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Timur 1336 -
Timur[a] (Chagatay: Temür, lit. 'Iron'; 9 April 1336 – 17–19
February 1405), later Timur Gurkani (Chagatay: Temür Küregen), was a
Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day
Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid
dynasty. As an undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the
greatest military leaders and tacticians in history. Timur is also considered a
great patron of art and architecture as he interacted with intellectuals such
as Ibn Khaldun and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid
Renaissance.:(341–342) He was born into the Barlas confederation in
Transoxiana (in modern-day Uzbekistan) on 9 April 1336, Timur gained control of
the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns
across Western, South and Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Southern Russia,
defeating in the process the Khans of the Golden Horde, the Mamluks of Egypt
and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the late Delhi Sultanate of India
and emerging as the most powerful ruler in the Islamic World. From these
conquests, he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly
after his death.
Timur was the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, and
his empire set the stage for the rise of the more structured and lasting
Islamic gunpowder empires in the 16th and 17th centuries. Timur was of both
Turkic and Mongol descent, and, while unlikely a direct descendant on either
side, he shared a common ancestor with Genghis Khan on his father's side,
though some authors have suggested his mother may have been a descendant of
Khan. He clearly sought to invoke the legacy of the latter's conquests during
his lifetime.
Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan (died
1227) and according to Gérard Chaliand, saw himself as Genghis Khan's
heir. According to Beatrice Forbes Manz, "in his formal correspondence
Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of
Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a
re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers."
To legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language,
referred to himself as the "Sword of Islam". He was a patron of
educational and religious institutions. He converted nearly all the Borjigin
leaders to Islam during his lifetime. Timur decisively defeated the Christian
Knights Hospitaller at the Siege of Smyrna, styling himself a ghazi. By the end
of his reign, Timur had gained complete control over all the remnants of the
Chagatai Khanate, the Ilkhanate, and the Golden Horde, and even attempted to
restore the Yuan dynasty in China. Timur's armies were inclusively multi-ethnic
and were feared throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe, sizable parts of which his
campaigns laid waste.
Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million
people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time. Of all the
areas he conquered, Khwarazm suffered the most from his expeditions, as it rose
several times against him. Timur was the grandfather of the Timurid sultan,
astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to
1449, and the great-great-great-grandfather of Babur (1483–1530), founder
of the Mughal Empire, which then ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent.
Through his father, Timur claimed to be a descendant of Tumanay Khan, a
male-line ancestor he shared with Genghis Khan. Tumanay's great-great grandson
Qarachar Noyan was a minister for the emperor who later assisted the latter's
son Chagatai in the governorship of Transoxiana. Though there are not many
mentions of Qarachar in 13th and 14th century records, later Timurid sources
greatly emphasised his role in the early history of the Mongol Empire. These
histories also state that Genghis Khan later established the "bond of
fatherhood and sonship" by marrying Chagatai's daughter to Qarachar.
Through his alleged descent from this marriage, Timur claimed kinship with the
Chagatai Khans. The origins of Timur's mother, Tekina Khatun, are less clear.
The Zafarnama merely states her name without giving any information regarding
her background.
Writing in 1403, Johannes de Galonifontibus, Archbishop of Sultaniyya, claimed
that she was of lowly origin. The Mu'izz al-Ansab, written decades later, says
that she was related to the Yasa'uri tribe, whose lands bordered that of the
Barlas. Ibn Khaldun recounted that Timur himself described to him his mother's
descent from the legendary Persian hero Manuchehr. Ibn Arabshah suggested that
she was a descendant of Genghis Khan. The 18th century Books of Timur identify
her as the daughter of 'Sadr al-Sharia', which is believed to refer to the
Hanafi scholar Ubayd Allah al-Mahbubi of Bukhara.
Timur was born in Transoxiana near the city of Kesh (modern Shahrisabz,
Uzbekistan), some 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of Samarkand, part of what was
then the Chagatai Khanate. His name Temur means "Iron" in the
Chagatai language, his mother-tongue (cf. Uzbek Temir, Turkish Demir). It is
cognate with Genghis Khan's birth name of Temüjin.
