from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Tamerlane \Ta*mer*lane"\ (t[a^]*m[~e]r*l[=a]n"), prop. n.
A Tatar conquerer, also called {Timur} or {Timour}
(t[=e]*m[^o]r") or {Timur Bey}, also {Timur-Leng} or
{Timur-i-Leng} ('Timur the Lame'), which was corrupted to
Tamerlane. He was born in Central Asia, 1333, a member of the
Barslas, a Turkish Mongol tribe which had converted to Islam.
He died 1405. Though he claimed descent from Jenghiz Khan, it
is believed that he was in fact descended from a follower of
the Khan. By 1370, Tamerlane, a renowned warrior, began
consolidating his power among the various nomadic tribes of
Central Asia by conquering the entire region. He became a
ruler about 1370 of a realm whose capital was Samarkand;
conquered Persia, Central Asia, and in 1398 a great part of
India, including Delhi; waged war with the Turkish Sultan
Bajazet I. (Beyazid), whom he defeated at Ankara in 1402 and
took prisoner; and died while preparing to invade China. By
the end of his life in 1405, after 35 years of campaigns and
wars that left hundreds of thousands dead and enslaved, he
had successfully defeated Ottoman Turks, Hindus, The Golden
Horde, and other peoples and controlled an empire stretching
from the Aegean to the River Ganges and threatened the
trembling Kingdoms of Europe and the Eastern Roman Empire. He
is the {Tamerlaine} of the plays.
[Century Dict. 1906 + PJC]
Just at the moment when the Sultan (Bajazet) seemed to
have attained the pinnacle of his ambition, when his
authority was unquestioningly obeyed over the greater
part of the Byzantine Empire in Europe and Asia, when
the Christian states were regarding him with terror as
the scourge of the world, another and greater scourge
came to quell him, and at one stroke all the vast
fabric of empire which Bayezid (Beyazid or
B[=a]yez[imac]d) had so triumphantly erected was
shattered to the ground. This terrible conquerer was
Tim[=u]r the Tatar, or as we call him, "Tamerlane".
Tim[=u]r was of Turkish race, and was born near
Samarkand in 1333. He was consequently an old man of 70
when he came to encounter B[=a]yez[imac]d in 1402. It
had taken him many years to establish his authority
over a portion of the numerous divisions into which the
immense empire of Chingiz Khan had fallen after the
death of that stupendous conqueror. Tim[=u]r was but a
petty chief among many others: but at last he won his
way and became ruler of Samarkand and the whole
province of Transoxiana, or 'Beyond the River'
(M[=a]-war[=a]-n-nahr) as the Arabs called the country
north of the Oxus. Once fairly established in this
province, Tim[=u]r began to overrun the surrounding
lands, and during thirty years his ruthless armies
spread over the provinces of Asia, from Dehli to
Damascus, and from the Sea of Aral to the Persian Gulf.
The subdivision of the Moslem Empire into numerous
petty kingdoms rendered it powerless to meet the
overwhelming hordes which Tim[=u]r brought down from
Central Asia. One and all, the kings and princes of
Persia and Syria succumbed, and Tim[=u]r carried his
banners triumphantly as far as the frontier of Egypt,
where the brave Mamluk Sultans still dared to defy him.
