghanistan (Herat) and advanced into Iran and Iraq from 1382 (capture of Isfahan in 1387, removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, and expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad. In 1394, he triumphedover the Golden Horde and enforce his sovereignty in the Caucasus. In 1398, subjugated northern India and occupied Delhi, in 1400/1401 conquered Aleppo, Damascus and eastern Anatolia, in 1401 destroyed Baghdad and in 1402 triumphed over the Ottomans at Ankara. In addition, he transformed Samarkand into the “Center of the World.” In 1405, Timur died in Utrar during a campaign to conquer China. Following attempts by several grandsons to seize power, his son Shah Rukh (r. 1405-1447) won through, maintaining sovereignty in most of Timur’s territories from Herat, although Anatolia and Iran/Iraq were lost to the Qara Qoyunlu. Various cultural centers emerged under Timur’s grandsons, with Samarkand remaining important under the learned astronomer Ulugh Beg (1409-1449). Internal power struggles followed after 1447, but the government in Samarkand remained stable under Abu Said (1451-1469). His son, Sultan Ahmad (1469-1494), was oppressed by the Shaybanids, who captured Samarkand in 1497. The last chapter of cultural fecundity was opened in Herat under Husain Baiqara (1469-1506), whose court was an important artistic center. In 1506, Timurid rule was ended by the Shaybanids with the capture of Herat. A fifth-generation descendant of Timur, Babar became the first Mughal of India.
Timurids comprised the Timurid dynasty which controlled most of Iran and Central Asia from about 1385 to 1507, were the last Turco-Mongolian conquest dynasty to rule in Southwest Asia. Their reign was politically fragmented but rich in cultural achievement, and the synthesis of Turco-Mongolian and Islamic traditions that developed under their rule strongly influenced the dynasties that followed them.
The dynasty’s founder was Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane), who rose to power about 1370 in Transoxiana among the Turkish tribes of the part of the former Mongol empire known as the Ulus Chagatai. From 1380 to his death in 1405 Timur conquered much of Southwest Asia. The succession struggle that followed his death severely depleted the dynasty’s military and economic power. His youngest son, Shahrukh, emerged as victor. In 1409, Shahrukh took his father’s capital Samarkand, appointed his son Ulug Beg its governor, and then made his own capital in the eastern Iranian city of Herat. By 1421, he had established his rule throughout the Timurid realm.
The western Timurid provinces, however, were threatened by the nomadic Turkmen confederations of the Karakoyunlu and the Akkoyunlu. Shahrukh managed with some difficulty to maintain control over them, but later Timurid rulers were less successful. The Timurids also had to protect their realm from the threats of two Mongol successor states, the Uzbek horde north of the Aral Sea and the Mughal confederation on their eastern border.
Shahrukh’s death in 1447 brought another power struggle, complicated by Ulug Beg’s murder at the hands of his own son in 1449. The Timurid realm now broke up. Abu Sa’id, descended from Timur’s son Amiranshah, ruled Transoxiana; Shahrukh’s grandson Abu al-Qasim Babur controlled Khurasan; and another of his grandsons, Sultan Muhammad, held southern central Iran. In 1458, Abu Sa’id repulsed an invasion by the Karakoyunlu and then took over Khurasan, briefly reuniting most of the Timurid territories. In 1469, Abu Sa’id was killed campaigning against the Akkoyunlu. The realm now lost both its territories west of Khurasan and its internal unity. Transoxiana passed to Abu Sa’id’s sons, and Khurasan fell to Sultan Husain Baiqara, a descendant of Timur’s second son, Umar Shaikh, who ruled in Herat from 1470 to 1506.
Timurid and Turkmen rule ended in the early sixteenth century when the Safavids conquered Iran. The Uzbeks, who had become increasingly involved in Timurid affairs, took Samarkand in 1501 and Herat in 1507. The Timurid dynasty, however, continued. In 1526, Abu Sa’id’s grandson Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur conquered India and founded the Indian Timurid, or Mughal, dynasty.
The Timurids inherited two political and cultural traditions, the Turco-Mongolian heritage of their ancestors and the Islamic tradition of the lands they controlled. They used both of these to legitimate their rule. They carefully established their connection to the charismatic dynasty of Jenghiz Khan. In the Mongol tradition only Jenghiz Khan’s descendants were entitled to the sovereign title khan. Both Timur and his grandson Ulug Beg maintained Chinggisid puppet khans. Many Timurid rulers married Chinggisid princesses, and most added Turco-Mongolian titles to their names. At the same time, the Timurids sought legitimacy within the Islamic tradition through patronage of culture and religion. They treated religious leaders with marked respect and turned their courts into centers of literary and artistic activity.