Later Timurid dynastic histories claim that Timur was born on 8 April 1336, but
most sources from his lifetime give ages that are consistent with a birthdate
in the late 1320s. Historian Beatrice Forbes Manz suspects the 1336 date was
designed to tie Timur to the legacy of Abu Sa'id Bahadur Khan, the last ruler
of the Ilkhanate descended from Hulagu Khan, who died in that year. He was a
member of the Barlas, a Mongolian tribe that had been turkified in many
aspects.
His father, Taraghai was described as a minor noble of this tribe. However,
Manz believes that Timur may have later understated the social position of his
father, so as to make his own successes appear more remarkable. She states that
though he is not believed to have been especially powerful, Taraghai was
reasonably wealthy and influential. This is shown by Timur later returning to
his birthplace following the death of his father in 1360, suggesting concern
over his estate. Taraghai's social significance is further hinted at by
Arabshah, who described him as a magnate in the court of Amir Husayn Qara'unas.
In addition to this, the father of the great Amir Hamid Kereyid of Moghulistan
is stated as a friend of Taraghai's. In his childhood, Timur and a small band
of followers raided travelers for goods, especially animals such as sheep,
horses, and cattle. Around 1363, it is believed that Timur tried to steal a
sheep from a shepherd but was shot by two arrows, one in his right leg and
another in his right hand, where he lost two fingers. Both injuries crippled
him for life. Some believe that Timur suffered his crippling injuries while
serving as a mercenary to the khan of Sistan in Khorasan in what is today the
Dashti Margo in southwest Afghanistan. Timur's injuries have given him the
names of Timur the Lame and Tamerlane by Europeans.
Military leader:
About 1360, Timur gained prominence as a military leader whose troops were
mostly Turkic tribesmen of the region. He took part in campaigns in Transoxiana
with the Khan of the Chagatai Khanate. Allying himself both in cause and by
family connection with Qazaghan, the dethroner and destroyer of Volga Bulgaria,
he invaded Khorasan at the head of a thousand horsemen. This was the second
military expedition that he led, and its success led to further operations,
among them the subjugation of Khwarezm and Urgench. Following Qazaghan's
murder, disputes arose among the many claimants to sovereign power. Tughlugh
Timur of Kashgar, the Khan of the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, another descendant
of Genghis Khan, invaded, interrupting this infighting. Timur was sent to
negotiate with the invader but joined with him instead and was rewarded with
Transoxania. At about this time, his father died and Timur also became chief of
the Berlas. Tughlugh then attempted to set his son Ilyas Khoja over
Transoxania, but Timur repelled this invasion with a smaller force.
Rise to power:
It was in this period that Timur reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of
figureheads while he ruled in their name. Also during this period, Timur and
his brother-in-law Amir Husayn, who were at first fellow fugitives and
wanderers, became rivals and antagonists. The relationship between them became
strained after Husayn abandoned efforts to carry out Timur's orders to finish
off Ilya Khoja (former governor of Mawarannah) close to Tashkent. Timur gained
followers in Balkh, consisting of merchants, fellow tribesmen, Muslim clergy,
aristocracy and agricultural workers, because of his kindness in sharing his
belongings with them. This contrasted Timur's behavior with that of Husayn, who
alienated these people, took many possessions from them via his heavy tax laws
and selfishly spent the tax money building elaborate structures.
Around 1370, Husayn surrendered to Timur and was later assassinated, which
allowed Timur to be formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh. He married Husayn's
wife, Saray Mulk Khanum, a descendant of Genghis Khan, allowing him to become
imperial ruler of the Chaghatay tribe.
Legitimization of Timur's rule:
Timur's Turco-Mongolian heritage provided opportunities and challenges as he
sought to rule the Mongol Empire and the Muslim world. According to the Mongol
traditions, Timur could not claim the title of khan or rule the Mongol Empire
because he was not a descendant of Genghis Khan. Therefore, Timur set up a
puppet Chaghatay Khan, Suyurghatmish, as the nominal ruler of Balkh as he
pretended to act as a "protector of the member of a Chinggisid line, that
of Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi". Timur instead used the title of Amir
meaning general, and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxania.
