The bride in white stood in the corner of the room, and guests approaching her raised their veil and exclaimed:
-What a beauty, mashallah!
With her eyes downcast, the girl stood all day, as prescribed by tradition.
Many agreed that this beauty was just right for Magomed’s son. Some said that their boy was still more handsome.
And only a few knew that a completely different girl was about to enter this house.
Close relatives of the family whispered quietly:
-Where is she from? Isn't the girl's name Zarina?
-It seems she is her younger sister. They say the eldest ran away with someone else three days before the wedding!
-I am Allah, I am Allah! How is this possible?..
-They say that they gave her instead in order to somehow hide their shame. Few people know about this.
-What a shame!.. How can you run away three days before the wedding?..
-This sarin was not given by force! I talked to him, our Timur, for a year!
-What are you talking about!..
-Yes Yes…
Such conversations took place very close to the bride, and she heard everything. It took her a lot of effort not to cry, but to maintain a stony expression on her face, and even smile shyly, without raising her eyes when someone else, curious, lifted her veil.
In the evening of the same day, when all the curious people had gone home and only close relatives remained, she and everyone else helped clean the house, although she, as a bride, was dissuaded from this. She did not see her groom that day or the next three. Only on the fourth day, around lunchtime, did he suddenly appear and order us to get ready to take off by plane.
Surprised family members, the bride not daring to ask where he had been, everyone began to quickly gather.
The mother was perplexed about the reason for such a quick departure. The sisters were silent because the brother was gloomy and angry.
-Get my things. - he said to Zalina.
She collected it as best she could. But when he entered their room and looked into the bag, he began to pull everything out, throwing it on the bed with these words:
:
-You are my wife.- last word There was sarcasm. “And she should be able to please her husband.” Look and remember. I won’t repeat it again, but I will punish you if it happens again.
Zalina did not dare to raise her eyes to him, she only felt that her head was spinning with fear and her heart was beating like crazy. She looked at his hands and silently prayed that he would not look at her.
After collecting their things, they went to the airport and immediately boarded the flight. Timur was silent all the time. Those words spoken in the room were the first and only.
Zalina kept looking out the window, trying to drive away bitter thoughts. But still, again and again, she returned in her thoughts to her sister.
Zarina was two years older and very beautiful. Long black hair, dark eyes - she was both beautiful and smart. She had many fans, and starting from high school, she had to fight off annoying attention. When she entered the university, she was stolen twice, until her brother put her at home. A year ago, she met Timur, and they began a serious relationship. Timur was handsome, rich, and very good. Their relationship reached a level where Timur promised to send matchmakers. Matchmakers were sent, and the girls' older brother agreed. Their father died five years ago. Preparations took two months. The dowry had been purchased and preparations were in full swing when Zarina disappeared. After a short search, it became clear that she had run away with someone else and that they could no longer be found. The elder brother beat Zalina, cursing her for not reporting what Zarina was going to do. The girl cried and swore that she didn't know what her sister was going to do, but it didn't matter anymore. The wedding was about to take place. The groom searched for the runaway bride for two days. Having found nothing, Timur called her brother, and still agreed to take the youngest in order to somehow hide the shame that had fallen heavily on both families. The brother breathed a sigh of relief, and the exhausted younger sister began to prepare for the holiday. With a heavy heart, a young girl entered her husband's house. It was as if she knew that a lot of grief and tears awaited her ahead.
*****
*****
Arriving in a new city, which was very far from their homeland, and where there was not a single person from there except them, Zalina swallowed the lump in her throat, trying to convince herself that everything was not so bad.
They arrived in new apartment, which Timur bought, and went there.
There were boxes and packed furniture everywhere. Nothing but bare walls and a chandelier had been assembled.
Timur walked into some room and, throwing things off his shoulder, returned back.
-Clean up here for my arrival.
He said and left, leaving the fragile Zalina alone, in the silence of an empty apartment.
The girl was so afraid to tell him something, and in general what he would demand from her, that she only breathed a sigh of relief when he left. She put her things on the floor and rolled up her sleeves and got to work.
Zalina and Zarina were similar, only unlike older sister Zalina had longer hair and gray eyes. Her eyes were the most beautiful thing about her. They were transparent, naive and so deep... Everyone who saw the beauty of her eyes was struck by the fact that the beauty of her eyes was struck by the fact that they could sometimes seem to betray all the thoughts of a naive girl. They were very expressive.
It seemed that these two girls, two sisters, were very different. But Timur did not think so. He could not see Zalina, because the image of a completely different girl, an insidious creature, appeared before his eyes.
He got drunk in a bar and staggered towards the exit. Having caught a taxi, he went to a new house, to an apartment, which he wanted to give as a gift to his beloved. It was deep night outside, but there was light in the windows of his new house.
“Creature...” he hissed quietly angrily, looking at him.
She made him suffer. He never loved, but when he met her a year ago, he forgot about all the girls who hung around his neck, about all the pretty brides that his relatives offered him. He breathed only by it, lived only by it. A whole year of being crazy in love. And he counted down the days, hours and minutes until the wedding day, which was set without any problems. I thought that I would be the happiest person because I would marry my beloved
Now her sister was waiting for him... He still took revenge on her, and will take revenge. Even if not Zarina, but her sister... The creature, she will probably be shocked when she finds out that he married her younger sister. Let her suffer, let her choke on blood!...
The brain, foggy with alcohol, threw up all possible pictures of her torment, causing echoes of satisfied gloating in the foggy and pain-plagued soul.
Timur went up to the apartment, opened the door on the fourth attempt, and went in. He had difficulty focusing his gaze and whistled in surprise.
-Well, you... Well, you're young...
His hoarse, drunken voice echoed heavily throughout the apartment.
Zalina left the room, excited. She waited for him all day while she put away boxes, unpacked things, and set everything up in the living room and kitchen.
She saw her husband leaning against him, looking around the room with a heavy gaze. His gaze settled on her.
“My Zarrrrinochka...” he began drunkenly, “you pleasantly surprise me!” When did you have time? Called your lover to help?..
The girl blushed painfully. She looked away, avoiding him. She understood that he was drunk, but nevertheless, his words seemed to break something inside her.
He had difficulty getting rid of his shoes and staggered towards her. The girl froze in fear.
“You’re so beautiful...” he slowly ran his fingers over her cheek. – You’re so cutely embarrassed, bitch!..
She shuddered at his scream, closed her eyes, and said in a trembling voice:
-I'm not Zarina...
He looked at her angrily and barked:
-Shut up! You are Zarina, remember the creature...
He came closer, leaving a couple of centimeters between them, and looked contemptuously at her face.
-Beautiful rubbish...
-And your hair... -he grabbed her braid and began to randomly unravel it. He probably already touched it.
“Let me go…” Zalina begged.
He sharply wrapped his hair around his hand and pulled it painfully towards himself, causing the girl to scream in pain. He spread her out on his chest.
-And these lips? – his evil dreamy voice sent shivers of horror through the crowd. – I’ve dreamed about them for so long...
He said and sealed the girl’s tender mouth with his cruel and rude ones, absorbing the cry of pain and resentment. Zalina placed her hands on his chest, groaning in protest, but he no longer heard anything. Desire mixed with lust hit my head.
He let go of her hair and picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, where nothing was ready except the made bed.
The girl simply did not have time to prepare anything, but even in a nightmare she could not imagine that she would sleep in this bed with him. She prepared this room for him while moving her things to the next room. She knew that he would be angry for his sister’s escape, but she could not even think that he would take revenge on her.
“Timur, please let me go...” she whispered hotly and confusedly, watching with a beating heart as he tore off his clothes.
“Please...” she didn’t notice how she started crying.
Her cheeks burned with heat, and her head felt empty. Her heart was raging, while she herself was neither alive nor dead from panic.
Ruslan said abruptly:
-No... You will pay for my pain Zarina...
He staggered, but stood his ground and continued to undress: he took off his jacket, tie, and shirt.
Zalina, unable to bear it, turned her back to him and began to cry, covering her face. But the awakened, embittered beast in her husband knew no pity. Seeking to take revenge on his treacherous ex-fiancee, who was now far from him, he angrily grabbed her by the shoulders, turned her towards him, and pressed her onto the bed.
***
When Zalina woke up, it was dark. She opened her eyes and exhaled quietly. Everything that happened seemed simple bad sleep. “It’s just a bad dream!” She began repeating to herself.
Timur stirred nearby. She flinched in surprise. And I felt pain.
“I didn’t dream…” his sick voice brought a flood of tears from her. Sighing, she stood up and very slowly and carefully walked towards the exit, picking up her things.
Walking into the next bedroom, she leaned her back against the wall and shook in sobs.
“Why do I do this?!.. God, what have I done?!!.”..
She couldn't understand why this happened to her. And the body, exhausted and exhausted, required peace and warmth. She picked herself up from the cool floor and staggered towards the bath. She got into the shower and frantically began to rub her delicate skin, trying to wash away all the dirt that had accumulated on her soul, trying to wipe off his evil touches.
“I hate it!..” she whispered in a hoarse voice, which she lost while she begged Timur to stop.
She will never forgive him for what he did to her! Never!..
She got out of the shower and, wet and trembling, went into her bedroom.
***
With naughty fingers, she took a long T-shirt out of her bag and lay down on the sheets, which she sort of straightened out like a blanket.
She spent the whole day, tired after the flight, sitting at home and trying to restore order while her husband was walking in an unknown place. She didn’t even have time to prepare anything for herself, not clothes, not food.
She hadn't eaten all day, and that was why her head seemed to hurt. But for some reason my heart hurt more. It ached and tore into pieces with every breath, with every thought about him. About his touches, evil words and the pain he caused her. That he hates her. And he doesn’t see her at all! He sees only Zarina...
“My Zarina...” she whispered painfully.
These words burned my soul with evil fire.
She hated her sister so much now! Why, oh why did she start communicating with him? Why did she show off her new boyfriend to her? Why did she show every new photo of them, every text message, and every gift? Why did she make her fall in love with this unfamiliar, distant, and strange guy? Why should she now suffer next to him?.. If she had been raped by another, stranger, she would have survived it.. But how can she forget what her most beloved person did?
***
***
The morning greeted Timur with a headache and dry hair. He didn’t remember how he got home yesterday, didn’t remember how he fell asleep. And he didn’t care about that. I wanted to drink. Squinting his eyes, he slowly rose from the bed and carefully opened his eyes. The room was in chaos.
-Where am I?..
Timur completely forgot that yesterday he moved with his wife to a new apartment, leaving his whole family and all his friends at home. Wife... He looked around, turning this thought in his head, and when he saw the crumpled sheets, he was horrified to see red spots.
-Really...
He exhaled hoarsely, and then with a terrible headache he headed into the shower, trying to get out of his head all thoughts about yesterday, and all his conscience, which seemed to be eating away at his nerves like caustic acid.
And the swirling thought about his wife was the most painful.
After taking a shower, he changed clothes and went to the kitchen. It was the first time he had seen her like this. The room was in complete order. All the things sent were in their places, and even the curtains were hung.
All the bride's dowry, and all the necessary kitchen utensils, bedroom and living room furniture were put in their places, smoothed, ironed and cleaned of cellophane and all wrappers.
He couldn’t even imagine that his young wife had done so much yesterday. For some reason he called her in a quiet voice:
-Zarina?..
And then I realized that her name was wrong. Her name was different, what’s her name...
Without remembering her name, he went in search of her. She was lying in the next bedroom, curled up in a ball on the floor. This room was completely empty. The comfort that was in other rooms was absent here, but it occurred to him “I haven’t gotten here yet...”
He quietly closed the door, not wanting to look at her or see her face. Her body involuntarily attracted his gaze, and her bare legs, uncovered by nothing, evoked vague, disturbing feelings inside him. !
He didn’t want to see her.. He hated her, Zarina’s sister. His Zarina. Although... She is already a stranger now...
Shutting all thoughts connected with her inside, he went to the room and changed into clothes for work. It was about seven o'clock, and he thought that he should buy groceries.
I went for groceries, threw some things in bags, and left it all behind and went to work. Let him cook whatever he wants, he will eat at work...
When the girl woke up, it was already noon outside.
She slept terribly... Shuddering from the cold and from pain, she could not banish from her dreams the image of her husband who killed her over and over again. Whispered to her “I hate you!” And then this hated “My Zarina...”
-I hate it! – she shouted into the emptiness of the cold apartment.
She screamed and cried again. She stood up with incredible difficulty, avoiding awkward movements, and headed towards her bag. She slept in a simple T-shirt, on the floor, and felt beaten and sick. And also raped. The pain between my legs was so excruciating that it forced me to bite my lips to avoid a loud cry.
“I hate it...” she repeated all day long, while, despite her condition, she cleaned the kitchen, prepared food, unpacked clothes, tidied up her bedroom and bathroom.
“There’s no way I’ll go to bed with him again!” – she furiously exclaimed to herself while, gritting her teeth in pain, she cleaned the apartment. “I will never feel sorry for him again, and I will never love him again!” Burn with blue flame!
She didn't want to stop because she knew how much it would hurt her. She shouldn't remember everything that happened. Thinking about your sister and the guy she left behind. She should never think about her husband!...
Zalina was angry and cleaned the house. She promised herself that she would defend her right to live separately from him.
-He doesn’t want to see me as a wife. He won't see me!
One day Zalina faced a difficult choice. She needed to buy some things, but she didn’t know if she could. And then, waiting for him to come into the kitchen as usual to take an anti-hangover pill, she, turning pale, approached him and asked.
-I wanted to ask you something...
Her voice was too quiet, but he heard her.
Despite her, Timur abruptly ordered:
-Speak!..- and drank water.
-We need to buy some things... Groceries and household chores...
He stared gloomily at his watch, put his glass on the table, ignored breakfast, and headed towards the door.
-Make a list and put it on the table in the morning.
She gasped painfully.
-Wait!..
Her own bold cry made her blush painfully, and Timur froze like a stone.
“I have to buy some things myself...” she whispered quietly.
He exhaled sharply and rubbed his neck.
-Okay... - Timur bowed his head. - You can go to the store, not far from here. And don't leave the apartment anymore. So that I don’t find you not at home, otherwise you will have problems.
Threw it as an accusation and left. Tears appeared in Zalina’s eyes instantly. There was a lump in my throat from undeserved insult. She tried to ignore it.
“I still hate it... “I won’t find anyone alive in this apartment...” she thought bitterly.
He still avoided her and couldn't even see her. She tried to create the feeling of her absence as much as possible. Despite the fact that he did not look at her, he knew very well when she was at home, and this frightened Zalina.
All this would have continued for who knows how long, if one day everything had not started to change for the worse.
Soon new residents from the Caucasus moved into their apartment building. They had an eldest son, almost the same age as her husband. His name was Arthur and he was 27 years old. He was not married, he was the eldest in the family and without a father. He had a sister and a good mother. She came to visit them on the first day and invited them to tea. Zalina, smiling politely, refused. She could not lie to a woman that she would come to them, while their eldest son was frightening her, and while her husband himself said that she should always be at home.
That didn't stop Arthur from coming to their house. Together with her husband. Drunk. They piled into the kitchen with bottles of alcohol and drank endlessly, talked loudly and laughed. If earlier the husband was much calmer with him alone, then next to his neighbor he became uncontrollable. Arthur constantly encouraged him to call Timur’s young wife. He asked them to either put it on the table or look after the guests. Drunk Timur could not refuse such a request from his drinking companion. Now Zalina had to stand next to her and hear for the umpteenth time about how her bitch sister ran away with someone else, and he got this misery. The drunken husband dumped all his sorrows, all his grievances on the generously pouring Arthur.
Unlike her husband, Zalina well understood what kind of rotten person their neighbor was. She turned away in disgust from the drunken faces and sticky looks. She would have closed her ears so as not to hear all the abominations, but it didn’t help.