He had so far left B[=a]yez[imac]d unmolested; partly
because he was too powerful to be rashly provoked, and
partly because Tim[=u]r respected the Sultan's valorous
deeds against the Christians: for Tim[=u]r, though a
wholesale butcher, was very conscientious in matters of
religion, and held that B[=a]yez[imac]d's fighting for
the Faith rightly covered a multitude of sins. --Poole,
Story of
Turkey, p. 63
[Century Dict. 1906]
Note: Timour (t[imac]*m[=oo]r"), Timur, or TAMERLANE, was the
second of the great conquerers whom central Asia sent
forth in the middle ages, and was born at Kesh, about
40 miles southeast of Samarkand, April 9, 1336. His
father was a Turkish chieftain and his mother claimed
descent from the great Genghis-Khan. When he became
tribal chieftain, Timour helped the Amir Hussein to
drive out the Kalmucks. Turkestan was thereupon divided
between them, but soon war broke out between the two
chiefs, and the death of Hussein in battle made Timour
master of all Turkestan. He now began his career of
conquest, overcoming the Getes, Khiva and Khorassin,
after storming Herat. His ever-widening circle of
possessions soon embraced Persia, Mesopotamia, Georgia,
and the Mongol state, Kiptchak. He threatened Moscow,
burned Azoo, captured Delhi, overran Syria, and stormed
Bagdad, which had revolted. At last, July 20, 1402,
Timour met the Sultan Bajazet of the Ottoman Turks, on
the plains of Ankara, captured him and routed his army,
thus becoming master of the Turkish empire. He took but
a short rest at his capital, Samarkand, and in his
eagerness to conquer China, led his army of 200,000
across the Jaxartes on the ice, and pushed rapidly on
for 300 miles, when his death, Feb. 18, 1405, saved the
independence of China. Though notorious for his acts of
cruelty -- he may have slaughtered 80,000 in Delhi --
he was a patron of the arts. In his reign of 35 years,
this chief of a small tribe, dependent on the Kalmucks,
became the ruler of the vast territory stretching from
Moscow to the Ganges. A number of writings said to have
been written by Timour have been preserved in Persian,
one of which, the Institutions, has been translated
into English. --The Student's Cyclopedia, 1897.
[PJC]
Note: There is a story about an incident when an
archaeologist opened Timur's tomb at the Gur-Amir
mausoleum in Samarkand, which was erected in 1404.
Timur and several of his descendants, including Ulugh
Beg, are interred in that magnificent structure in the
south-western side of Samarkand. In the mausoleum,
mosaics made out of light- and dark-blue glazed bricks
decorate the walls and the drum, and the tiled
geometrical designs of the cupola shine brightly in the
sun. Restoration work was started in 1967; the exterior
cupola and glazed decorations were restored before
that, in the 1950s. The mausoleum holds tombstones made
of marble and onyx, the tombstone of Timur is carved
from a slab of nephrite. The burials proper are placed
in a crypt under the mausoleum.
In 1941, a distinguished Soviet scientist, M.
Gerasimov, received permission to exhume Tamerlane's
body. On June 22, 1941, working in the Samarkand crypt,
he opened the sarcophagus to study the body and found
the inscription: "Whoever opens this will be defeated
by an enemy more fearsome than I." Hours later, Hitler
invaded Russia. Five weeks after the great Emir was
reinterred in 1942, the Germans surrendered at
Stalingrad.
Examination of the remains in Timur's tomb confirmed
that the body was tall, as was reported in the
histories, and had been wounded in the leg and arm.
The actual inscription on the tomb has been reported
variously:
"He whomsoever shall disturb the earthly resting place
of Timur-i-Lenk (Tamerlane), then his country shall
suffer such terrible retribution as the Hand of Allah
shall visit upon it."
"When I rise, the World will Tremble".
[PJC]
Timur's Legacy: The Architecture of Samarkand
Let he who doubt Our power and munificence look
upon Our buildings
Amir Timur, 1379 AD
Timur, better known in the West as Tamerlane from
his nickname Timur-i-leng or "Timur the Lame",
was the last of the great nomadic warriors to
sweep out of Central Asia and shake the world. As
befits a man styled "World Conqueror", we know a
lot about him -- and not all of it good. In 1336,
at Shakhrisabz in present-day Uzbekistan, the
wife of a minor chief of the Mongol Barlas clan
gave birth to a son with blood-filled palms, a
sure omen that the infant was predestined to
cause the death of many. He was given an
appropriate name -- Timur means "iron" in Turkish
-- and raised in the Turkic-Islamic tradition of
the surrounding steppe as a rider, archer and
swordsman.