The political power of religious leaders now grew markedly, especially that of the Sufi Naqshbandi order, which rapidly became a major force in eastern Iran and Transoxiana. The Central Asian head of the Naqshbandi, Khwaja Ahrar (d. 1490), held great wealth and decisivie influence over Abu Sa’id and his sons.
The dynasty and its Turkish followers also took an active interest in art and literature, which they both patronized and practiced. The numerous Timurid courts in Fars, Khurasan, and Central Asia provided support for a rich cultural and scientific life. Ulug Beg made Samarkand a center for astronomy and science. He built an observatory there and with his scientists developed a well-known set of astronomical tables.
The greatest cultural center was Herat. Here Shahrukh patronized literature and historical writing in both Persian and Turkish, and his son Baysonghur founded a library and atelier for the creation of manuscripts. Under Sultan Husain Baiqara, Herat attracted the finest talents of the age in literature, calligraphy, miniature painting, and music. The Persian poet and mystic Abd al-Rahman Jami and the Chagatai poet Ali Shir Neva’i, both men of outstanding talent, flourished at Sultan Husain’s court. It was there also that Chagatai (eastern Turkish) first became fully established as a language of high culture. The Timurids were also active builders. They left behind them many remarkable monuments distinguished for their imposing size and rich decoration.
The regional empires that followed the Timurids -- the Ottomans, Safavids, Uzbeks, and Mughals -- were ruled largely by Turks whose own heritage, like that of the Timurids, combined the Turco-Mongolian and Islamic traditions. Artists and writers who had served the Timurids received a ready welcome among their successors, and the Timurid courts, particularly Husain Baiqara’s, long remained symbols of cultural brilliance throughout the Turco-Iranian world.
The rulers of the Timurid Empire were:
* Timur (Tamerlane) 1370–1405 (771–807 AH) – with Suyurghitmiš Chaghtay as nominal overlord followed by Mahmūd Chaghtay as overlord and finally Muhammad Sultān as heir
* Pir Muhammad bin Jahāngīr 1405–07 (807–08 AH)
The Timurid rulers of Herat were:
* Shāhrukh 1405–47 (807–50 AH; overall ruler of the Timurid Empire 1409–47)
* Abu'l-Qasim Bābur 1447–57 (850–61 AH)
* Shāh Mahmūd 1457 (861 AH)
* Ibrāhim 1457–1459 (861–63 AH)
* Sultān Abu Sa’id Gūrgān 1459–69 (863–73 AH; in Transoxiana 1451–69)
* Yādgār Muhammad 1470 (873 AH)
* Sultān Husayn Bayqarah 1470–1506 (874–911 AH)
* Badi ul-Zamān 1506–07 (911–12 AH)
* Muzaffar Hussayn 1506–07 (911–12 AH)
Herat is conquered by the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani
The Timurid rulers of Samarkand were:
* Khalīl Sultān 1405–09 (807–11 AH)
* Mohammad Taragai bin Shāhrukh-I 1409–49 (811–53 AH; overall ruler of the Timurid Empire 1447–49)
* 'Abd al-Latif 1449–50 (853–54 AH)
* ‘Abdullah 1450–51 (854–55 AH)
* Sultān Abu Sa’id 1451–69 (855–73 AH; in Herat 1459–69)
Abu Sa'id's sons divided his territories upon his death, into Samarkand, Badakhshan and Farghana
* Sultān Ahmad 1469–94 (873–99 AH)
* Sultān Mahmūd ibn Abu Sa’id 1494–95 (899–900 AH)
* Sultān Baysunqur 1495–97 (900–02 AH)
* Mas’ūd 1495 (900 AH)
* Sultān Alī Mīrzā 1495–1500 (900–05 AH)
Samarkand was conquered by the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani
Other Timurid rulers were:
* Qaidu bin Pir Muhammad bin Jahāngīr 808–811 AH
* Abu Bakr bin Mīrān Shāh 1405–07 (807–09 AH)
* Pir Muhammad bin Umar Sheikh 807–12 AH
* Rustam 812–17 AH
* Sikandar 812–17 AH
* Alaudaullah 851 AH
* Abu Bakr bin Muhammad 851 AH
* Sultān Muhammad 850–55 AH
* Muhammad bin Hussayn 903–06 AH
* Abul A'la Fereydūn Hussayn 911–12 AH
* Muhammad Mohsin Khān 911–12 AH
* Muhammad Zamān Khān 920–23 AH
* Shāhrukh II bin Abu Sa’id 896–97 AH
* Ulugh Beg Kābulī 873–907 AH
* Sultān Uways 1508–22 (913–27 AH)
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