The drinking sessions lasted until the morning, and the tired, exhausted girl cursed the day she married him.
Timur hated her so much that only alcohol could loosen his tongue. And he dumped everything on the poor girl. All the anger, resentment, pain. Each time it becomes more and more fierce. Zalina has completely lost weight. Now her bones were sticking out, and from weakness she often felt dizzy and lost her appetite. She melted by the days.
Arthur seemed to be amused by all this. He watched the young couple with some incomprehensible expression.
Current page: 1 (book has 32 pages in total) [available reading passage: 21 pages]
From the editor
AND historians love Tamerlane. Of course, attitudes towards him can be very different - from admiration and even admiration to being considered one of the “deputies of the devil on earth.” But no matter how you treat him, you can write about him endlessly, looking at his conquests from different angles, exploring his various “hypostases.” And all because Timur is not just great - he is multifaceted and contradictory.
We can talk about Timur's personality. His origins, his whole life and even the secret of his grave are an inexhaustible treasure trove for researchers. Take, for example, the prediction: “If Tamerlane’s ashes are disturbed, a great and terrible war" Timur's grave in Samarkand was opened either on June 19 or 21, 1941. And on the 22nd, as you know, the war began. To the Soviet people they were supposed to be materialists, but many believed that such a coincidence was not accidental...
Another theme is the cruelty and ruthlessness of Tamerlane. History is cynical - there is no point in denying this fact. Towers made from the heads of defeated enemies, roads made from living people, etc. - all this is true to one degree or another, although some things have undoubtedly been thought up and “reinforced” by historians, and others are perhaps “black self-promotion” the ruler of Samarkand himself: the terrible details terrified and demoralized the enemy even before the dust from the hooves of the army of the invincible Timur rose on the horizon.
And if you wish, you can speculate about the mercy of the Great Lame and his creativity. He was truly merciful, forgiving when, it would seem, forgiveness was out of the question. He not only destroyed and burned entire cities, but also built new ones and invited the best builders and artisans to his beloved Samarkand. According to some, Timur was illiterate, but he loved elegant literature and, in conversations with famous scientists, amazed them with his knowledge.
But the most important thing is that Tamerlane not only managed to gather a huge empire under his own hands, but also maintain it and pass it on to his descendants. “To my children, happy conquerors of states, my descendants - the great rulers of the world” - the fact that the famous “Code of Tamerlane” begins with these words is a clear and vivid confirmation of this.
However, let us ask ourselves a question: would Timur the ruler be of interest to historians and future generations if he had not become a conqueror? Hardly. Rather, his name would have been lost for centuries, and his Transoxiana would very soon become the prey of his neighbors. So Tamerlane is, first of all, a commander, and one of the greatest in history. This means that it is worth dwelling in detail on what Timur’s undefeated army was like and how this army won victories, throwing cities and states at the feet of its ruler.
* * *
April 1370. Military leaders gathered at the kurultai, proclaiming Timur “the great emir.” So he became the sole ruler of the state of Transoxiana (it was located on a territory that included most of modern Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, eastern Turkmenistan and the southern regions of Kazakhstan) with its capital in Samarkand.
As before, the khan's throne was retained by representatives of the Genghis Khan dynasty, but neither Khan Suyurgatmysh (who ruled 1370–1388) nor his son Mahmud (1388–1402) had any real power.
Having become the great emir, Tamerlane, relying on the nomadic nobility and the Muslim clergy, began to conquer the entire Central Asia. To say that he “paid great attention” to the army is to say nothing. He needed to create the most combat-ready, most powerful fighting strength, uniting people of different nationalities and different religions.
Tamerlane's army was built on the principles of the decimal system, essentially borrowed from Genghis Khan. However, it also had its differences. In addition to tens, hundreds, thousands (Khazars) and tens of thousands (Tumens), kuls appeared - units with a variable number of people from 50 to 1000 people.
Auxiliary units deployed by allies and vassals were called hashars (from the Persian “joint labor”). The entire army (horde) was divided into fauji - corps. Typically, five or six corps made up Tamerlane's striking force, and one or two were in reserve and were ready to engage in battle on his orders.
The command hierarchy in Timur's army was not strictly defined and depended on the specific unit. Some senior commanders were called sardars, others - emirs. The commander of a thousand was called “ming-bashi”, hundreds – “yuz-bashi”, ten – “on-bashi”. These positions were elective and approved by superior officers.
A simple soldier could quite easily rise to the rank of foreman or even centurion, however, in order to become a ming-bashi, it was necessary to show exceptional talents or especially distinguish himself; heads of thousands were usually appointed as heads of tribes or their children. The highest command posts were occupied by relatives and closest associates of Tamerlane.
As in the time of Genghis Khan, the backbone of the army was cavalry. But the role of Tamerlane’s infantry was significantly higher than that of the Mongols. Light infantry units were indispensable during the siege of fortresses, and heavily armed infantry units during defense. Tamerlane’s army also had “engineering” troops - units that were engaged in building bridges, throwing “Greek fire”, and siege work. In addition, special units were formed for operations in the mountains.
Horses and pack animals, the need for which increased sharply during campaigns, were confiscated from the population, but in addition, some members of the nobility were required to breed horses. Tamerlane also actively used war elephants, which played a special role in the Middle Eastern campaigns.
The elephant's "crew" consisted of four to six people sitting in a turret on its back, plus a driver. The animals' tusks were cut off and iron pins were attached to the stumps. Before going into battle, elephants underwent a “training course” - they were taught to maintain an offensive formation and make movements with their tusks that hit the enemy.
In order for the army to be replenished without interruption, Timur created a system of fief allotments - suyurgals. The owner of the suyurgal, usually one of the tribal leaders, received a plot of land with peasants. He was the absolute owner of this land, but, firstly, he did not have the right to pass it on by inheritance and, secondly, when the war began, he was obliged to arrive in the army with a detachment of soldiers of a certain size. Soldiers were regularly paid, veterans were given pensions, and there was a system of punishments and rewards.
It is believed that Tamerlane did not like corporal punishment. “An emir whose power is weaker than a whip and stick is unworthy of the rank he holds,” he said. However, for disobedience, cowardice, violation of military discipline, especially during the campaign, Tamerlane’s army used the laws of Genghis Khan’s “Yassy”, according to which these offenses were punishable by blows of sticks on the back and stomach; In addition, the cowards were dressed in women's clothes, blushed, and led around in this form, tied to the tail of a donkey.
The main weapon of the infantry and light cavalry was the bow; in addition, sabers, swords, axes, spears, and daggers were used. The camping kit consisted of a saw, an awl, needles, ropes, ten arrowheads, and a leather bag for water. A simple warrior was protected by a leather sheepskin coat and a leather-trimmed shield; heavily armed warriors wore armor and helmets, and used knee pads and bracers.
An integral part of the organization of Tamerlane's army were reviews and parades - often incredibly luxurious and grandiose. Their goal was to test the discipline and armament of the troops, and also, if they took place in conquered territory, to intimidate the enemy. The chronicles have preserved the story of a review undertaken in 1391 before the campaign against the Golden Horde.
Each detachment lined up under a “thug” - a kind of standard. Timur appeared before the formation wearing a gold crown with rubies. The review, which lasted two days, ended with the beating of all war drums and the general cry of “Surun!” - "Attack!".
Naturally, what is important on a campaign is not beauty, but adherence to marching order and combat discipline. And with this everything was in order in Timur’s army. Ahead of the column setting off on the campaign was an advance guard of several tumens. Next came Tamerlane himself, accompanied by a detachment of bodyguards, followed by cavalry, infantry and a convoy, which contained Timur’s camp yard, treasury, arsenal, and clothing supplies. The convoy was guarded by a large detachment of cavalry.
The marching camp was strictly organized, the tents of the soldiers and their families were set up so that they formed straight streets. It was, in fact, a mobile city; it was accompanied by numerous cooks, blacksmiths, coppersmiths and saddlers, butchers, cooks, bakers, fruit and vegetable traders.
As the Persian historian of the 15th century wrote. Sheref-Eddin, “Tamerlane’s movements were carried out with great accuracy. Before his war with Bayazid, in the troops brought from Samarkand, each detachment had clothes of a special color: those, for example, who had a red banner, had the same color armor, saddles, saddle cloths, quivers, belts, spears, shields, clubs and etc.; thus, there were troops dressed in yellow, white, and so on.
Moreover, the detachments were divided according to weapons, some were armed with armor, others with chain mail, etc. Probably, the cavalry units also differed in the colors of their horses.” This allows some historians to conclude that Tamerlane’s army was the first in history to use (even if only in its rudimentary form) a uniform.
* * *
Before invading a particular region, Tamerlane, with the help of numerous and generously paid spies, carefully studied the situation. Naturally, special attention was paid to studying the strategy and tactics of the enemy army. And often this approach became the key to victory. For example, Tamerlane did not allow Tokhtamysh to use traditional Mongol tactics and lure himself into the steppe - and ultimately won.
Usually, before a battle, Timur divided his army into three large lines, each of which, in turn, had three echelons. The front line, small in number and weakest of all, was a decoy. Most often, the enemy penetrated it, and then reinforcements were rushed into battle - first from both wings from the middle line, then from the flanks, and finally, at the most decisive moment, the reserve, which Tamerlane personally commanded, entered the battle. Such successive attacks weakened and exhausted the enemy, and in addition, it was always possible to encircle him even if several lines were broken through.
“The entire space of the populated part of the World,” Tamerlane once said, “is not worth having two kings.” He began his conquest of the world with Khorezm, and in 1380 he began the conquest of Persia. However, in 1387, Timur was forced to interrupt the campaign and return - Khorezm was attacked by the Khan of the Golden Horde, Tokhtamysh, who entered into an alliance with part of the Khorezmians. Tamerlane devoted the next few years to the fight against Tokhtamysh. In 1391 he made a campaign against the Golden Horde possessions in the Volga region. In response to Tokhtamysh's invasion of Transcaucasia, Timur entered Eastern Europe. In April 1395, two huge armies met on the Terek River. The battle that took place on April 15 was decisive. Including, albeit indirectly, for the Moscow state.
Not everything in that battle went according to Timur’s scenario. However - and this is another facet of his talent as a commander - he knew how to change plans during the battle, adapting to the existing situation. At the beginning of the battle, the Golden Horde struck a strong blow on the right flank, and Tamerlane had to save the situation by throwing 27 reserve koshuns, which he personally commanded, into battle. The Horde retreated, but managed to quickly regroup, gather scattered forces and deliver a powerful counterattack. And on the right flank they managed to surround the cavalry under the command of Haji Seif ad-din, who with great difficulty managed to fight off the superior enemy forces.
The situation was threatening, but on the whole Timur still controlled the situation. By bringing in reserves at the right moment, he managed to overthrow Tokhtamysh’s army and put it into disorderly flight. Tokhtamysh had to abandon the enormous wealth that the enemy had acquired at his headquarters.
The Battle of the Terek became a disaster for the Golden Horde, the beginning of its disintegration into several khanates and, a little later, allowed the Moscow princes to pursue a much more independent policy towards the Golden Horde.
However, at that time, the fate of the Moscow state was in the hands of Tamerlane. It was not possible to catch up with the hastily retreating Tokhtamysh, and a detachment of Uzbek cavalry went to the Horde. Tamerlane sent part of his troops to Samarkand and Khorezm, and he himself turned to Rus'. He devastated the Ryazan land, destroyed Yelets, but... just short of reaching Moscow, he turned back. Why the Great Lame did this still remains a mystery.
As church chronicles say, when in the fall of 1395 they learned in Moscow that Tamerlane’s hordes were approaching, Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich ordered the icon of the Mother of God, which, according to legend, was painted by the Evangelist Luke, to be transferred to the capital from Vladimir. On September 8 (New Art) the icon was brought to Belokamennaya. And on the same day, the formidable Mother of God appeared in a dream to Timur, surrounded by fiery warriors, who ordered the “Lord of the World” to withdraw his troops from Moscow. On the very day when Muscovites greeted the image of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, Timur’s army left the Russian lands and turned to the mouths of the Don.
A more pragmatic version explains Tamerlane’s decision by saying that he simply did not want to lead an army exhausted to the limit and divided into parts into lands that were of little interest in terms of production. In addition, Timur allegedly did not plan a campaign against Rus', and his main task at that time was the complete defeat of Tokhtamysh.
In 1398 Timur made a campaign to India. Having conquered along the way the mountaineers of Kafiristan, a region on the border of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan, he defeated the army of the Indian Sultan near Delhi and entered the city without resistance. Delhi was sacked (according to some sources, this was done without Timur's knowledge and caused his anger). In 1399, having taken rich booty, the army of the Great Khromets returned to Samarkand.
Timur methodically walked towards his goal - he crushed his opponents in order to become the sovereign and sole ruler of the Muslim world. But he had a rival: a very ambitious contender for “ world domination" - Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Bayezid I, nicknamed Lightning for the speed with which his troops moved. He had been gaining strength for a long time, capturing more and more new lands.
The inevitable – a clash of interests between Tamerlane and Bayazid – happened at the very end of the 14th century, with the “mediation” of Kara Yusuf, the leader of the Kara Koyunlu state, which united tribes living in the territory of modern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Eastern Turkey, northwestern Iran and Iraq. After the defeat by Tamerlane, Kara Yusuf fled to Turkey and entered into an alliance with Bayezid. Timur demanded that the Ottoman ruler hand over Kara Yusuf, but he refused, and, according to the Great Lame, in an insulting manner. A reason to start the war was found.
Timur began his campaign in Asia Minor in May 1402. He occupied the Ottoman fortresses of Kemak and Sivas, after which ambassadors from Bayazid arrived to him. However, Tamerlane rejected the offer of negotiations and, in front of the ambassadors, organized a review of his army, which numbered 140–150 thousand people.
Bayezid, who at that time had half the strength, understood that he had no chance in an open battle. And therefore he stationed his troops in a mountainous forested area north of Angora (now Ankara). But Timur, who besieged Angora, still managed to lure Bayazid into the open with cunning maneuvers.
The Sultan, seeing that a battle could not be avoided, built his troops with his rear to the mountains, strengthening the center and weakening the flanks. Timur, as usual, concentrated his main forces on the flanks. Tamerlane's cavalry attacked the left flank of the Ottoman army, but the Serbian soldiers who made up it held out very steadfastly, even after Timur threw all the forces of his right wing into battle. It is unknown how the battle would have ended if the right flank of the Ottoman army had acted just as selflessly.
But there were detachments of Anatolian beys and Tatar mercenaries who wavered and went over to the enemy’s side at the first attack of the cavalry (according to some reports, the commanders of these detachments were bribed by Timur’s envoys). After this, the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. The Turkish army was surrounded and Sultan Bayezid was captured.
Like the Battle of Terek, the Battle of Angora had major geopolitical consequences. Tamerlane again helped a state that was under attack from a stronger enemy - this time Byzantium (however, the “delay” was short-lived - only half a century; in addition, there is the opposite point of view - the Turkization of the region led to the isolation of Constantinople). Europe also breathed a sigh of relief, with the monarchs of England, France and Castile even congratulating Tamerlane on his victory.
Back at the end of the 14th century. Timur began preparations for a campaign against China. In the summer of 1404, he returned to Samarkand and a few months later, having gathered an army, he moved to the Celestial Empire. However, due to the cold winter, the campaign had to be stopped, and on February 18, 1405, in the city of Otrar (now southern Kazakhstan), the “Lord of the World” died. China was a strong adversary, perhaps the strongest that Tamerlane's army would encounter. And it is quite possible, as some believe, that Timur would have suffered his first defeat. But, no matter how strange and even absurd it may sound: fate again favored him and he went to another world undefeated...