Even by the harsh standards of the Mongol hordes,
Timur excelled. Before he was twenty years old he
had attracted a band of followers with whom he
ranged across the steppe raiding caravans and
rustling horses. In 1360 his skills as a
commander were rewarded when he was recognised as
chief of the Barlas clan. Over the next ten years
he steadily extended his influence over
Transoxiana -- the region between the Oxus and
Jaxartes Rivers centred on present-day Uzbekistan
-- acquiring wounds to his right arm and leg in
the process, and hence his nickname. In 1370 he
conquered Turkistan, the last surviving Mongol
Khanate, and declared himself Amir or
"Commander". He made the Silk Road city of
Samarkand his capital, and then embarked on a
series of military conquests that rocked Asia and
Europe to their very foundations.
For 35 years Timur's forces ranged far and wide,
repeatedly sweeping across Central Asia, Iran,
Turkey and northern India. In 1405 Timur was
preparing his greatest expedition ever, aimed at
conquering China, when he was struck down by
fever. Despite the best efforts of his doctors,
to the sound of massive thunderclaps and "foaming
like a camel dragged backwards by the rein",
Timur finally succumbed. The Ming Emperor must
have breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief when he
eventually heard the news.
Historians estimate that Timur, who personally
led his forces as far afield as Moscow and Delhi,
may have been responsible for the death of as
many as 15 million people. Yet he made little
attempt to consolidate his conquests, preferring
to mount regular, devastating attacks against his
neighbours before returning to his native
Transoxiana. As a consequence, the dynasty he
established proved to be short-lived, though in
1526 Timur's great, great, great grandson Babur
restored the family fortunes by conquering Delhi
and founding the resplendent Mogul Empire.
Timur must have been an enigma to his
contemporaries. Brutal and utterly ruthless, he
was nevertheless a man of culture. He is said to
have been illiterate, but fluent in Turkish and
Persian. Sources speak of his sharp wit and
hunger for knowledge. When not out and about
slaughtering his neighbours, he indulged in
passionate debate with scholars of history,
medicine and astronomy. He enjoyed playing chess.
Above all, he seems to have loved his capital,
Samarkand, and he spent much time between
campaigns embellishing this previously
undistinguished city. To help in this great
enterprise, he plundered cities like Damascus,
Baghdad, Isfahan and Delhi not just for the loot,
but for their skilled artisans, who were brought
back to make Samarkand a city worthy of the
"World Conqueror". As a consequence the warlike
Timur's most lasting and unlikely legacy remains
the unsurpassed architectural jewel of Central
Asia.
With Timur's death Transoxiana began a long
period of decline, culminating in gradual Russian
conquest during the 19th century. Samarkand had
long been inaccessible to outsiders because of
the xenophobia and religious bigotry of the
ruling amirs. This situation was compounded in
1920, when the Red Army seized control of the
region and began a process of Sovietisation. In
1924 Samarkand was included within the frontiers
of the new Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, and a
curtain of silence fell across the region with
Westerners, in particular, being rigorously
excluded.
Only in the 1980s did the veil begin to rise, and
then within a few short years the former USSR
disintegrated, resulting in the birth of
independent Uzbekistan in 1991. Although ruled by
a suspicious and innately cautious former Soviet
aparatchik, Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan is today
slowly opening to foreign tourism. It should do
well. The cities of Bukhara and Khiva, together
with Timur's capital at Samarkand, are truly
magnificent. In places, it's as though time stood
still. It didn't of course. The Soviets worked
long and hard to restore what remained of Timurid
Samarkand, and Uzbekistan stands to benefit
greatly as a result. Moreover, the process
continues apace, both in spiritual terms -- Timur
is now an Uzbek national hero -- and at a more
mundane level. Everywhere the chip of
stonemasons' hammers is to be heard, and a whole
new generation of skilled craftsmen is being
trained to restore the architectural legacy of
the "Iron Limper".
