Signs from Allah: History, Science and Faith in Islam
52. Timur of Samarqand, Conqueror of 5 Empires - Part 1 of 2
By Prof DrNazeer Ahmed, PhD
Concord, CA
By the year 1395, the Byzantine capital of Constantinople was surrounded on all sides by Ottoman territories. The inexorable advance of the Turks had made them masters of southeastern Europe and Anatolia. Ottoman cavalry had crossed the River Danube and marched onto the plains of Hungary. Desperate to save his throne, the Greek Emperor Manuel appealed to Pope Boniface IX and the sovereigns of Europe for help.
In 1396, the counts and barons of Europe answered the call. Taking time off from their civil strife and the Hundred Years War, the soldiers of the Cross from France, Germany, England, Holland and Hungary met the Turks at the Battle of Nicopolis. The Crusaders suffered a crushing defeat and victory belonged to Ottoman Sultan Bayazid.
After Nicopolis, Europe had no stomach to fight and became more interested in trade with the fledging Ottoman Empire. Bayazid proceeded to lay siege to the Byzantine capital. Dejected, Emperor Manuel was preparing to surrender Constantinople to Sultan Bayazid when help arrived from an unexpected quarter, namely, Timur of Samarqand.
Throughout the 13th and 14th centuries, the Pope and the monarchs of Europe made a concerted effort to woo the Mongols. The fate of Asia, indeed of the Old World, hung in the balance, as the Mongol princes toyed with their preference first for Christianity, then for Islam and yet at other times for Buddhism. After the death of Genghiz Khan, his vast empire was divided into four major regions. One was the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty of China ruled by the Ka-Khans (meaning, the Great Khans). Kublai Khan (1268-1294), grandson of Genghiz, was the greatest ruler of that dynasty. The second was the Chagtai Empire (named for the son of Genghiz), centered in Samarqand and including the vast steppes of Central Asia as well as the fertile valley of Farghana and extending south to Afghanistan. The third was Persia, ruled by the Il-Khans (meaning, deputies of the Great Khan). The fourth was the vast region between Hungary and the Caspian Sea, including much of what is today Russia, which was ruled by the Tatars (called the Golden Horde because Batu, the son of Jochi and grandson of Genghiz Khan had an emblem of gold on his tent).
By the year 1300, Islam had won the battle of the heart over Christianity and Buddhism and the Il-Khans of Persia, the Chagtai of Central Asia and the Tatars of the Volga had all accepted Islam. Only Mongolia and China remained outside the fold of Islam and the Ka-Khans were submerged among the Chinese. In Russia and Central Asia, the Mongols exercised their authority through their governors and satraps. By common agreement, these satraps were Tatars, a Turkoman people related to but otherwise separate and distinct from the Mongols. The Tatars had been conquered by Genghiz Khan but had later joined the Mongol armies in their invasions of Khorasan, Russia and Persia. A truce existed between the Mongols and the Tatars whereby sovereignty would belong to the Mongols while the Tatars would serve them as their administrators and regents.
In the first half of the 14th century, by the year 1350, all four of the Mongol regions experienced civil wars and a breakup of central authority. The Il-Khanid Empire in Persia fell apart after the death of Prince Abu Sayeed. In the latter half of the 14th century, Persia was ruled by a host of princes, called the Muzaffars. Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Herat each had its own sovereign. These petty princes waged war against each other and continuously raised taxes on the peasantry to pay for their internal fights. The peasantry suffered. Similarly, the Chagtai region, which extended from Afghanistan to Mongolia, was contested between various warlords. The Tatars of the Volga, a loose collection of Mongol tribes, was united only when they raided the Russian hinterlands for booty. Indeed, the Tatars burned down Moscow in 1382. Out of this period of instability rose Timur, commonly known as Timurlane, who was perhaps the greatest conqueror the world has ever known.
Timur is studied in regional histories as the conqueror who defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara (1402) or the man who slaughtered over 100,000 persons in Delhi (1399). Such a narrow approach does injustice to this great conqueror. The extent of Timur’s conquests must be measured in the context of observations made by writers of the era. Ibn Batuta, writing in 1360, said that there were seven great emperors in the world: (1) The Merinide Sultan of Morocco, (2) The Mamluke Sultan of Egypt, (3) The Ottoman Sultan of Turkey, (4) The Il-Khan of Persia, (5) The Khan of the Chagtai Empire in Central Asia, (6) The Tughlaq Emperor of India, and (7) The Ming Emperor of China. One may disregard the Sultan of Morocco whose name Ibn Batuta had to include to be politically correct to his own sovereign. Timur conquered five of the other six emperors. From Delhi to Moscow, from Amu Darya to the Sinai desert of Egypt, the flag of Timur fluttered unchallenged. He conquered Russia and destroyed the power of the Tatars of the Volga (1385-1389). He captured and burned Isfahan (1398) and Delhi (1399) and brought an end to the Tughlaq dynasty of India. He took and burned Damascus (1401) and forced the Mamlukes of Egypt to pay him tribute. He defeated the Ottomans, captured Bayazid at the Battle of Ankara (1402) and almost obliterated the Ottoman Empire in its infancy. Only China escaped the wrath of his sword because Timur died on his way to conquering that ancient land (1405).