A. Khoroshevsky
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF TIMUR. BOGATYR TALES ABOUT GENGISH KHAN AND AKSAK-TEMIR
Translator's Preface
Dedicated of blessed memory V. V. Bartold
I. Basic premises of the Middle Ages of the East
1
The modern reader will probably be most struck by the extraordinary, but very pronounced style of the era, to which “The Heroic Tales of Genghis Khan and Aksak-Temir” and “The Autobiography of Timur” belong.
From the very first pages you find yourself in a fragrant fairy-tale world, which somehow imperceptibly, in halftones and bizarre nuances, intertwines with the gray world of everyday life. In both “Autobiography” and “Tales” there reigns some elusive combination of the real and the fantastic; the light breeze of dreams and the weights of prosaic reality itself are constantly replaced on the scales of the story, only in “Tales” fantasy is inserted into the frame of reality, and in “Autobiography,” on the contrary, reality appears surrounded by the supernatural.
Generally speaking, we have before us a brilliant medieval style (how surprisingly similar it is in both the East and the West!): symbiosis of mysticism, or rather magic, with the feudal-tribal way of life.
War here is the main element of life; before our eyes, as in a kaleidoscope, large and small amirs, an exact copy of the feudal lords of the West, surrounded by bogadurs-knights, flash in a wide variety of combinations; Emirs constantly enter into alliances with each other, betray each other, form conspiracies, cheat and constantly fight, take fortresses, fight...
On whomever the arrows of fate have fallen, he often turns from an amir, a major feudal lord, into an ataman of a gang of vagabond robbers, wandering the steppes, robbing passing trade caravans, or simply stealing the herds of his own people. But happiness can smile on him again: high-profile exploits, rich booty attract many supporters, the gang of robbers grows, and the chieftain again turns into an emir. Between the emir and the ataman, between the regular army and a gang of daredevils, the difference is only quantitative, not qualitative.
In rare moments, when for some reason there is no war, the amirs amuse themselves with hunting, organize feasts and holidays and very rarely take care of their household: horses, camels, rams and slaves.
The brilliant military element of the amirs is based on forced, slave labor; somewhere below, very far, under the horizon of the observer, the economic springs of life move and work; you cannot distinguish them or notice them behind the sparkling hustle and bustle of war; one gets the involuntary impression that this bustle is something self-sufficient, being not only a facade, but also the foundation of all life at that time.
Of course, the authors of our works knew very well the inconspicuous, as if imaginary for them, side of their lives, but was it worth it for the inhabitants of the “upper floors” to talk about the ordinary and therefore boring among the glitter and noise of the too noticeable, to talk about the dirt and squalor of the basements? The peculiar peripherality of the observer and reader of that era, of course, is due to the peculiar cognitive prism of our authors. The proverb “All that glitters is not gold” was learned only by subsequent generations of observers.
Another element of life is the constant movement of the population. If we could look from the height of an airplane or airship at the then Mongolia, at the regions of Jete (present-day East Turkestan, Dzungaria and Semirechye) and Maverannahr (the region between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya), at Persia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Asia Minor, Syria, we one would see human dots continuously moving back and forth in larger or smaller numbers: now amirs are moving with bogadurs and warriors, now slaves are moving with schools of horses, camels and sheep, now a merchant caravan is moving among the raging waves of war; everything flows and changes, wanders, marches or flees from the enemy; the economy moves the same way as the war; a wagon, a yurt, a camp camp are equivalent to cities and fortifications fortified with a moat, ramparts and walls.
So, a nomadic slave-owning economy, feeding on war and feeding on war, dressed in a shiny military shell - the main tone of that era.
2
The war gave birth to heroes, people who stood out for their physical qualities - in the conditions of duels or hand-to-hand combat of that era - or for their cunning, tenacious, resourceful, elastic qualities of a warrior-diplomat, as we would say now; on the upper levels of life individualities were developed; each amir is a fine fellow in his own way, a personality with very specific and characteristic features, with an embossed name; behind him are the bogadurs, less bright figures, and the rest of his relatives are a large gray mass, only shading the personality of the leader in the eyes of the writer and reader of that era.
The society of that era resembles a pointed cone with a prominent spire and a vast base composed of clan and tribal groups; these groups are the main cells of both the economic and military way of life.
But our “Heroic Tales” and “Autobiography” give something more, namely a feudal society in the process of unification and expansion, they paint vivid images of “jehangirs” - the conquerors and rulers of the world. The Jehangirs lead tens and hundreds of thousands of armed people to different parts of the world, to distant spaces of thousands of miles, and with a devastating tornado they demolish everything in their path; Mother Cheese Earth trembles from countless hordes, the strongest fortress walls crumble with the appearance of boundless troops of a man who is under the special protection of fate, born and lives, as they said then, under a lucky star.
What are the fates of the Jehangirs, how is such immense power possible, why does the world need such rulers? Such is the will of some higher “world of secrets”... This is where we come into contact with the second main feature era, dialectically connected with the first - mysticism and magic.
3
For the people of that era, the driving forces of human life and human history hidden not here on earth, in very real, sometimes very base, sides of human nature, but in some other world, which nevertheless is in close contact, and even completely intertwined with our earthly one. There are no impassable boundaries between the two worlds; on the contrary, the higher and lower worlds, the earthly one, form a very integral and durable complex, and at the same time they form it in such a way that our world is a very distant periphery and a vague emanation of the other...
Severe and cruel warriors, amirs and bogadurs, obediently obey the will of their perspicacious spiritual mentors - sheikhs, qutbs and pirs, constantly turn to them for advice and fortune-telling in difficult moments of life and without their permission do not begin any difficult undertaking, in the slightest degree complicated matter.
Sheikhs and pirs, according to the ideas of the people of that era, are included in the “world of secrets”, they know the ways well upper world and therefore they can boldly lead people who know only the vague paths of this world: after all, this road is only a weak and pale shadow of the paths of another world, and the one who dares to walk alone along the paths of the earth without the guidance of the mystics will certainly get lost.
In addition to providential people, sheikhs and pirs, other messengers come from the “world of secrets”: prophetic dreams, voices heard from nowhere, prophecies of the Koran - the holy book read by Allah himself to his last and most important messenger on earth, Muhammad, and finally, a peculiar mysterious configuration of celestial bodies.
Prophetic dreams reveal an unknown future full of mysteries: they are lights on the paths of another world for the dark people here. You wander through gloomy deserts or luxurious, fragrant gardens, see terrible spirits, strange animals and birds, hear amazing sounds and receive the most accurate knowledge about the future, as if you are flying on the wings of a dream, like a time machine, across the unknown distances of that life that is still has not come, but will certainly come after the one that is going on now; dreams fly from God knows where, but just at the most necessary moment to special people, marked by the finger of Allah, in order to reveal fate to blind eyes.
Voices from the “world of secrets” have the same power, broadcasting in the most confusing incidents of life which path Jehangir should take. That is why he is a jehangir, because only he alone has been given the gift of hearing these voices, and that is why he always acts successfully and correctly, captures the first, most best places in the arena of life, far ahead of the gray, unhearing mass of average people.
And when you don’t have dreams and don’t hear voices, but you definitely need to know how to walk along tangled, winding lines, how to get out of the labyrinth of an incomprehensible life situation, then they take the sacred book and open a place as if at random, but in fact guided by the secret voice of fate : the opening passage from the Koran will certainly show the right path out of the labyrinth.
Otherwise they observe the location and movement of the heavenly bodies and from the star book they read the most intricate drawings in the book of earthly life. This or that combination of stars gives as its inevitable consequences certain series of future events.
4
Surrounded by magical ornaments, jehangir, main character our “Tales” and “Autobiographies”, occupies its special place in the style of the era. He is the door through which guests of another world pass, he is the magician who implants the will of fate on earth, he is the visible leader of human life and human history, he is the living embodiment of the highest moral qualities, he is the ideal warrior and military leader, diplomat and cunning, master and administrator, the first servant of Allah, the gatekeeper and keeper of his kingdom, he is the uniter of small, scattered feudal-tribal pieces of life into a great world “empire”, he is a representative of the great family of Jehangirs, who mysteriously replace each other throughout the entire human stories do not allow people to isolate themselves in the cramped confines of their anthill, but bring them to the wide world arena.
In the eyes of writers and readers of that era, Jehangir seemed to interrupt the usual, normal course of life in order to elevate it to an immeasurably higher level of development. The era itself as a whole in the “Heroic Tales” and in the “Autobiography” is taken in a special aspect of some kind of adaptation to the unprecedented, extraordinary tasks of the life of the world!
5
The reader of our days is accustomed to starting with the economic structure of life and from there, as it were, rising to social relations, the political structure and ideology; the writers of those days descended from the Jehangir to the amirs, bogadurs and, completely below the horizon of life and observation, to the slaves, the instrumentis vocalibus of the economic foundation of history.
This premise of an “inverted worldview” must always be kept in mind when assessing the “Heroic Tales of Genghis Khan and Aksak-Temir (Khromts Zhelezny)” and “Autobiography of Timur” as a historical source. It does not hurt, however, to remember that in the “Heroic Tales” the epic-fairy-tale epic waves fill almost entirely the real core, while in the “Autobiography” the very vital motives of the feudal, military-magical way of life are in the first place.
II. Historical appearance of Genghis Khan and Timur
What historical appearance, the real outline of the life and activities of the two main characters of our works - Genghis Khan and Timur?
1
Genghis Khan and Timur created (the first - in the 13th century, the second - in the 14th and early 15th centuries) large political associations of myriads of people - we will conventionally call them empires. Empires in this sense continuously appear in the history of mankind as a superstructure over the most diverse socio-economic formations. They are either stable or ephemeral, especially when the movement is led by a major personality; finally, empires are either “solid” or “patchwork”, made up of a wide variety of historical and ethnic pieces.
The empires of Genghis Khan and Timur fall into the era of feudalism and are patchwork in nature; Timur's empire is ephemeral, Genghis Khan's empire is more stable.
2
The course of Genghis Khan’s life, based on a number of sources, can be depicted in this form.
His original name was Temujin; He was born approximately in 1155 of the Christian era on the banks of the Onon, in Mongolia, his father Isugen-Bogadur enjoyed some influence among the surrounding tribes, but after his death the family was forced to wander through the forests, eating roots and game.
Temujin, who stood out for his physical and mental strength among his peers, recruited a gang of daredevils from them and at first engaged in petty robberies and raids on neighboring tribes; the number of his followers, attracted by his daring, constant successful raids and abundant booty, was growing.
Temujin’s further activity as a conqueror can be divided into two far from equivalent periods: until the great “Kuriltai” (meeting of tribal leaders) in 1206 and from the “Kuriltai” until his death in August 1227.
The original Temuchin ulus consisted of lands on the upper reaches of the Tala, Kerulyan and Onon rivers with their tributaries. Until 1206, he did not set himself specific goals of conquest; he only skillfully maneuvered among the surrounding hostile tribes: taking advantage of the central position of his ulus, he attacked the strong tribes separately, preventing their possible raids, and either by cunning or gifts did not allow large detachments of foreign warriors to unite against him.
Great Emir Tamerlane (Timur the lame)
Oh, if only, taking with me the poems of the sofa
Yes, in a jug of wine and putting bread in my pocket,
I want to spend a day with you among the ruins, -
Any sultan could envy me.
Rubaiyat
No less mysterious historical, brilliant figure is undoubtedly Timur the Lame. Born 109 years after the death of Genghis Khan.
Timur - iron, born April 9, 1336. Khoja-Ilgar, modern Shakhrisabz, Uzbekistan, died February 18, 1405 Otrar, Kazakhstan - Central Asian commander and conqueror who played a significant role in the history of Central, South and Western Asia, as well as the Caucasus, Volga region and Rus'. Commander, founder of the Timurid Empire (1370) with its capital in Samarkand. Great Emir of the Timurid Empire. Full name Timur was Timur ibn Taragai Barlas - Timur son of Taragai from Barlas in accordance with the Arab tradition (alam-nasab-nisba). In Chagatai and Mongolian languages, Tem;r or Temir means “iron”. In medieval Russian chronicles he was called Temir Aksak.
Not being Genghisid, Timur formally could not bear the title of khan, therefore he was always called only emir (leader, leader). However, having intermarried with the house of Chingizids in 1370, he took the name Timur Gurgan - an Iranianized version of the Mongolian k;r;gen or h;rgen, “son-in-law”). This meant that Timur was a relative of the Genghisids and could live and act freely in their houses.
Portrait of Tamerlane. 15th century miniature
Father Muhammad Taragai Noyon (Barlas), he was a military man and a small landowner. He came from the Barlas tribe and was a descendant of a certain Karachar noyon (a large feudal landowner in the Middle Ages), a powerful assistant to Chagatai, the son of Genghis Khan, mother Tekina Khatun (a female alternative to the title Khan - Khatun).
Timur was a very brave and reserved man. Possessing sobriety of judgment, he knew how to make the right decision in difficult situations. These character traits attracted people to him.
A far-sighted ruler and talented organizer, Timur was at the same time a cruel conqueror who mercilessly suppressed any manifestations of disobedience. Majestic pyramids of severed heads, cities razed to the ground, hundreds of thousands of prisoners and civilians deliberately killed - all this was familiar to Tamerlane’s aggressive and punitive campaigns. For example, having invaded Afghanistan, Timur ordered the erection of a tower of two thousand living captives mixed with clay and broken bricks to intimidate the population. It should be noted, however, that the sophisticated cruelty usual for medieval wars took on such impressive proportions in Timur’s conquests precisely because of the scale of these conquests and the unprecedented mass scale of the battles.
Timur left behind dozens of monumental architectural structures, some of which have entered the treasury of world culture. Timur's buildings, in the creation of which he took an active part, reveal his extraordinary artistic taste.
He was an educated man, his maternal grandfather Sadr al-Shari "and a famous scholar of one of the directions of Sharia - Hanafi. He was the author of Sharh al-Wikaya, a commentary on al-Wakaya, which in turn is a commentary on al-Marghinana - al -Hidayah, which is a classic guide to the laws of the Hanafi.He may also be the famous traveler Ibn Batuta.
Timur at a feast in Samarkand
As shown by the opening of the tomb of Gur Emir (Samarkand) by M. M. Gerasimov and the subsequent study of the skeleton from the burial, which is believed to belong to Tamerlane, his height was 172 cm. Timur was strong and physically developed, his contemporaries wrote about him: “If Most warriors could pull the bow string to the level of the collarbone, but Timur pulled it to the ear.” His hair is lighter than most of his people. A detailed study of Timur's remains showed that, anthropologically, he belonged to the South Siberian race.
The appearance of Timur, reconstructed based on the results of a study of his remains.
Despite Timur's old age (69 years), his skull, as well as his skeleton, did not have pronounced senile features. The presence of most of the teeth, the clear relief of the bones, the almost complete absence of osteophytes - all this suggests that the skull of the skeleton belonged to a person full of strength and health, whose biological age did not exceed 50 years. The massiveness of healthy bones, the highly developed relief and their density, the width of the shoulders, the volume of the chest and the relatively high height - all this gives the right to think that Timur had an extremely strong build. His strong athletic muscles were most likely distinguished by a certain dryness of form, and this is natural: life on military campaigns, with their difficulties and hardships, almost constant stay in the saddle could hardly contribute to obesity.
A special external difference between Tamerlane’s warriors and other Muslims was the Mongolian braids they preserved, which is confirmed by some Central Asian illustrated manuscripts of that time. Meanwhile, examining ancient Turkic sculptures and images of Turks in the paintings of Afrasiab, researchers came to the conclusion that the Turks wore braids back in the 5th-8th centuries. The opening of Timur's grave and analysis by anthropologists showed that Timur did not have braids. “Timur’s hair is thick, straight, gray-red in color, with a predominance of dark chestnut or red.” “Contrary to the accepted custom of shaving his head, at the time of his death Timur had relatively long hair.” Some historians believe that the light color of his hair is due to the fact that Tamerlane dyed his hair with henna. But M. M. Gerasimov notes in his work: “Even a preliminary study of beard hair under a binocular convinces that this reddish color is natural, and not dyed with henna, as historians described.” Timur wore a long mustache, not a trim one above the lip. As we managed to find out, there was a rule that allowed the highest military class to wear a mustache without cutting it above the lip, and Timur, according to this rule, did not cut his mustache, and it hung freely above the lip. “Timur’s small thick beard was wedge-shaped. Her hair is coarse, almost straight, thick, bright brown (red) in color, with significant gray streaks.”