The historic heart of Samarkand is the Registan,
an open square dominated by three great madrassa,
or Islamic colleges. George Curzon, later to
become Viceroy of India, visited in 1899 and was
moved enough to describe the Registan as "the
noblest public square in the world". He
continues: "No European spectacle can be
adequately compared to it, in our inability to
point to an open space in any western city that
is commanded on three of its four sides by Gothic
cathedrals of the finest order". The architecture
is distinctively Timurid, being characterised by
an extraordinarily lavish use of colour,
especially emerald, azure, deep blue and gold.
The great domes are fluted, the vast porticoes
richly decorated with corkscrew columns and
intricately-patterned glazed tiles.
Astonishingly, the fa�ade of the Shir Dor
Madrassa on the east side of the square is
decorated with half-tiger, half-lion creatures
stalking deer, whilst a blazing sun with a human
face rises behind the beast of prey's back. In
Islam, such representational art is generally
forbidden, and it is wonderful that these clearly
heretical images have survived through the long
centuries since they were created.
Samarkand -- let alone Uzbekistan -- has too many
Timurid gems to describe in one short article,
but after the Registan, the monumental Bibi
Khanum Mosque is perhaps the most extraordinary
sight in the city. Built for Timur's chief wife,
Saray Mulk Khanum, this magnificent building was
financed by the plunder brought back from Delhi
in 1398; it is said that 95 elephants were used
in hauling marble for the mosque. On Bibi
Khanum's completion a chronicler was moved to
write: "Its dome would have been unique had it
not been for the heavens, and unique would have
been its portal had it not been for the Milky
Way". Even so, historians have shown that in his
plans for the Bibi Khanum, Timur's vision
exceeded the architectural possibilities of the
time. Quite simply, the lofty iwan (portico) and
the towering minarets were too ambitious for the
technology of the time -- especially in a land
prone to violent earthquakes. By all accounts,
parts of the giant mosque began to collapse
within months of its consecration. Today all
three massive azure domes have been restored, and
work still continues, though this time with
ferro-concrete supports hidden behind the
elaborate glazed tilework, on the lofty iwan and
minarets. When the restoration is complete in
around 2002, Uzbekistan will have yet another
architectural marvel to draw visitors.
Finally and fittingly we turn to the Gur-i Amir,
or "Tomb of the Ruler", Timur's own last resting
place. This fabulous structure, which was
completed in 1404, is dominated by the octagonal
mausoleum and its peerless fluted dome, azure in
colour, with 64 separate ribs. Within lie the
remains not only of Timur, but also of various
members of his family, including his grandson the
scholar-king Ulugh Beg. Timur's tomb is protected
by a single slab of jade, said to be the largest
in the world. Brought back by Ulugh Beg from
Mongolia in 1425, it was broken in half in the
18th century by the Persian ruler Nadir Shah, who
tried to remove it from the chamber. Carved into
the jade is an inscription in Arabic: "When I
rise, the World will Tremble".
Coincidence, no doubt, but on the night of June
22, 1941, the Russian Scientist M. Gerasimov
began his exhumation of Timur's remains. Within
hours Hitler's armies crashed across the Soviet
frontier signalling the beginning of the Nazi
invasion. Gerasimov's investigations showed that
Timur had been a tall man for his race and time,
lame, as recorded, in his right leg, and with a
wound to his right arm. Surprisingly, red hair
still clung to the skull from which Gerasimov
reconstructed a bronze bust. Eventually Timur's
remains were reinterred with full Muslim burial
rites, giving truth to the message thundered in
Arabic script three metres high from the
cylindrical drum of the great conqueror's
mausoleum: "Only God is Immortal".
--Andrew
Forbes/CPA
(Text copyright 2001.)
(from http://www.cpamedia.com/articles/20010215/)
[PJC]