Timur’s Empire extended over seven million square miles, an area more than double that of the United States. The rise of modern Russia may be dated from the time of Timur, because it was he who destroyed the power of the Volga Tatars under whose yoke the Russians had toiled for 200 years. It was only after the death of Timur that the Dukes of Moscow and St Petersburg started the consolidation of their national territory, changing in the process the history of the world.
In making this assessment of Timur, it must be remembered that he was a devout Muslim who carried a portable royal mosque with his army. His entourage always included ulema and kadis. But it must also be remembered that most of his conquests-and his destructions-were also directed at Muslims. Islamic history, since the time of Muawiya, has been subject to a tension between the super-ordinate values of Islam and the more mundane values of material gain and personal ego. We see this tension in the extreme in the person of Timur. Whenever he conquered a territory, he took great care not to destroy the mosques and Sufi tombs or to kill the ulema. But he was a born warrior whose instincts for battle impelled him to seek the mastery of the known world. The secular instincts in him won over the sacred, the love of power triumphed over the injunctions not to shed the blood of fellow believers. He was lenient to those who accepted his mastership but was merciless to those who opposed him. These two currents, the secular and the sacred, run in parallel throughout Islamic history.
Timur was a Tatar and was born in Khorasan near Samarqand in 1327. In an age when the royal scepter was won by the sword, Central Asia was the cradle of conquerors and would-be conquerors. The horsemen of Central Asia poured forth time and again, conquering the more settled inhabitants of northern India, Persia and territories beyond. In time, they would settle down among the local population, only to be invaded by a fresh wave of nomads from the Asian plateau. Timur grew up in this cradle of conquerors, embodying in his person an instinct for war and intrigue that has rarely been surpassed in world history.
As a young man, Timur was influenced by a Sufi ShaykhZainuddin and he retained a healthy respect for things spiritual. The Chagtai Empire had all but disintegrated. The last of the Mongol Chagtai rulers had retreated beyond the Amu Darya. The Mongol Khan Tughlaq had appointed Kazgan, a Tatar, as the viceroy of Samarqand. Timur sought his first job serving Kazgan. The young man’s valor was soon recognized at the court and he became a favorite of the bahadurs, the elite guard. Kazgan was so impressed by the young man that he offered his own granddaughter, the beautiful AljaiKhatun, for whom the beautiful tomb of Bibi Khanum in Samarqand is named.
Timur’s marriage to the AljaiKhatun Agha, granddaughter of Kazgan, was a happy one. Aljai, like Timur, was a Muslim. Like her Tatar sisters from Central Asia, she rode a horse without a veil, participated in affairs of the state, accompanied her husband to theaters of war and ministered to public affairs in her domain of authority. She bore Timur a son who was named Jehangir. In recognition of Timur’s services, Kazgan made him a Ming-bashi (leader of 1,000 horsemen). But the times were too unstable for Timur to enjoy his peace and quiet for long. The region was seething with unrest, filled with armed men, able and ambitious, each with his dream of glory and riches.
Kazgan was killed in an internal squabble among the Tatars and the territory was thrown into chaos. To restore order, the Mongol Khan Tughlaq descended from the north. Timur supported Tughlaq and was rewarded with the title Tuman-Bashi, leader of 10,000 horsemen. But when Tughlaq returned north to his home base, his tyrannical general Bikijuk turned on the Tatars, imprisoned their learned men and carried off their women and children. Timur resisted, did what he could to save the women and the children, but the dissensions among the Tatars were too deep for united action. When the Mongol Khan Tughlaq heard that Timur had fought his appointed general, he gave orders for Timur’s capture and death. With the instincts of a shrewd warrior, Timur sensed a disaster and fled south with his bride and his loyal followers.
Great men are made by adversity. Over the next several years, Timur wandered through the hills of Afghanistan and the deserts of Turkoman lands. He felt the scorching heat of the desert and experienced the blistering winds of the Hindu Kush Mountains. It was during these wanderings, while trying to help the chief of Qandahar put down a local rebellion, that Timur was struck by an arrow to his foot, which left him limping for the rest of his life and earned him the title, Timurlane (TimurLeng, or Timur the Lame).
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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