Depiction of Timur by a French artist
Lesions were visible on the bones of the right leg in the area of the kneecap, which is fully consistent with the nickname “Lame.”
A contemporary and captive of Tamerlane, Ibn Arabshah, who knew Tamerlane personally since 1401, reports: “As for Persian, Turkic and Mongolian, he knew them better than anyone else.”
The Spanish diplomat and traveler Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, who visited the court of Tamerlane in Transoxiana, reports that “Beyond this river (Amu Darya) lies the kingdom of Samarkand, and its land is called Mogalia (Mogolistan), and the language is Mughal, and this language is not understood on this (southern) side river, since everyone speaks Persian,” he further reports, “the letter that is used by the Samarkand residents living on the other side of the river is not understood and cannot be read by those who live on this side, but they call this letter Mogali. And Senor Tamerlane keeps with him several scribes who can read and write in this language.”
According to Svat Sou;ek, Timur was a Turk from the Barlas tribe, Mongolian in name and origin, but in all practical senses Turkic by that time. Timur's native language was Turkic (Chagatai), although he may have also spoken Persian to some extent due to the cultural environment in which he lived. He almost certainly did not know Mongolian, although Mongolian terms had not yet completely disappeared from documents and were found on coins.
During the campaign against Tokhtamysh in 1391, Timur ordered an inscription in the Chagatai language in Uyghur letters to be knocked out near Mount Altyn-Chuku - 8 lines and three lines in Arabic containing Koranic text. In history, this inscription is known as the Karsakpai inscription of Timur. Currently, the stone with Timur's inscription is stored and exhibited in the Hermitage.
Timur loved to talk with scientists, especially listen to the reading of historical works; with his knowledge of history he surprised the medieval historian, philosopher and thinker Ibn Khaldun; Timur used stories about the valor of historical and legendary heroes to inspire his soldiers.
According to Alisher Navoi, although Timur did not write poetry, he knew both poetry and prose very well, and, by the way, knew how to bring the proper beit to the right place.
Timur spent his childhood and youth in the Kesh mountains. In his youth, he loved hunting and equestrian competitions, javelin throwing and archery, and had a penchant for war games. From the age of ten, Atabay mentors who served under Taragai taught Timur the art of war and sports games.
The first information about Timur appeared in sources starting in 1361. Start political activity Tamerlane is similar to the biography of Genghis Khan: they were the leaders of the detachments of followers they personally recruited, who then remained the main support of their power. Like Genghis Khan, Timur personally entered into all the details of the organization of military forces, had detailed information about the forces of his enemies and the state of their lands, enjoyed unconditional authority among his army and could fully rely on his associates. Less successful was the choice of persons placed at the head of the civil administration (numerous cases of punishment for extortion of high dignitaries in Samarkand, Herat, Shiraz, Tabriz).
In 1362, Timur was confirmed as the ruler of the Kesh region and one of the assistants to the Mogul prince.
Ilyas-Khoja, together with Emir Bekchik and other close emirs, conspired to remove Timur from state affairs, and, if possible, to destroy him physically. The intrigues intensified and became dangerous. Timur had to separate from the Mughals and go over to the side of their enemy - Emir Hussein, the grandson of Emir Kazagan. For some time, with a small detachment, they led the life of adventurers and went towards Khorezm, where in the battle of Khiva they were defeated by the ruler of those lands, Tavakkala-Kongurot, and with the remnants of their warriors and servants were forced to retreat deep into the desert. Subsequently, reaching the village of Mahmudi in the region subject to Mahan, they were captured by the people of Alibek Dzhanikurban, in whose captivity they spent 62 days. According to historian Sharafiddin Ali Yazdi, Alibek intended to sell Timur and Hussein to Iranian merchants, but in those days not a single caravan passed through Mahan. The prisoners were rescued by Alibek's elder brother, Emir Muhammad Beg.
Until 1364, emirs Timur and Hussein lived on the southern bank of the Amu Darya in the regions of Kakhmard, Daragez, Arsif and Balkh and waged a guerrilla war against the Moguls. During a skirmish in Seistan, which took place in the fall of 1362 against the enemies of the ruler Malik Qutbiddin, Timur lost two fingers on his right hand and was seriously wounded in his right leg, causing him to become lame.
In 1364, the Moguls were forced to leave the country. Returning back to Transoxiana, Timur and Hussein placed Kabul Shah from the Chagataid clan on the throne.
The next year, at dawn on May 22, 1365, a bloody battle took place near Chinaz between the army of Timur and Hussein with the army of Khan Ilyas-Khoja, which went down in history as the “Battle in the Mud.” Timur and Hussein had little chance of victory, since Ilyas-Khoja's army had superior forces. During the battle, a torrential downpour began, it was difficult for the soldiers to even look forward, and the horses got stuck in the mud. Despite this, Timur’s troops began to gain victory on his flank; at the decisive moment, he asked Hussein for help in order to finish off the enemy, but Hussein not only did not help, but also retreated. This predetermined the outcome of the battle. The warriors of Timur and Hussein were forced to retreat to the other side of the Syrdarya River.
Meanwhile, the army of Ilyas-Khoja was expelled from Samarkand by a popular uprising of the Serbedars, which was led by the madrasah teacher Mavlanazada, the artisan Abubakr Kalavi and the shooter Mirzo Khurdaki Bukhari. Popular government was established in the city. The property of the rich sections of the population was confiscated, so they turned to Hussein and Timur for help. Timur and Hussein agreed to act against the Serbedars. In the spring of 1366, Timur and Hussein suppressed the uprising, executing the Serbedar leaders, but on the orders of Tamerlane they left alive one of the leaders of the uprising, Mavlana-zade, who was extremely popular among the people.
Timur during the siege of the Balkh fortress in 1370
Hussein had plans to take the position of supreme emir of the Chagatai ulus, like his grandfather Kazagan, who seized this position by force during the time of Kazan Khan. A split emerged in the relationship between Timur and Hussein, and each of them began to prepare for a decisive battle. in this situation, Timur received great support from the clergy in the person of the Termez seids, the Samarkand sheikh-ul-Islam and Mir Seyid Bereke, who became Timur’s spiritual mentor.
Having moved from Sali-sarai to Balkh, Hussein began to strengthen the fortress. He decided to act with deception and cunning. Hussein sent Timur an invitation to a meeting in the Chakchak gorge to sign a peace treaty, and as proof of his friendly intentions he promised to swear on the Koran. Having gone to the meeting, Timur took two hundred horsemen with him just in case, but Hussein brought a thousand of his soldiers and for this reason the meeting did not take place. Timur recalled this incident as follows: “I sent Emir Hussein a letter with a Turkic beit with the following content:
Who intends to deceive me,
He'll fall into the ground himself, I'm sure.
Having shown his deceit,
He himself will die from it.
When my letter reached Emir Hussein, he was extremely embarrassed and asked for forgiveness, but the second time I did not believe him.”
Gathering all his strength, Timur crossed to the other side of the Amu Darya. The advanced units of his troops were commanded by Suyurgatmysh-oglan, Ali Muayyad and Hussein Barlas. On the approach to the village of Biya, Barak, the leader of the Andkhud Sayinds, advanced to meet the army and presented him with kettledrums and the banner of supreme power. On the way to Balkh, Timur was joined by Jaku Barlas, who arrived from Karkara with his army, and Emir Kaykhusrav from Khuttalan, and on the other side of the river, Emir Zinda Chashm from Shiberghan, Khazarians from Khulm and Badakhshan Muhammadshah also joined. Having learned about this, many of Emir Hussein’s soldiers left him.
Before the battle, Timur assembled a kurultai, at which Suyurgatmysh Khan, the son of Kazan Khan, was elected khan of Transoxiana. Shortly before Timur was confirmed as the “great emir,” a certain good messenger, a sheikh from Mecca, came to him and said that he had a vision that he, Timur, would become a great ruler. On this occasion, he presented him with a banner, a drum, a symbol of supreme power. But he does not take this supreme power personally, but remains close to it.
On April 10, 1370, Balkh was conquered, and Hussein was captured and killed by the ruler of Khutalyan, Kaykhusrav, as a matter of blood feud, since Hussein had previously killed his brother. A kurultai was also held here, in which Chagatai beks and emirs, high-ranking dignitaries of regions and tumans, and Termezshahs took part. Among them were former rivals and childhood friends of Timur: Bayan-suldus, emirs Uljaytu, Kaikhosrov, Zinda Chashm, Jaku-barlas and many others. The Kurultai elected Timur as the supreme emir of Turan, as Timur's state was now called, entrusting him with responsibility for establishing the long-awaited peace, stability and order in the country. Marriage to the daughter of Genghisid Kazan Khan, the captive widow of Emir Hussein Sarai-mulk khanum, allowed Timur to add the honorary title “Guragan” to his name, that is, “(khan’s) son-in-law.”
At the kurultai, Timur took the oath of all the military leaders of Transoxiana. Like his predecessors, he did not accept the khan title and was content with the title of “great emir” - Genghis Khan’s descendant Suyurgatmysh Khan (1370-1388), and then his son Mahmud Khan (1388-1402), were considered khans. Samarkand was chosen as the capital of the state. Timur began the struggle to create a centralized state.
Map of the Timurid Empire in 1405.
Despite the laid foundation of statehood, Khorezm and Shibergan, which belonged to the Chagatai ulus, did not recognize the new government in the person of Suyurgatmysh Khan and Emir Timur. It was restless on the southern and northern borders of the border, where Mogolistan and the White Horde caused trouble, often violating borders and plundering villages. After Urus Khan captured Sygnak and moved the capital of the White Horde, Yassy (now Turkestan), Sairam and Transoxiana to it were in even greater danger. It was necessary to take measures to protect and strengthen statehood.
Soon the power of Emir Timur was recognized by Balkh and Tashkent, but the Khorezm rulers continued to resist the Chagatai ulus, relying on the support of the Dashti Kipchak rulers. In 1371, the ruler of Khorezm attempted to capture southern Khorezm, which was part of the Chagatai ulus. Emir Timur demanded that Khorezm return the captured lands first peacefully, sending first a tawachi (quartermaster), then a sheikh-ul-Islam (the head of the Muslim community) to Gurganj, but the ruler of Khorezm, Hussein Sufi, refused to fulfill this demand both times, taking the ambassador prisoner. Subsequently, Emir Timur made five campaigns against Khorezm.
Mogolistan had to be conquered to ensure the security of the state's borders. Mogolistan feudal lords often carried out predatory raids on Sairam, Tashkent, Fergana and Yassy. The raids of the Moghulistan ulusbegi Emir Kamar ad-Din in 1370-1371 brought especially great troubles to the people.
From 1371 to 1390, Emir Timur made seven campaigns against Mogolistan, finally defeating the army of Kamar ad-Din and Anka-tyur in 1390. Timur launched his first two campaigns against Kamar ad-Din in the spring and autumn of 1371. The first campaign ended in a truce; during the second, Timur, leaving Tashkent, moved towards the village of Yangi in Taraz. There he put the Moguls to flight and captured large booty.
In 1375, Timur carried out his third successful campaign. He left Sairam and passed through the regions of Talas and Tokmak along the upper reaches of the Chu River, returning to Samarkand through Uzgen and Khojent. However, Qamar ad-Din was not defeated. When Timur's army returned to Transoxiana, Kamar ad-Din invaded Fergana in the winter of 1376 and besieged the city of Andijan. The governor of Fergana, Timur's third son Umar Sheikh, fled to the mountains. The enraged Timur hurried to Fergana and for a long time pursued the enemy beyond Uzgen and the Yassy mountains all the way to the At-Bashi valley, the southern tributary of the upper Naryn.
In 1376-1377, Timur made his fifth campaign against Kamar ad-Din. He defeated his army in the gorges west of Issyk-Kul and pursued him to Kochkar. The Zafar-Nama mentions Timur's sixth campaign in the Issyk-Kul region against Kamar ad-Din in 1383, but the Ulusbegi managed to escape again.
In 1389-1390, Timur intensified his actions to finally defeat Kamar ad-Din. In 1389 he crossed the Ili and crossed the Imil region in all directions, south and east of Lake Balkhash and around Ata-Kul. His vanguard, meanwhile, pursued the Mughals to the Black Irtysh, south of Altai. His advanced detachments reached Kara Khoja in the east, that is, almost to Turfan. In 1390, Kamar ad-din was finally defeated, and Mogolistan finally ceased to threaten Timur’s power. However, Timur only reached the Irtysh in the north, Alakul in the east, Emil and the headquarters of the Mongol khans Balig-Yulduz, but he was unable to conquer the lands east of the Tangri-Tag and Kashgar mountains. Kamar ad-Din fled to the Irtysh and subsequently died of dropsy. Khizr-Khoja established himself as the Khan of Mogulistan.
In 1380, Timur went on a campaign against Malik Ghiyas-ad-din Pir-Ali II, since he did not want to recognize himself as a vassal of Emir Timur and began to respond by strengthening the defensive walls of his capital, Herat. At first, Timur sent an ambassador to him with an invitation to the kurultai in order to solve the problem peacefully, but Ghiyas ad-din Pir-Ali II rejected the offer, detaining the ambassador. In response to this, in April 1380, Timur sent ten regiments to the left bank of the Amu Darya. His troops captured the regions of Balkh, Shibergan and Badkhyz. In February 1381, Emir Timur himself marched with troops and took Khorasan, the cities of Serakhs, Jami, Qausia, Tuye and Kelat, and the city of Herat was taken after a five-day siege. In addition to Kelat, Sebzevar was captured, as a result of which the state of the Serbedars finally ceased to exist.
In 1382, Timur's son Miran Shah was appointed ruler of Khorasan. In 1383, Timur devastated Sistan and brutally suppressed the Serbedar uprising in Sebzevar.
In 1383, he took Sistan, in which the fortresses of Zireh, Zave, Farah and Bust were defeated.
In 1384 he captured the cities of Astrabad, Amul, Sari, Sultaniya and Tabriz, effectively capturing all of Persia.
Tamerlane's next goals were to curb the Golden Horde and establish political influence in its eastern part and to unite Mogolistan and Maverannahr, previously divided, into a single state, at one time called the Chagatai ulus.
Realizing the danger posed by the Golden Horde, from the very first days of his reign, Timur tried in every possible way to bring his protege to power there. Khan of the White Horde Urus Khan tried to unite the once powerful ulus of Jochi, but his plans were thwarted by the intensified struggle between the Jochids and the feudal lords of Desht-i Kipchak. According to Yuri Shpilkin, Urus Khan is fair-haired, with green eyes, one of the descendants of Genghis Khan’s eldest son Jochi, whose mausoleum is located 50 km away. from Zhezkazgan, whose ancestors in all likelihood were from the Andronovo Aryans - Sakas or Scythians. Iranian-speaking and Turkic authors call him “Urus Khan Uzbeks”, or simply Urus Khan, and behind his back Kokkoz – Green-Eyed or Blue-Eyed. The word Urus is a phonetic version of the ethnonym Russian. The initial p- is alien to the Türkic languages; the word Russian has acquired the vowel and form urus, orus, orys. The fact that the founder of the dynasty of Kazakh khans was called Urus should not surprise us. The name or nickname Urus was quite widespread among the Turkic beks and Chingizids. According to modern researchers, the name Urus was usually given to a “blond-haired child,” and the birth of such was not so uncommon.
