Timur, was born 8th April 1336 in Kesh near Samarkand. Member of turkicized Barlas tribe, a Mongol subgroup that had settled in Transoxonia after taking part in Genghis Khan's son Jagatai's campaigns in that region. Jagatai Khans claimed suzerainty over the area but the country was in fact in a state of semi-anarchy. Timur began his life as a bandit leader. During this period, he received an arrow-wound in the leg, as a result of which he was nicknamed Timur i Lenk or Timur the Lame, corrupted in the West to Tamerlane. After the death in 1357 of Transoxonia's ruler, Amir Kazgan, Timur declared his fealty to the khan of nearby Kashgar, Tughluq Temur, who had overrun Transoxonia's chief city, Samarkand, in 1361. Tughluq Temur appointed his son Iljas Khoja as governor of Transoxonia, with Timur as his minister. But shortly afterward Timur fled and rejoined his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, the grandson of Amir Kazgan. They defeated Ilyas Khoja (1364) and set out to conquer Transoxonia, achieving firm possession of the region around 1366.About 1370 Timur turned against Husayn, besieged him in Balkh, and, after Husayn assassination, proclaimed himself as Samarkand sovereign of the Jagatai line of khans and restorer of the Mongol empire. For the next 10 years Timur fought against the khans of Jatah (eastern Turkestan) and Khorezm, finally occupying Kashgar in 1380.He gave armed support to Toktamish, who was the Mongol khan of the Crimea and a refugee an his court, against the Russians (who had risen against the khan of the Golden Horde, Mamai); and his troops defeated the Lithuanians near Poltava. In 1383 Timur began his conquests in Persia with capture of Herat. The Persian political and economic situation was extremely precarious. The signs of recovery visible under the later Mongol rulers known as Il-Khanid dynasty had been followed by setback after the death of the last Il-Khanid, Abu Said in 1334. The vacuum of power was filled by rival dynasties, torn by internal dissensions and unable to put up joint or effective resistance. Khorasan and all eastern Persia fell to him in 1383-85; Fars, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mesopotamia and Georgia all fell between 1386 and 1394.In the intervals, he was engaged with Toktamish, then khan of the Golden Horde whose forces invaded Azerbaijan in 1385 and Transoxonia in 1388,defeating Timur's generals. In 1391 Timur pursued Toktamish into the Russian steppes and defeated and dethroned him; but Toktamish raised a new army and invaded Caucasus in 1395. After his final defeat on the Kur River, Toktamish gave up the struggle. The revolt that broke out all over Persia while Timur was away on these campaigns, were repressed with ruthless vigor; whole cities were destroyed, their populations massacred and towers built of their skulls. In 1398 Timur invaded India on the pretext that the Muslim sultans of Delhi were showing excessive tolerance to their Hindu subjects. He crossed the Indus River on September 24 and, leaving a trail of carnage, marched on Delhi. The army of Delhi sultan Mahmud Tughluq was destroyed at Panipat on December 17,and Delhi was reduced to a mass of ruins, from which it took more than century to emerge. By April 1399 Timur was back in his own capital. An immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away; according to Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, 90 captured elephants were employed to carry stones from quarries to erect a mosque at Samarkand. Timur set out before the end of 1399 on his last great expedition, in order to punish the Mamluk sultan of Egypt and the Ottoman sultan Bayasid I for their seizures of certain of his territories. After restoring his control over Azerbaijan he marched on Syria' Aleppo was stormed and sacked, the Mamluk army defeated and Damascus occupied in 1401, the deportation of its artisans to Samarkand being a fatal blow to its prosperity. In 1401 Baghdad was also taken by storm, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred, and all its monuments were destroyed. After wintering in Georgia, Timur invaded Anatolia, destroyed Bayazid's army near Ankara (July 20,1402) and captured Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. Having received offers of submission from sultan of Egypt and from John VII (then co emperor of Byzantine empire with Manuel Palaeologus) Timur returned to Samarkand (1404) and prepared for an expedition to China. He set out at the end of December, fell ill at Otrar on Syr Darya west of Chimkent and died in February 1405.His body was embalmed, laid in an ebony coffin, and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried in the sumptuous tomb called Gur-e Amir.
After Timur's death his conquest were divided between two of his sons: Miranshah (d. 1407) received Iraq, Azerbaijan, Moghan, Shirvan and Georgia, while Shah Rokh was left with Khorasan. Between 1406-1417 Shah Rokh extended his holdings to include those of Miranshah as well as Mazanderan, Seistan, Transoxonia, Fars and Kerman, thus reuniting Timur's empire, exept for Syria and Khuzistan. Shah Rokh also retained a nominal suzerainty over China and India. During Shah Rokh's reign 1405-47, economic prosperity was restored and much of the damage wrought by Timur's campaigns was repaired. Trading and artistic community were brought into capital city of Herat, were a library was founded, and the capital became the center of a renewed and artistically brilliant Persian culture. In the realm of architecture, the Timurids drew on and developed many Seljuq traditions. Turquoise and blue tiles forming intricate and geometric patterns decorated the facades of buildings. The schools of miniature painting flourished under the Timurids in Shiraz, Tabriz and Herat. Internal rivalry eroded Timurid solidarity soon after Shah Rokh's death. The years 1449-69 were marked by a constant struggle between the Timurid Abu Sa'id and the Uzbek confederations of Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koynlu. When Abu Sa'id was killed 1n 1469 the Ak Koyunlu ruled unopposed in the west while the Timurids receded to Khorasan. Nevertheless the arts, particularly literature, historiography and miniature painting, continued to flourish; the court of the last great Timurid Husayn Baygarah (1478-1506) supported such luminaries as the poet Jami, the painters Mirkhwand and Khwandamir. The vizier Mir Ali Shir established Chagatai Turkish literature and fostered a revival in Persian. Although the last Timurid of Herat, Badi az Zaman finally fell to the armies of the Uzbek Muhammad Shaibani in 1506, the Timurid ruler of Fergana, Zahir-ud-Din Babur, survived the collapse of dynasty and established the line of Mughal emperors in India in 1526.
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Originally Posted by Enros
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