Urus Khan
Timur strongly supported Tokhtamysh-oglan, whose father died at the hands of Urus Khan, who eventually took the throne of the White Horde. However, after coming to power, Khan Tokhtamysh began to pursue a hostile policy towards the lands of Transoxiana. In 1387, Tokhtamysh, together with the ruler of Khorezm, Hussein Sufi, carried out a predatory raid on Bukhara, which led to Timur’s last campaign against Khorezm and further military actions against Tokhtamysh (Tamerlane made three campaigns against him, finally defeating him only in 1395).
Khan Tokhtamysh-oglan
Timur began his first, so-called “three-year” campaign in the western part of Persia and the adjacent regions in 1386. In November 1387, Timur's troops took Isfahan and captured Shiraz. Despite the successful start of the campaign, Timur was forced to return back as a result of the invasion of Transoxiana by the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh in alliance with the Khorezmians (1387).
A garrison of 6,000 soldiers was left in Isfahan, and Timur took its ruler Shah-Mansur from the Muzaffarid dynasty with him. Soon after the departure of Timur's main troops, a popular uprising took place in Isfahan under the leadership of the blacksmith Ali Kuchek. Timur's entire garrison was killed. Johann Schiltberger talks about Timur’s retaliatory actions against the Isfahanis in his travel notes:
“The latter immediately returned, but for 15 days he could not take possession of the city. Therefore, he offered the residents a truce on the condition that they would transfer 12 thousand riflemen to his subordination for some kind of campaign. When these warriors were sent to him, he ordered the thumb of each of them to be cut off, after which he sent them back to the city, which he soon took by storm. Having gathered the residents, he ordered to kill everyone who was over 14 years old, sparing those who were less years. The heads of the dead were stacked in the form of a tower in the center of the city. He then ordered the women and children to be taken to a field outside the city, where he separated children under seven years of age. After this, he ordered his soldiers to run over them with their horses. Tamerlane's own advisers and the mothers of these children fell to their knees before him and begged him to spare the children. But he did not heed their pleas and repeated his order, which, however, not a single warrior dared to carry out. Angry at them, Tamerlane himself ran into the children and said that he would like to know who would dare not follow him. Then the warriors were forced to follow his example and trample the children under the hooves of their horses. In total, about seven thousand were trampled. After that, he ordered the city to be set on fire, and took the women and children to his capital Samarkand, where he had not been for 12 years.”
It should be noted that Schiltberger himself was not an eyewitness to these events, but learned about them from third parties while in the Middle East in the period from 1396 to 1427.
In 1388, Timur drove out the Tatars and took the capital of Khorezm, Urgench. By order of Timur, the Khorezmians who offered resistance were mercilessly exterminated, the city was razed to the ground, and barley was sown in its place. In fact, Urgench was not completely destroyed, since masterpieces of Urgench architecture built before Timur have survived to this day, for example, the mausoleum of Il-Arslan (XII century), the mausoleum of Khorezmshah Tekesh (1200), etc.
In 1389, Timur made a devastating campaign deep into the Mongol possessions to the Irtysh in the north and to Bolshoy Zhyldyz in the east, and in 1391 - a campaign against the Golden Horde possessions to the Volga, defeating Tokhtamysh in the battle on the Kondurche River. After this, Timur sent his troops against Mogolistan (1389-1390).
Timur began his second long, so-called “five-year” campaign in Iran in 1392. In the same year, Timur conquered the Caspian regions, in 1393 - western Persia and Baghdad, and in 1394 - Transcaucasia. Georgian sources provide several information about Timur’s actions in Georgia, about the policy of Islamization of the country and the capture of Tbilisi, about the Georgian military community, etc. By 1394, King George VII managed to carry out defensive measures on the eve of the next invasion - he collected a militia, to which he joined Caucasian highlanders, including the Nakhs.
Army of Tamerlane (attacks the Georgian city of Nerges.)
At first, the united Georgian-Mountain army had some success; they were even able to push back the vanguard of the conquerors. However, ultimately Timur's approach with the main forces decided the outcome of the war. The defeated Georgians and Nakhs retreated north into the mountain gorges of the Caucasus. Considering the strategic importance of pass roads in North Caucasus, in particular, the natural fortress - the Daryal Gorge, Timur decided to capture it. However, a huge mass of troops was so mixed up in the mountain gorges and gorges that they turned out to be ineffective. The defenders managed to kill so many people in the advanced ranks of the enemies that, unable to stand it, “Timur’s warriors turned back.”
Timur appointed one of his sons, Umar Sheikh, as the ruler of Fars, and another son, Miran Shah, as the ruler of Transcaucasia. Tokhtamysh's invasion of Transcaucasia caused Timur's retaliatory campaign in Eastern Europe (1395); Timur finally defeated Tokhtamysh on the Terek and pursued him to the borders of the Moscow principality. With this defeat of the army of Khan Tokhtamysh, Tamerlane brought indirect benefit in the struggle of the Russian lands against the Tatar-Mongol yoke. In addition, as a result of Timur's victory, the northern branch of the Great Silk Road, which passed through the lands of the Golden Horde, fell into decay. Trade caravans began to pass through the lands of Timur's state.
Pursuing the fleeing troops of Tokhtamysh, Timur invaded the Ryazan lands, ravaged Yelets, posing a threat to Moscow. Having launched an attack on Moscow, he unexpectedly turned back on August 26, 1395 (possibly due to uprisings of previously conquered peoples) and left the Moscow lands on the very day when Muscovites met the image of the Vladimir Icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary, brought from Vladimir (from this day the icon is revered as the patroness of Moscow), Vytautas’s army also went to the aid of Moscow.
According to the “Zafar-nama” of Sharaf ad-Din Yazdi, Timur was on the Don after his victory over Tokhtamysh on the Terek River and before the defeat of the cities of the Golden Horde in the same 1395. Timur personally pursued the Tokhtamysh commanders retreating after the defeat until they were completely defeated on the Dnieper. Most likely, according to this source, Timur did not set the goal of a campaign specifically on Russian lands. Some of his troops, not he himself, approached the borders of Rus'. Here, on the comfortable summer Horde pastures, stretching in the floodplain of the Upper Don to modern Tula, a small part of his army stopped for two weeks. Although the local population did not put up serious resistance, the region was severely devastated. As Russian chronicle stories about Timur’s invasion testify, his army stood on both sides of the Don for two weeks, “captured” the land of Yelets and “seized” (captured) the prince of Yelets. Some coin hoards in the vicinity of Voronezh date back to 1395. However, in the vicinity of Yelets, which, according to the above-mentioned Russian written sources, was subjected to a pogrom, no treasures with such a dating have been found to date. Sharaf ad-Din Yazdi describes large booty taken in Russian lands and does not describe a single combat episode with the local population, although the main purpose of the “Book of Victories” (“Zafar-name”) was to describe the exploits of Timur himself and the valor of his warriors. “Zafar-name” contains a detailed list of Russian cities conquered by Timur, including Moscow. Perhaps this is just a list of Russian lands that did not want armed conflict and sent their ambassadors with gifts.
Then Timur plundered the trading cities of Azov and Kafa, burned Sarai-Batu and Astrakhan, but the lasting conquest of the Golden Horde was not Tamerlane’s goal, and therefore the Caucasus ridge remained the northern border of Timur’s possessions. The Horde cities of the Volga region never recovered from Tamerlane’s devastation until the final collapse of the Golden Horde. Many colonies of Italian merchants in the Crimea and in the lower reaches of the Don were also destroyed. The city of Tana (modern Azov) rose from ruins for several decades.
In 1396 he returned to Samarkand and in 1397 appointed his youngest son Shahrukh as the ruler of Khorasan, Sistan and Mazanderan.
Timur defeats the Sultan of Delhi Nasir ad-Din Mahmud, winter 1397-1398, painting dated 1595-1600.
1398 Timur launched a campaign against India; along the way, the highlanders of Kafiristan were defeated. In December, Timur defeated the army of the Delhi Sultan under the walls of Delhi and occupied the city without resistance, which a few days later was plundered by his army and burned. By order of Timur, 100 thousand captured Indian soldiers were executed for fear of a mutiny on their part. In 1399, Timur reached the banks of the Ganges, on the way back he took several more cities and fortresses and returned to Samarkand with huge booty.
Returning from India in 1399, Timur immediately began a “seven-year” campaign in Iran. This campaign was initially caused by unrest in the region ruled by Miran Shah. Timur deposed his son and defeated the enemies who invaded his domain. Moving west, Timur encountered the Turkmen state of the Kara Koyunlu, the victory of Timur's troops forced the Turkmen leader Kara Yusuf to flee west to the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid the Lightning. After which Kara Yusuf and Bayezid agreed on joint action against Timur. Sultan Bayazid responded to Timur's demand to hand over Kara Yusuf to him with a stinging refusal.
In 1400, Timur began military operations against Bayezid, who captured Erzincan, where Timur's vassal ruled, and against the Egyptian Sultan Faraj an-Nasir, whose predecessor, Barquq, ordered the assassination of Timur's ambassador back in 1393. In 1400, Timur took the fortresses of Kemak and Sivas in Asia Minor and Aleppo in Syria, which belonged to the Egyptian Sultan, and in 1401 he occupied Damascus.
On July 28, 1402, Timur won a major victory over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, defeating him at the Battle of Ankara. The Sultan himself was captured.
Stanislav Khlebovsky, “Capturation of Bayazid by Timur”, 1878
As a result of the battle, Timur captured all of Asia Minor, and the defeat of Bayazid led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, accompanied by a peasant war and civil strife between his sons.
March of that same 1402 (when the battle between Timur and Bayezid took place) is marked by a brief article by a Russian chronicler, giving a remarkable generalization of a military and geopolitical nature in its scope: “... a sign appeared in the west, in the evening dawn, a star as great as a spear... Behold, show a sign, before the pagans rose up to fight against each other: the Turks, Poles, Ugrians, Germans, Lithuania, Czechs, Horde, Greeks, Rus, and many other lands and countries were confused and fought against each other; and pestilences also began appear."
There is no exaggeration in this image of widespread discord between peoples: it was an era of truly tectonic shifts on the ethnic map of the Eurasian continent. The era of great battles and invasions (Kulikovo, Kosovo Field, Tokhtamysh’s devastation of Moscow, the Battle of Nikopol, the Battle of Vorskla, Ankara, Grunwald, the Battle of Maritsa, the invasion of Edigei, the Hussite Wars...) covered the living space of most Slavic states and peoples. It deeply shocked the Orthodox world. The result of this era was the collapse of Byzantium and the emergence of a new center of Orthodoxy in Muscovite Rus'.
The fortress of Smyrna, which belonged to the Knights of St. John, which the Ottoman sultans could not take for 20 years, was captured by Timur by storm in two weeks. West Side Asia Minor was returned to the sons of Bayezid in 1403, and in eastern Asia the local dynasties overthrown by Bayezid were restored.
Upon returning to Samarkand, Timur planned to declare his eldest grandson Muhammad Sultan (1375-1403), who was similar to his grandfather in actions and mind, as his successor. However, in March 1403, he fell ill and died suddenly.
The fortress at Jiayuguan was strengthened due to fear of Timur's invasion while he decided to attack China.
When Timur was 68 years old, in the fall of 1404, he began preparing an invasion of China. The main goal was to capture the remaining part of the Great Silk Road. to obtain maximum profits and ensure the prosperity of his native Maverannahr and its capital Samarkand. Timur also believed that the entire space of the populated part of the world was not worth having two rulers. In August 1404, Timur returned to Samarkand and a few months later embarked on a campaign against China, for which he began preparing back in 1398. That year he built a fortress on the border of the current Syr-Darya region and Semirechye; Now another fortification was built, 10 days' journey further east, probably near Issyk-Kul. The campaign was stopped due to the onset of a cold winter, and in February 1405 Timur died.
Timur, who created a huge empire, established diplomatic ties with a number of states, including China, Egypt, Byzantium, France, England, Castile, etc. In 1404, the ambassador of the Castilian king, Gonzalez de Clavijo, Ruy, visited the capital of his state - Samarkand. The originals of Timur's letters to the French king Charles VI have been preserved.
During the reign of Emir Timur, a set of laws was created, known as the "Timur Code", which set out the rules of conduct for subjects and the responsibilities of rulers and officials, as well as rules for managing the army and the state.
Upon appointment to a position " great emir“demanded devotion and fidelity from everyone. Timur appointed 315 people to high positions who fought side by side with him from the very beginning of his political career. The first hundred were appointed as tens, the second hundred as centurions, and the third as thousands. Of the remaining fifteen people, four were appointed beks, one as the supreme emir, and others to the remaining high posts.
The judicial system was divided into three stages: 1. Sharia judge (qadi) - who was guided in his activities by the established norms of Sharia; 2. Judge ahdos - who was guided in his activities by well-established morals and customs in society. 3. Kazi askar - who led the proceedings in military cases. Everyone was equal before the law, both rulers and subjects.
Viziers under the leadership of Divan-Beghi were responsible for general position subjects and troops, for the financial condition of the country and the activities of government institutions. If information was received that the vizier of finance had appropriated part of the treasury, then this was checked and, upon confirmation, one of the decisions was made: if the embezzled amount was equal to his salary (uluf), then this amount was given to him as a gift. If the amount appropriated was twice the salary, then the excess was withheld. If the embezzled amount was three times higher than the established salary, then everything was taken away in favor of the treasury.
Emirs, like viziers, were appointed from a noble family and had to have such qualities as insight, courage, enterprise, caution and frugality, and conduct business, thoroughly considering the consequences of each step. They had to “know the secrets of warfare, methods of dispersing the enemy army, not lose their presence of mind in the midst of a battle and be able to lead troops without trembling or hesitation, and in case of frustration order of battle, be able to restore it without delay.”
The law enshrined the protection of soldiers and ordinary people. The Code obliged village and neighborhood elders, tax collectors and hakims (local rulers) to pay a fine to a commoner in the amount of damage caused to him. If the harm was caused by a warrior, then it should have been handed over to the victim, and he himself would determine the punishment for him.
To the extent possible, the code enshrined the protection of the people in the conquered lands from humiliation and plunder.
A separate article is devoted in the code to attention to the beggars, who should have been collected in a certain place, given food and work, and also branded. If after this they continued to beg, then they should have been expelled from the country.
Emir Timur paid attention to the purity and morality of his people, he introduced the concept of the inviolability of the law and ordered not to rush to punish criminals, but to carefully check all the circumstances of the case and only after that render a verdict. Devout Muslims were explained the basics of religion for the establishment of Sharia and Islam, taught tafsir (interpretation of the Koran), hadith (collections of legends about the Prophet Muhammad) and fiqh (Muslim jurisprudence). Also, ulemas (scholars) and mudarris (madressah teachers) were appointed to each city.
Legal documents of Timur's state were compiled in two languages: Persian and Chagatai. For example, a document from 1378 giving privileges to the descendants of Abu Muslim who lived in Khorezm was compiled in the Chagatai Turkic language.
Tamerlane and his warriors. Miniature
Timur had at his disposal a huge army of up to 200 thousand soldiers. Representatives of various tribes fought in Timur’s army: Barlas, Durbats, Nukuz, Naimans, Kipchaks, Dulats, Kiyats, Jalairs, Sulduzs, Merkits, Yasavuris, Kauchins, Kanglys, etc.
The military organization of troops was built like that of the Mongols according to the decimal system: tens, hundreds, thousands, tumens (10 thousand). Among the sectoral management bodies was the wazirat (ministry) for the affairs of military personnel (sepoys).
Drawing on the rich experience of his predecessors, Tamerlane managed to create a powerful and combat-ready army, which allowed him to win brilliant victories on the battlefields over his opponents. This army was a multinational and multi-religious association, the core of which were Turkic-Mongol nomadic warriors. Tamerlane's army was divided into cavalry and infantry, the role of which greatly increased at the turn of the 14th-15th centuries. However, the bulk of the army was made up of mounted troops of nomads, the core of which consisted of elite units of heavily armed cavalry, as well as detachments of Tamerlane's bodyguards. Infantry often played a supporting role, but was necessary during sieges of fortresses. The infantry was mostly lightly armed and consisted mainly of archers, but the army also included heavily armed infantry shock troops.
In addition to the main branches of the military (heavy and light cavalry, as well as infantry), Tamerlane’s army included detachments of pontooners, workers, engineers and other specialists, as well as special infantry units that specialized in combat operations in mountainous conditions (they were recruited from residents of mountain villages). The organization of Tamerlane’s army generally corresponded to the decimal organization of Genghis Khan, but a number of changes appeared (for example, units of 50 to 300 people, called “koshuns,” appeared; the number of larger units, “kuls,” was also variable).
The main weapon of light cavalry, like infantry, was the bow. Light cavalrymen also used sabers or swords and axes. Heavily armed horsemen were clad in armor (the most popular armor was chain mail, often reinforced with metal plates), protected by helmets, and fought with sabers or swords (in addition to bows and arrows, which were common).
During his campaigns, Timur used banners with the image of three rings. According to some historians, the three rings symbolized earth, water and sky. According to Svyatoslav Roerich, Timur could have borrowed the symbol from the Tibetans, whose three rings meant the past, present and future. Some miniatures depict the red banners of Timur's army. During the Indian campaign, a black banner with a silver dragon was used. Before his campaign against China, Tamerlane ordered that a golden dragon be depicted on the banners.
There is a legend that before the Battle of Ankara, Timur and Bayezid the Lightning met on the battlefield. Bayazid, looking at Timur’s banner, said: “What impudence to think that the whole world belongs to you!” In response, Timur, pointing to the Turk’s banner, said: “It’s even greater impudence to think that the moon belongs to you.”
During the years of his conquests, Timur brought not only material loot to the country, but also brought with him prominent scientists, artisans, artists, and architects. He believed that the more cultured people there were in cities, the faster its development would go and the more comfortable the cities of Transoxiana and Turkestan would be. During his conquests, he put an end to political fragmentation in Persia and the Middle East, trying to leave a memory of himself in every city he visited, he built several beautiful buildings in it. For example, he restored the cities of Baghdad, Derbend, Baylakan, fortresses, parking lots, bridges, and irrigation systems destroyed on the roads.
Timur cared primarily about the prosperity of his native Maverannahr and about enhancing the splendor of his capital, Samarkand. Timur brought craftsmen, architects, jewelers, builders, architects from all the conquered lands in order to equip the cities of his empire: the capital Samarkand, his father’s homeland - Kesh (Shakhrisyabz), Bukhara, the border city of Yassy (Turkestan). He managed to express all the care that he put into the capital Samarkand through words about it: “There will always be a blue sky and golden stars above Samarkand.” Only in last years he took measures to improve the well-being of other regions of the state, mainly border ones (in 1398 a new irrigation canal was built in Afghanistan, in 1401 - in Transcaucasia, etc.).
In 1371, he began the restoration of the destroyed fortress of Samarkand, the defensive walls of Shahristan with six gates, and two four-story buildings of Kuksarai were built in the arch, which housed the state treasury, workshops and a prison, as well as Buston Sarai, which housed the emir’s residence.
Timur made Samarkand one of the centers of trade in Central Asia. As the traveler Clavijo writes: “In Samarkand, goods brought from China, India, Tatarstan (Dasht-i Kipchak - B.A.) and other places, as well as from the richest kingdom of Samarkand, are sold every year. Since there were no special rows in the city where it would be convenient to trade, Timurbek ordered a street to be laid through the city, on both sides of which there would be shops and tents for selling goods.”
Timur paid great attention to the development of Islamic culture and the improvement of sacred places for Muslims. In the mausoleums of Shahi Zinda, he erected tombs over the graves of his relatives, at the direction of one of his wives, whose name was Tuman aka, a mosque, a dervish abode, a tomb and Chartag were erected there. He also built Rukhabad (the tomb of Burkhaniddin Sogardji), Qutbi Chahardahum (the tomb of Sheikh Khoja Nuriddin Basir) and Gur-Emir (the family tomb of the Timurid family). Also in Samarkand, he built many baths, mosques, madrassas, dervish abodes, and caravanserais.
During 1378-1404, 14 gardens of Bag-zogcha (garden of rooks) and others were cultivated in Samarkand and nearby lands. Each of these gardens had a palace and fountains. In his works about Samarkand, the historian Hafizi Abru mentions, in which he writes that “Samarkand, which had previously been built from clay, was rebuilt by erecting buildings from stone.” Timur's park complexes were open to ordinary citizens who spent their days of rest there. None of these palaces have survived to this day.
In 1399-1404, a cathedral mosque and a madrasah opposite it were built in Samarkand. The mosque later received the name Bibi Khanum (Lady Grandmother - in Turkic).
Cathedral Mosque of Timur
Shakhrisabz (in Tajik “green city”) was developed, in which destroyed city walls, defensive structures, tombs of saints, majestic palaces, mosques, madrassas, and tombs were erected. Timur also devoted time to building bazaars and baths. From 1380 to 1404 the Aksaray Palace was built. In 1380, the family tomb Dar us-saadat was erected.
The cities of Yassy and Bukhara were also developed.
In 1388, the city of Shahrukhiya, which was destroyed during the invasion of Genghis Khan, was restored.
In 1398, after the victory over the Khan of the Golden Horde Tokhtamysh, a mausoleum was built in Turkestan over the grave of the poet and Sufi philosopher Khoja Ahmad Yassawi, on the orders of Timur, by Iranian and Khorezm craftsmen. Here the Tabriz master cast a two-ton copper cauldron in which food was to be prepared for those in need.
In Transoxiana, applied art became widespread, in which artists could demonstrate all their mastery of their skills. It became widespread in Bukhara, Yassy and Samarkand. Drawings have been preserved in the tombs of the tombs of Shirinbek-aga and Tuman-aga, made in 1385 and 1405, respectively. The art of miniatures, which adorned such books by writers and poets of Maverannahr as “Shahname” by Abulkasim Ferdowsi and “Anthology of Iranian Poets,” received particular development. The artists Abdulhay, Pir Ahmad Bagishamali and Khoja Bangir Tabrizi achieved great success in art at that time.
In the tomb of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, located in Turkestan, there was a large cast-iron cauldron and candlesticks with the name of Emir Timur written on them. A similar candlestick was also found in the tomb of Gur-Emir in Samarkand. All this indicates that Central Asian craftsmen, especially wood and stone craftsmen and jewelers and weavers, have also achieved great success.
In the field of science and education, law, medicine, theology, mathematics, astronomy, history, philosophy, musicology, literature and the science of versification have become widespread. A prominent theologian at that time was Jalaliddin Ahmed al Khwarizmi. Maulana Ahmad achieved great success in astrology, and in jurisprudence Abdumalik, Isamiddin and Sheikh Shamsiddin Muhammad Jazairi. In musicology, Abdulgadir Maraghi, father and son of Safiaddin and Ardasher Changi. In painting by Abdulhay Baghdadi and Pir Ahmad Bagishamoli. In philosophy Sadiddin Taftazzani and Ali al-Jurjani. In the history of Nizamiddin Shami and Hafizi Abru.
Timur's first spiritual mentor was his father's mentor, the Sufi sheikh Shams ad-din Kulal. Also known are Zainud-din Abu Bakr Taybadi, a major Khorosan sheikh, and Shamsuddin Fakhuri, a potter and prominent figure in the Naqshbandi tariqa. Timur's main spiritual mentor was a descendant of the Prophet Muhammad, Sheikh Mir Seyid Bereke. It was he who handed Timur the symbols of power: the drum and the banner when he came to power in 1370. Handing these symbols, Mir Seyid Bereke predicted a great future for the emir. He accompanied Timur on his great campaigns. In 1391, he blessed him before the battle with Tokhtamysh. In 1403, they together mourned the unexpected death of the heir to the throne, Muhammad Sultan. Mir Seyid Bereke was buried in the Gur Emir mausoleum, where Timur himself was buried at his feet. Another mentor of Timur was the son of the Sufi sheikh Burkhan ad-din Sagardzhi Abu Said. Timur ordered the construction of the Rukhabad mausoleum over their graves.
Mausoleum Rukhabad in Samarkand
He had 18 wives, of which his favorite wife was the sister of Emir Hussein, Uljay Turkan aga. According to another version, his beloved wife was the daughter of Kazan Khan, Sarai-mulk khanum. She did not have her own children, but she was entrusted with the upbringing of some of Timur's sons and grandchildren. She was a famous patron of science and the arts. By her order, a huge madrasah and mausoleum for her mother were built in Samarkand.
In 1352, Timur married the daughter of Emir Jaku-barlas Turmush-aga. Khan Maverannahra Kazagan, convinced of Timur’s merits, in 1355 gave him his granddaughter Uljay-Turkan aga as his wife. Thanks to this marriage, Timur's alliance with Emir Hussein, the grandson of Kazagan, arose.
In addition, Timur had other wives: Tugdi bi, daughter of Ak Sufi kungrat, Ulus aga from the Sulduz tribe, Nauruz aga, Bakht Sultan aga, Burhan aga, Tavakkul-hanim, Turmish aga, Jani-bik aga, Chulpan aga, etc.
Mausoleum of the sons of Timur Jahangir and Umar Sheikh in Shakhrisyabz
Timur had four sons: Jahangir (1356-1376), Umar Sheikh (1356-1394), Miran Shah (1366-1408), Shahrukh (1377-1447) and several daughters: Uka Begim (1359-1382), Sultan Bakht aga (1362-1430), Bigi jan, Saadat Sultan, Musalla.
Mausoleum of Emir Timur in Samarkand.
He died during the campaign against China. After the end of the seven-year war, during which Bayazid I was defeated, Timur began preparations for the Chinese campaign, which he had long planned due to China's claims to the lands of Transoxiana and Turkestan. He gathered a large army of two hundred thousand, with which he set out on a campaign on November 27, 1404. In January 1405, he arrived in the city of Otrar (its ruins are not far from the confluence of the Arys and the Syr Darya), where he fell ill and died (according to historians - on February 18, according to Timur's tombstone - on the 15th). The body was embalmed, placed in an ebony coffin, lined with silver brocade, and taken to Samarkand. Tamerlane was buried in the Gur Emir mausoleum, which was still unfinished at that time. Official mourning events were held on March 18, 1405 by Timur's grandson Khalil-Sultan (1405-1409), who seized the Samarkand throne against the will of his grandfather, who bequeathed the kingdom to his eldest grandson Pir-Muhammad.
After the death of Tamerlane, a tomb was built - the majestic Gur-Emir mausoleum, where a jade sarcophagus with the ashes of Tamerlane and two smaller marble sarcophagi with the ashes of his beloved wives were placed.
A Russian politician who traveled through Central Asia and public figure Illarion Vasilchikov recalled his visit to Gur-Emir in Samarkand: ...Inside the mausoleum, in the middle, stood a large sarcophagus of Tamerlane himself, all made of dark green jade, with ornaments and sayings from the Koran carved on it, and on its sides were two smaller sarcophagi of white marble - Tamerlane's beloved wives.
According to the legend, the source and time of which it is not possible to establish, there was a prediction that if Tamerlane’s ashes were disturbed, a great and terrible war would begin.
In the tomb of Timur Gur Emir in Samarkand, on a large dark green jade tombstone, the following is inscribed in Arabic script in Arabic and Persian:
“This is the tomb of the great Sultan, the gracious Khakan of Emir Timur Gurgan; son Emir Taragay, son Emir Bergul, son Emir Ailangir, son Emir Angil, son Kara Charnuyan, son Emir Sigunchinchin, son Emir Irdanchi-Barlas, son Emir Kachulay, son Tumnai Khan. This is the 9th generation.
Genghis Khan comes from the same family from which descend the grandfathers of the venerable Sultan buried in this sacred and beautiful tomb: Khakan Genghis the Son. Emir Maisukai-Bahadur, son of Emir Barnan-Bahadur, son of Kabul-Khan, son of the mentioned Tumnai-Khan, son of Emir Baysungary, son of Kaidu-Khan, son of Emir Tutumtin, son of Emir-Buk, son of Emir-Buzanjar.
Whoever wants to know further, let it be known: the latter’s mother’s name was Alankuva, who was distinguished by her honesty and impeccable morality. She once became pregnant by a wolf, who came to her in the opening of the room and, taking the form of a man, announced that he was a descendant of the Commander of the Faithful, Aliy, the son of Abu Talib. This testimony given by her is accepted as truth. Her praiseworthy descendants will rule the world forever.
Died on the night of 14 Shagban 807 (1405).”
At the bottom of the stone there is an inscription: “This stone was erected by Ulugbek Gurgan after his campaign in Jitt.”
Several less reliable sources also report that the tombstone contains the following inscription: “When I rise (from the dead), the world will tremble.” Some undocumented sources claim that when the grave was opened in 1941, an inscription was found inside the coffin: “Anyone who disturbs my peace in this life or the next will be subjected to suffering and die.”
Another legend says: In 1747, Nadir Shah of Iran took this jade tombstone, and on that day Iran was destroyed by an earthquake, and the Shah himself became seriously ill. The earthquake struck again when the Shah returned to Iran, and the stone was returned.
From the memoirs of Malik Kayumov, who was a cameraman during the opening of the grave: I entered the nearest teahouse and saw three ancient old men sitting there. I also noted to myself: they look alike, like siblings. Well, I sat down nearby, and they brought me a teapot and a bowl. Suddenly one of these old men turns to me: “Son, you’re one of those who decided to open Tamerlane’s grave?” And I’ll take it and say: “Yes, I’m the most important one in this expedition, without me all these scientists are nowhere!” I decided to drive away my fear with a joke. Only, I see, the old people frowned even more in response to my smile. And the one who spoke to me beckons me to him. I come closer and see that he has a book in his hands - an old one, handwritten, the pages are filled with Arabic script. And the old man traces the lines with his finger: “Look, son, what is written in this book. “Whoever opens Tamerlane’s grave will release the spirit of war. And there will be such a bloody and terrible carnage, such as the world has not seen forever."
Article from the newspaper “Izvestia” dated June 22, 1941.
He decided to tell the others, and they laughed at him. It was June 20th. The scientists did not listen and opened the grave, and on the same day the Great Patriotic War. No one could find those elders: the owner of the teahouse said that on that day, June 20, he saw the old people for the first and last time.
The opening of Tamerlane's tomb was carried out on the night of June 20, 1941. Later, as a result of a study of the commander’s skull, the Soviet anthropologist M. M. Gerasimov recreated Tamerlane’s appearance.
However, the plan for war with the USSR was developed at Hitler's headquarters back in 1940, the date of the invasion was limitedly known in the spring of 1941 and was finally determined on June 10, 1941, that is, long before the opening of the grave. The signal to the troops that the offensive should begin as planned was transmitted on June 20.
According to Kayumov, while at the front, he secured a meeting with Army General Zhukov in October 1942, explained the situation and offered to return Tamerlane’s ashes back to the grave. This was carried out on November 19-20, 1942; These days there was a turning point in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Kayumov’s criticism of Aini provoked retaliatory criticism from Tajik society. Another version of events, belonging to Kamal Sadreddinovich Aini (son of the writer who participated in the excavations) was published in 2004. According to it, the book was dated to the end of the 19th century, and Kayumov did not know Farsi, so he did not understand the content of the conversation and believed that Aini had shouted at the elders. The words written in Arabic in the margins are “traditional sayings, which similarly exist in relation to the burials of Ismail Somoni, and Khoja Ahrar, and Hazrati Bogoutdin and others, in order to protect the burials from seekers of easy money looking for value in the graves historical figures“, which is what he told the old people.
When everyone left the crypt, I saw three elders talking in Tajik with their father, with A. A. Semyonov and T. N. Kary-Niyazov. One of the elders was holding some old book in his hand. He opened it and said in Tajik: “This book is anciently written. It says that whoever touches Timurlane’s grave will be overtaken by misfortune and war.” All those present exclaimed: “Oh, Allah, save us from troubles!” S. Aini took this book, put on his glasses, looked through it carefully and turned to the elder in Tajik: “Dear, do you believe in this book?”
Answer: “Why, it begins with the name of Allah!”
S. Aini: “What kind of book is this, do you know?”
Answer: “An important Muslim book that begins with the name of Allah and protects the people from disasters.”
S. Aini: “This book, written in Farsi, is just “Jangnoma” - a book about battles and duels, a collection of fantastic stories about certain heroes. And this book was compiled only recently, in late XIX V. And those words that you say about Timurlane’s grave are written in the margins of the book in a different hand. By the way, you probably know that according to Muslim traditions, it is generally considered a sin to open graves and sacred places - mazars. And those words about the grave of Timurlane are traditional sayings, which similarly exist in relation to the burials of Ismail Somoni, and Khoja Ahrar, and Hazrati Bogoutdin Balogardon and others, in order to protect the burials from seekers of easy money, looking for value in the graves of historical figures. But for the sake of scientific purposes, in different countries, like ours, ancient burial grounds and graves of historical figures were opened. Here is your book, study it and think with your head.”
T.N. Kary-Niyazov picked up the book, looked through it carefully and nodded his head in agreement with S. Aini. Then Malik Kayumov, whom everyone there called “suratgir” (photographer), took the book into his hands. And I saw that he was turning the pages not from the beginning of the book, as it should be from right to left, but, on the contrary, in a European style from left to right. - From the diary of S. Aini
According to sources, Timur was fond of playing chess (more precisely, shatranj).
Iranian shatranj.
In Bashkir mythology there is an ancient legend about Tamerlane. According to him, it was by order of Tamerlane in 1395-96 that the mausoleum of Hussein Bek, the first disseminator of Islam among the Bashkir tribes, was built, since the commander, having accidentally found the grave, decided to show great honor to him as a person who spread Muslim culture. The legend is confirmed by six graves of prince-military leaders at the mausoleum, who, for unknown reasons, died along with part of the army during the winter stop. However, who specifically ordered the construction, Tamerlane or one of his generals, is not known for certain. Now the mausoleum of Hussein Beg is located on the territory of the village of Chishmy, Chishminsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan.
Personal belongings that belonged to Timur, by the will of history, ended up scattered among various museums and private collections. For example, the so-called Ruby of Timur, which adorned his crown, is currently kept in London.
Timur's personal sword was kept in the Tehran Museum.
The official history of Tamerlane was written during his lifetime, first by Ali-ben Jemal-al-Islam (the only copy is in the Tashkent Public Library), then by Nizam-ad-din Shami (the only copy is in the British Museum). These works were supplanted by the famous work of Sheref ad-din Iezdi (under Shahrukh) translated into French (“Histoire de Timur-Bec”, P., 1722). The work of another contemporary of Timur and Shahrukh, Hafizi-Abru, has reached us only in part; it was used by the author of the second half of the 15th century, Abd-ar-Rezzak of Samarkandi (the work was not published; there are many manuscripts).
Of the authors (Persian, Arab, Armenian, Ottoman and Byzantine) who wrote independently of Timur and the Timurids, only one, the Syrian Arab Ibn Arabshah, composed full story Timur (“Ahmedis Arabsiadae vitae et rerum gestarum Timuri, qui vulgo Tamerlanes dicitur, historia”, 1767-1772).
Wed. also F. Neve “Expose des guerres de Tamerlan et de Schah-Rokh dans l’Asie occidentale, d’apres la chronique armenienne inedite de Thomas de Madzoph” (Brussels, 1859).
The authenticity of Timur's autobiographical notes, allegedly discovered in the 16th century, is more than doubtful.
Of the works of European travelers, the diary of the Spaniard Clavijo is especially valuable (“Diary of a trip to the court of Timur in Samarkand in 1403-1406”, text with translation and notes, St. Petersburg, 1881, in the “Collection of the Department of Russian Language and Literature Imperial Academy Sciences", vol. XXVIII, no. 1).
People's writer of Uzbekistan, Soviet author Sergei Petrovich Borodin began writing an epic novel called “Stars over Samarkand.” He wrote his first book, published under the title “Lame Timur,” between 1953 and 1954. The second book, entitled “Campfires,” was completed by 1958, and the third book, “Lightning Bayazet,” was completed by 1971, the publication of which was completed by the Friendship of Peoples magazine by 1973. The author also worked on a fourth book, entitled "The White Horse", however, after writing only four chapters, he died.
The theme of Tamerlane and his curse is played out in the novel “Day Watch” by Sergei Lukyanenko, in the plot of which Tamerlane finds a special chalk, with the help of which it is possible to change fate with one chalk mark.
Edgar Allan Poe - poem "Tamerlane".
Timur as a ruler appears in many parables about Khoja Nasreddin.
Timur the Magnificent
According to Alexander Vorobyov: Even during his lifetime, such a strong knot of contradictions was woven around the appearance and deeds of Timur Gurigan - Timur the Magnificent that it is no longer possible to cut it today. He even went down in history under none of his names: Timur, Tamerbek, Timur Gurigan, but under the nickname that his enemies gave him because of his lameness - “Lame Timur.” Otherwise - Aksak-Timur in Turkic, Timur-leng in Persian, Tamerlane in European languages. And since then we have been calling the invincible emir an offensive nickname - Tamerlane.
The news of his campaigns instantly reached the Europeans, and they, too, began to tremble before the name of the “Great Lame Man.”
Europe was gripped by another attack of horror; it expected the invasion of the Central Asian hordes. Timur then defeated and captured at Angora (Ankara) the great Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I the Lightning (Thunder), the son of the Ottoman Murad, who was killed on the Kosovo field by the Serbian prince Lazar in 1389. But the Lightning Sultan was considered invincible: before that, he conquered Anatolia and most of the Balkans. After a long blockade from 1394 to 1400, he almost captured Constantinople. It was he who put an end to the crusades against Muslims, defeating the crusader army near Nikopol (Bulgaria) in 1396. This defeat discouraged Europeans from rattling sabers in the East for many years. And this great Ottoman was defeated and captured!
The Genoese raised the standard of Tamerbek over the towers of the Pera fortress in the Golden Horn Bay. The Emperor of Constantinople and the Sultan of Egypt hastened to recognize Timur's power and offered to pay tribute. The English king Henry IV and the French king Charles VI congratulated the emir on the great victory in the most friendly tone. King Henry III of Castile of Spain sent his envoys to Tamerbek, led by the valiant knight Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo. Europe was preparing for the worst; it was expecting Tamerbek's invasion. But Timur Gurigan once again surprised everyone - his warriors turned their war horses back towards Samarkand.
Numerous historiographers of Timur have described all aspects of his life. They paid so much attention to him that they collected any information about him, even the most ridiculous. Therefore, much of the surviving evidence is not just contradictory - it sometimes leads to complete bewilderment. Thus, medieval biographers and memoirists note Timur’s phenomenal memory, command of the Turkish and Persian languages, and say that his knowledge of numerous stories from the lives of great conquerors and heroes helped him inspire soldiers before the battle. And at the same time, the same sources claim that Tamerbek was illiterate. How could it happen that a person who knew several languages could not read, while possessing a phenomenal memory? Why then did he need to keep personal readers with him if they could not teach Tamerbek to read? How did he then manage his great empire, led the army, determined the number of his troops, the amount of remaining fodder? How could an illiterate man astonish the greatest of Muslim historians, Ibn Khaldun, with his knowledge of history? The most controversial interpretation by historians is the attempt to present Timur in the image of a merciless butcher who exterminates his opponents, slaughtering entire cities. If you believe this version, it turns out that Tamerbek is not a great warrior and builder, but a beast in human form.
Apparently, he was an educated man, his maternal grandfather Sadr al-Shari was a famous scholar of one of the directions of Sharia - Hanafi. He was the author of Sharh al-Wikaya, a commentary on al-Wakaya, which in turn is a commentary on al - Marghinan - al-Hidayah, who is the classic guide to the laws of the Hanafi. He may also be the famous traveler Ibn Batuta.
According to Viktor Tukmachev: In 1852. “Kazan Provincial Gazette” published excerpts from the work of the Bulgarian chronicler Sherif-Yeddin, where it was said: “...Khan Temir-Aksak, having ravaged the Devil’s settlement, visited the graves of the followers of Mohammed, located at the mouth of the Toima River, which flows into the Kama under the settlement. .."
Historians deeply doubt the fact that Tamerlane was in Yelabuga. The Elabuga residents have a legend about why the Devil's Settlement was not destroyed by the legendary Tamerlane. Allegedly, the besieged carried out the will of the “iron lame man” and covered the entire tower from the base to the top with the severed heads of their soldiers. According to this little-known legend, Timur besieged the fortress and all those besieged faced imminent death. A secret underground passage, through which one could escape to a safe place, was discovered and blocked by Timur’s soldiers. It was still possible to defend the fortress: there were people, there were forces and weapons. It just didn't make sense. Everyone would have died. And then all the people living here would disappear. Timur, famous not only for his cruelty, but also for keeping his word, said that he would leave alive those who took refuge in the outermost tower of the fortress (it was the smallest). But at the same time, the tower itself should be covered from top to bottom with severed human heads. And not those warriors who had already died in the battle with Tamerlane, but the heads of those defenders of the fortress who were still alive and ready to fight.
After a painful night meeting, women and children entered the indicated tower (they had to revive the great people who had lived here for centuries), and in the morning the warriors chopped off each other’s heads and stacked them at the tower so that the tower disappeared under a pyramid of human heads... Tamerlane kept his word: the tower remained intact, and those who took refuge in it remained alive. The people have been reborn. But at what cost!
Archaeologists have not found any confirmation. Not a single significant fragment has been found, not a single one of the towers built from “severed heads”.
How can we take on faith all the reports about the atrocities of Tamerbek, if we know that during the monstrous Night of St. Bartholomew on August 24, 1572, Catholics in Paris slaughtered their “brothers in the Christian faith,” but were able to destroy only 3 thousand Huguenots? And throughout France, more than 30 thousand were exterminated then. Moreover, Catholics prepared for this operation for a long time and carefully. Timur, according to some historians, spontaneously destroyed hundreds of thousands of people.
It should not be forgotten that people were then mere prey that could be resold at a profit. Slaves are money. Who will destroy their property with their own hands? Why did Timur slaughter civilians if he could always sell them?
Most likely, the example of a distorted story with the emir once again proves how skillfully this can be done, how skillfully one can reshape history. After all, a lie repeated many times and by many becomes the truth. It's not who you are that matters, it's what others say about you that matters. So with Timur, apparently, this history as ancient as the world repeated itself: from a warrior and a builder they created the image of a butcher.
The lot of the rootless
Numerous biographers of Timur, who vividly described his campaigns and deeds, left very little information about his appearance. Moreover, many of them contradict the idea that Timur belongs to the Mongolian Barlas tribe. Thus, Ibn Arabshah, an Arab captured by the emir, tells us that Timur was tall, had a large head, and a high forehead. He was very strong and brave, strongly built, with broad shoulders. He wore a long beard, limped on his right leg, and spoke in a low voice, turned gray early. The skin color was white!
The most interesting “portrait” of Tamerbek was obtained by anthropologist M.M. Gerasimov, who, as is known, was able to reconstruct the appearance of the emir.
Based on the remains recovered during excavations in the Gur-Emir mausoleum on the night of June 22, 1941, Gerasimov scientifically confirmed Tamerbek’s lameness and withered hands. Gerasimov presented the results of his work in the article “Portrait of Tamerlane.” If you carefully read the conclusions that Gerasimov draws, it turns out that Timur was... a European!
However, the evidence that Timur comes from a Turkified Mongol family is a document that will give the right to categorically refuse to consider Iranian and Indian miniatures that endow Timur with typical features of an Indo-European.
Depiction of Timur by a 16th-century French artist
In very recent times, it was customary to brand Timur. Visitors to the Gur-Emir mausoleum were always told about the monstrous cruelty of the Great Conqueror, about the suffering of the peoples he defeated. Today Tamerbek is the personified national idea of Uzbekistan. He is everywhere. Monuments are erected to him, he is seen from banknotes, historical science is only concerned with him and his descendants, the Timurids. His name is crowned with the highest state awards - on April 26, 1996, the law “On the Establishment of the Order of Emir Timur” was adopted.
Schoolchildren study his life and deeds. It seems to foreigners coming to Uzbekistan that no one except Timur and his descendants lived here before. And the canonization of Timur began with a very remarkable event. During the Soviet era, in the center of Tashkent there was a bust of Karl Marx made of red marble. In early 1995, the statue of the communist theorist was demolished, and in its place a monument to an Asian hero from the distant past was erected. After his death, Timur also defeated Marx. And now the splendor of the greatness of his empire, stretching from the Egyptian pyramids to the Great Wall of China, illuminates the future of Uzbekistan.
War cried with the bloody eyes of wounds.
The prickly row of her teeth is exposed with a smile.
Ibn Hamdis
Tamerlane went down in history as an outstanding military leader and cruel ruler. So, at the beginning of his military career, he was once caught by a thousand-strong enemy army. Timur himself at that time had only 60 soldiers. But he was not afraid to enter into battle with his small detachment and won - after a bloody battle, he was left with only ten people out of sixty, and his opponents had 50 people out of a thousand, after which Timur’s enemies fled.
In 1395, Tamerlane was about sixty years old. He was a man of average height, but of strong build. One of his legs was damaged in his youth, but those around him hardly noticed his lameness. Timur's voice was loud and carried far throughout the area, which helped him a lot to lead his warriors in the roar of battle. Until old age, he had, despite constant battles and campaigns, good health. Only at the age of seventy his vision began to deteriorate.
Sergei Petrovich Borodin in the book “Lame Timur” talks about him: Tamerlane, the most cruel of the commanders, known to the world. The thirst for power burned in his heart and strengthened him in his determination to subjugate everyone and everything to his will; no one could count on leniency. The great warrior, nicknamed Lame Timur, was a powerful politician not only on the battlefields. In his capital Samarkand, he was a clever merchant and a talented city planner. Inside the tents embroidered with gold - a wise father and grandfather amid the intrigues of numerous heirs. “The entire space of the World should belong to only one king” - this was the rule of his life and the basic law of the legendary empire of Tamerlane. At the door that opened into the garden, on a small carpet sat a long, lean old man in a black robe trimmed with a green border. Dark, almost black, with a copper tint, his dry face turned to the boy, and his eyes - quick, intent, young - vigilantly ran over the entire small, light, beloved appearance of his grandson. He told his grandson: “I stopped running since my leg was broken. But since my right hand withered away, no one has escaped from my hands. Before that, I ran and got caught. And I was much older than you then. I was already... twenty-five years old then.” “Rarely did my grandfather tell anyone so simply about his past affairs. There was a lot in them that there was no need for the Lord of the World to remember. After all, there was no one in the whole world who could compete in strength and power with this long, like a shadow, dry, sick, withered, lame old man.”
This description of Timur is somewhat reminiscent of Stalin (lame, withered, with a penetrating gaze of tiger eyes).
On special occasions, Timur wore a wide silk robe, and on his head he wore a tall felt hat with an oblong ruby on top, sprinkled with pearls and precious stones. He wore large and expensive earrings in his ears according to Mongolian custom. In general, in peacetime he loved decorations and pomp. During military campaigns, he always served as an example of Spartan simplicity.
His character surprisingly combined strict Sufi views on life with impulses of a wildly warlike spirit and unbridled lust for power. The latter qualities seem to have prevailed in him, since he himself said: “only with a sword in hand can dominance be established.”
During his life, Tamerlane made dozens of campaigns and conquered a vast territory with the power of his weapons. Timur himself said: “With the help of valiant leaders and my warriors, I became the ruler of 27 states. All these countries recognized my authority, and I prescribed laws for them
Timur's conquests
Great Rus' was part of the Tokhtamyshev ulus. The same bitter fate awaited her as the rich Golden Horde cities of the Volga region. Tamerlane entered the Russian borders, took Yelets, captured its prince, devastated the surrounding area and moved towards Moscow. But he did not reach the city. After staying within the Ryazan principality for fifteen days, Tamerlane went back on August 26.
According to church legend, in order to save Moscow from invasion, Metropolitan Cyprian ordered the revered icon of the Vladimir Mother of God to be transferred to Moscow, “then commanding all people to fast and pray.”
Our Lady of Vladimir. Icon of the 12th century.
Moscow's envoys arrived in Vladimir on August 15, the day of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. After serving a prayer service, the icon was taken out of the Assumption Cathedral and along the Vladimir Road in a religious procession moved towards Moscow. The whole city came out to see off the icon. For eleven days the religious procession with the icon walked along the Vladimir Road. On August 26, all of Moscow, from small to large, led by Metropolitan Cyprian, met the icon outside the city on Kuchkovo Field.
Prayer to the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God.
Miniature of the Radziwill Chronicle of the 15th century.
The icon was placed in the Assumption Cathedral. Soon the news spread throughout Moscow that on the day of the meeting of the icon, Tamerlane left his camp on the Don and went to the steppe. Allegedly, he had a terrible dream and withdrew his troops.
. At the same time, the troops of Vasily Dmitrievich, who had already left Moscow to meet Timur, were prepared for war. Having passed Kolomna, the Moscow prince took up defensive positions on the banks of the Oka, and ordered his governors and city governors to “strengthen the siege.” At the same time, the Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas gathered his troops, spreading rumors everywhere that he was going against the Tatars. Thus, Tamerlane was clearly demonstrated that, having attacked Moscow, he would deal not with the remnants of Tokhtamysh’s possessions, but with the forces of all Orthodox Rus'. It was this demonstration of the unity of the Russian and Lithuanian princes that caused Tamerlane’s “horrible dream”.
In 1393, an embassy with a label left Tokhtamysh for Lithuania. The text of this label has been preserved in Russian chronicles: “God has favored us again, our enemies, and given us all into our hands. We executed them so that they won’t harm us again.” At the same time, the khan asks his “brother” Jagiello to “collect the exits (tribute) from the volosts that were our subjects,” captured by Lithuania, and hand them over to the en route ambassadors for delivery to the treasury.” This label confirms the fact that during the reign of Tokhtamysh the Lithuanians paid tribute to the Horde. Further, the label proposes the restoration of trade relations between states “without acceptance”, that is, without duties! In addition, it is proposed to conclude a military alliance.
In 1394, the ambassadors of Tokhtamysh also sought a military alliance from the Egyptian Sultan.
From the story of Anna Vladimirovna Kornienko: “To my children, happy conquerors of states, my descendants - the great rulers of the world...”
These words begin the well-known “Code”, one of two unique written sources that have come down to us, the author of which is presumably Amir Timur himself, Timur the Magnificent, “The Thunderstorm of the East and West,” the conqueror of lands and peoples, the fearless and invincible commander, the Great Emir Tamerlane. After the first lines of the text, the reader, even if he has never heard of the Central Asian conqueror of the 14th century, begins to realize that he is holding in his hands the life story of one of the most outstanding and mysterious personalities ever to appear on the world stage.
A complex and multifaceted personality, Timur is a warrior of Islam, a man who called himself “the shadow of Allah on earth,” a legendary warrior before whom powerful empires bowed their heads, a wise politician and statesman who had a truly iron will and character (translated, the name Timur means “ iron"), managed to weave such a tangled and strong web of contradictions around his image that it was not possible to unravel or even cut it, either then, or even more so now, hundreds of years later.
Depiction of Timur in Italian painting of the 16th century
There is very little definitively reliable information about the Ruler of the Lucky Constellations, as Timur’s contemporaries “christened” him for his rare luck, or rather it would be more accurate to say that there is none at all.
As the legend says, he was born with a lump of dried blood in his hand and with white hair, like an old man’s (the same was said about Genghis Khan). Having heard about this, the local residents came to the general opinion that, of course, a great man was born in the Taragay family.
Timur's father, Taragai, most likely came from the nobility of the Turkified Mongolian tribe of Barlas, who settled in Maverannehr (between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers) in the 13th century, and was a descendant of the noyon (large feudal landowner in Mongolia in the Middle Ages) Karachar, assistant and distant relative of Chagatai, son of Genghis Khan. Thus, Taragai, and with him, of course, his son themselves belonged to the clan of Genghis, although some sources say that Timur was the great-grandson of the Golden Horde Khan on his mother’s side. Be that as it may, there was no direct relationship between Timur and Genghis Khan. Timur grew up without a mother. She died when the boy was still very young.
Timur has been distinguished by his curiosity since childhood. For hours he could listen with rapture to the amazing stories that the caravan leaders told. He was silent, never laughed, and even in games he was purposeful and, perhaps, beyond measure serious. Timur loved hunting, and from the age of 18, when he matured, he was literally addicted to this activity. He shot accurately with a bow and was excellent in the saddle. In addition, even as a child, Timur was able to show his influence on his peers, both in various war games and in everyday life. From an early age, he only talked about campaigns and conquests, his amusements consisted of endless battles, he persistently exercised his body, which became stronger day by day; his mind, developed beyond his years, gave rise to endless grandiose plans, the ways of implementing which the future emir was already seriously thinking about, as if guessing what a significant role he would play in the lives of many thousands of people.
Many years later, in his “Autobiography” (the second source that has come down to us, the author of which is presumably the great emir himself), written from his words, Timur will tell an amazing story that he heard from his father. Allegedly, one day Amir Taragay saw in a dream how a handsome young man, who looked like an Arab, approached him and handed him a sword. Taragai took the sword in his hands and began to wave it in the air, and then the steel of the blade sparkled so much that it illuminated the whole world. Shocked, Taragay asked Saint Amir Kulal to explain this dream to him. Amir Kulal said that this dream has a prophetic meaning and that God will send him a son who will be destined to take over the whole world, convert everyone to Islam, and free the earth from the darkness of ignorance and delusion.
Having told about this, Taragay admitted to Timur that as soon as he was born, the emir immediately realized that the dream had come true, and immediately took his son to Sheikh Shamsuddin. When Taragai entered the sheikh’s house, he was reading the Koran aloud and in the verse on which he stopped, the name Timur was found, as a result of which the baby was named that way.
Having thanked Allah for the fact that his name was borrowed from the Koran, Timur tells another dream that he himself had already had. As if one day he saw in a dream how he was throwing a net into a large river. The net covered the entire river, after which the future conqueror pulled ashore all the fish and animals that inhabited the waters. Dream interpreters also explained this dream as foreshadowing the great and glorious reign of Amir Timur. So glorious that all the nations of the universe will be subject to it.
Timur understood perfectly well that alone, no matter how strong, courageous and decisive he was, he would never be able to achieve anything. And who needs a throne in the desert? He depended on many people just as many people depended on him. Timur valued people, but only as much as they could be useful to him.
He knew how to bind those he needed to himself, and spared neither time nor money for this.
“Some of them (people) help me with their exploits, others with advice, both in conquering states and in governing them. I use them to strengthen the castle of my happiness: they are the decoration of my yard.” “To inspire officers and soldiers, I spared neither gold nor precious stones; I allowed them to come to my table, and they sacrificed their lives for me in battles. By showing them favors and attending to their needs, I secured their affection,” said the great emir.
At the age of 19, Timur fell seriously ill. He was treated with every possible means, but nothing helped. The seven days the young man spent in the heat and delirium led the desperate courtiers, like himself, to think about an unfavorable outcome of the disease, the cause of which, most likely, was an advanced abscess on the hand between the fingers. The young man cried and said goodbye to life. However, after seven days, the powerful body of the future emir managed to overcome the infection and quickly began to recover. Some time later, as Tamerbek himself says, he had a vision of a certain side (translated from Arabic - “happy”, “successful” - a form of respectful address) with long hair who predicted young man that he will be a great king.
In the future, Amir Timur will say that he owed such success to his fair and impartial attitude towards people, thanks to which he “gained the favor of the creatures of God,” that with “wise policies and strict justice” he “kept his soldiers and subjects between fear and hope.” He will say that in the name of the triumph of justice, which he considered godly, he freed the oppressed from the hands of persecutors, that only true justice governed his decisions, the verdict was always carried out according to the law and the innocent were never punished...
In an effort to win the hearts of the people, Timur extended benefits to everyone, regardless of their position and origin, showered his soldiers with gifts, openly had compassion for the lower and disadvantaged, and his generosity ensured him universal human affection. “Even my enemy,” said the commander, “when he felt guilty and came to ask for my protection, received forgiveness and found in me a benefactor and friend... and if his heart was still embittered, then my treatment of him was such that I managed finally erase the very trace of his displeasure.”
Of course, these words sound too good to be true. However, one wants to believe in them simply because the great conqueror, while maintaining his own high position, managed to live to such an advanced age for that era - 69 years old, and not be stabbed, poisoned, strangled or killed in any other way by someone from former friends or current enemies. Neither Alexander the Great, nor Gaius Julius Caesar, nor most other world leaders were so lucky...
In Tamerlane’s cruelties, in addition to cold calculation (like Genghis Khan), a painful, refined brutality is manifested, which, perhaps, should be explained by the physical suffering that he endured all his life (after the wound received in Seistan). Tamerlane's sons (except Shahrukh) and grandsons suffered from the same mental abnormality, as a result of which Tamerlane, in contrast to Genghis Khan, did not find in his descendants either reliable assistants or continuers of his work. It turned out, therefore, to be even less durable than the result of the efforts of the Mongol conqueror.
The story of the unusual friendship between a predator and his alleged victim has become one of the most discussed topics in RuNet within a week.
To bookmarks
At the end of November, the unexpected union of a tiger and a goat in the Primorsky Safari Park attracted media attention, after which the predator and its intended victim became the heroes of a story that the country watched for a whole week.
TJ collected the most interesting things, including major milestones, jokes from Twitter and pictures from visitors’ Instagrams, and also asked the park director about how great the risk is for the goat to end up being eaten.
On November 26, the official website of the Primorsky Safari Park, located near the village of Shkotovo, reported that the Amur tiger did not eat the goat, which was allowed into its enclosure as live prey.
By this day, the goat, who was named Timur, had already been sleeping for the fourth day in the home of the predator, who had to move to the roof.
During the day, Cupid and Timur go out into a large enclosure and walk together. Timur mistook Cupid for the leader and follows him everywhere. Timur's fearlessness and Amur's caution led to such a paradoxical result.
from the park's official website
After this, new details about the tiger and the goat began appearing in the news almost every day. The media reported that the animals began to be resettled at night and the disgruntled predator was roaring because of this, and that Amur’s diet was changed - previously he hunted goats and rabbits twice a week, but as a result, only rabbits were left for him as live prey.
During their time together, the tiger was already fed with live food, and he made no attempts to attack the goat - moreover, he began to teach Timur to hunt and allowed him to drink from his own bowl.
From the very first day, the topic of unusual animal relationships became a source of jokes on Russian Twitter.
The goat Timur, who was not afraid of the tiger in the safari park, will become the plenipotentiary in the Far Eastern District.
Alcoholic Historian (@AlcoHistory) November 27, 2015
We are waiting for the next news, with a photograph where the tiger Cupid is sitting with his back, it says “the Caucasus is strong” and Timur [such a goat] is standing like “here is”
- _ (@sobaka__) November 27, 2015
I feel when the tiger Amur eats Timur’s goat, there will be mourning on the Internet
Maxim Katz (@max_katz) November 26, 2015
On December 1, information spread on the RuNet that the tiger had finally eaten the goat. Park employees quickly denied this rumor, and the Moskovsky Komsomolets publication even called this stuff “a provocation worse than Turkish.”
Well, in today's realities, becoming an idol of Russians turned out to be not very difficult. Even if you are a simple goat, you will still be strong, brave and charismatic. Although better, of course, is a tiger. Courageous and generous.
from an article by Moskovsky Komsomolets
The famous trainer Edgard Zapashny recommended that the animals be resettled, because if the instinct of the predator takes over and the goat dies, “everyone will be extremely sad, people will not forgive this to the management of the safari park.” Nevertheless, on December 4 it became known that the goat and the tiger would no longer be separated, having made a shed for Timur near the tiger’s home.
Director of the Primorsky Safari Park Dmitry Mezentsev told TJ that the situation as a whole is phenomenal, and this has never happened to the inhabitants of the park before. According to him, one of the reasons for what happened could be the courage of the goat, which the tiger did not expect.
The risk that a tiger will eat a goat is much less than that people living next to each other will do something bad to their neighbors. For me in this situation, the main thing is how animals and people relate to each other. It's like a kind of mirror. People can draw conclusions.
In 1336 in the village. Khoja-Ilgar, near Keshe (the territory of present-day Uzbekistan), a son, Timur ibn Taragai Barlas (history is known as Timur Tamerlane), was born into the family of a bek from the Barlas tribe. In Mongolian, the name Timur means "iron".
Timur Tamerlane is an emir who is associated with the last conquests of the Mongols in Asia. He led the Mongols and was only an emir, since not being a descendant of the house of Genghisids, he could not be a khan and bear this title. Although in 1370 he intermarried with this house and became their relative, taking the name Timur Gurgan.
For the first time, historical sources remember him starting in 1361 - this is the year of the beginning of his political career. This year he began to serve under Khan Togluku - a direct descendant of Genghis Khan.
He quickly increased his influence: first he was appointed to the post of adviser to the son of Khan Ilyas - Khoja - the ruler of Transoxiana, then he received the post of governor of the Kashkadarya vilayet (the possession of the khan). He always had his own cavalry detachment of 60 people with him.
After a couple of years, Timur became disliked by the khan and therefore was forced to flee. Having concluded a military alliance with Emir Hussein, he began to fight against the Mongols.
As a result of these wars, in 1370 he captured Transoxiana and became an emirate, taking the oath. The capital became Samarkand, an important center in Asia at that time.
Beginning in 1371, Tamerlane's army began to conquer new territories - until 1380, many of the neighboring territories and most of the territory of Afghanistan were captured. Over the next 10 years, Tamerlane conquered Georgia, Armenia, Khorezm, and in 1388 Tamerlane came into possession of the lands from the Pamirs to the Aral Sea.
Since 1389, the emir was at war with the Golden Horde. His main opponent was Tokhtamysh (descendant of Genghis Khan), whom he helped become khan of the Golden Horde in 1376.
In 1391, after the defeat of Tokhtamysh’s troops, Tamerlane ravaged the capital of the Horde, Sarai-Berke.
In 1394 Tamerlane conquered Persia, in 1398 he plundered Delhi, the capital of India, in 1401 he captured Damascus and conquered Syria, and in 1402 he plundered Ankara, the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
All his campaigns are divided into three large ones:
- three-year (campaign in Persia);
- five-year (war with the Golden Horde);
- seven years (campaign in Iran and war with the Ottoman Empire).
Tamerlane died in 1405 during a campaign in China. After him, his grandson Khalil Sultan seized control.
Tamerlane had 18 wives and four sons.
Timur did not even have a school education, but he knew the Persian language and loved history (they say that with his knowledge in this area he amazed Ibn Khaldun, the most famous Muslim historian).
Islam-today