To reinforce this position, Timur claimed the title Guregen (royal son-in-law)
when he married Saray Mulk Khanum, a princess of Chinggisid descent. As with
the title of Khan, Timur similarly could not claim the supreme title of the
Islamic world, Caliph, because the "office was limited to the Quraysh, the
tribe of the Prophet Muhammad".
Therefore, Timur reacted to the challenge by creating a myth and image of
himself as a "supernatural personal power" ordained by God. Otherwise
he was described as a spiritual descendant of Ali, thus taken lineage of both
to Genghis Khan and the Quraysh.
Period of expansion:
Timur spent the next 35 years in various wars and expeditions. He not only
consolidated his rule at home by the subjugation of his foes, but sought
extension of territory by encroachments upon the lands of foreign potentates.
His conquests to the west and northwest led him to the lands near the Caspian
Sea and to the banks of the Ural and the Volga. Conquests in the south and
south-West encompassed almost every province in Persia, including Baghdad,
Karbala and Northern Iraq. One of the most formidable of Timur's opponents was
another Mongol ruler, a descendant of Genghis Khan named Tokhtamysh. After
having been a refugee in Timur's court, Tokhtamysh became ruler both of the
eastern Kipchak and the Golden Horde. After his accession, he quarreled with
Timur over the possession of Khwarizm and Azerbaijan. However, Timur still
supported him against the Russians and in 1382 Tokhtamysh invaded the Muscovite
dominion and burned Moscow.
Orthodox tradition states that later, in 1395 Timur, having reached the
frontier of the Principality of Ryazan, had taken Elets and started advancing
towards Moscow. Great Prince Vasily I of Moscow went with an army to Kolomna
and halted at the banks of the Oka River. The clergy brought the famed
Theotokos of Vladimir icon from Vladimir to Moscow. Along the way people prayed
kneeling: "O Mother of God, save the land of Russia!" Suddenly,
Timur's armies retreated. In memory of this miraculous deliverance of the
Russian land from Timur on 26 August, the all-Russian celebration in honor of
the Meeting of the Vladimir Icon of the Most Holy Mother of God was
established.
Conquest of Persia:
Emir Timur's army attacks the survivors of the town of Nerges, in Georgia, in
the spring of 1396. After the death of Abu Sa'id, ruler of the Ilkhanate, in
1335, there was a power vacuum in Persia. In the end, Persia was split amongst
the Muzaffarids, Kartids, Eretnids, Chobanids, Injuids, Jalayirids, and
Sarbadars. In 1383, Timur started his lengthy military conquest of Persia,
though he already ruled over much of Persian Khorasan by 1381, after Khwaja
Mas'ud, of the Sarbadar dynasty surrendered. Timur began his Persian campaign
with Herat, capital of the Kartid dynasty. When Herat did not surrender he
reduced the city to rubble and massacred most of its citizens; it remained in
ruins until Shah Rukh ordered its reconstruction around 1415.
Timur then sent a General to capture rebellious Kandahar. With the capture of
Herat the Kartid kingdom surrendered and became vassals of Timur; it would
later be annexed outright less than a decade later in 1389 by Timur's son Miran
Shah. Timur then headed west to capture the Zagros Mountains, passing through
Mazandaran. During his travel through the north of Persia, he captured the then
town of Tehran, which surrendered and was thus treated mercifully. He laid
siege to Soltaniyeh in 1384. Khorasan revolted one year later, so Timur
destroyed Isfizar, and the prisoners were cemented into the walls alive. The
next year the kingdom of Sistan, under the Mihrabanid dynasty, was ravaged, and
its capital at Zaranj was destroyed.
Timur then returned to his capital of Samarkand, where he began planning for
his Georgian campaign and Golden Horde invasion. In 1386, Timur passed through
Mazandaran as he had when trying to capture the Zagros. He went near the city
of Soltaniyeh, which he had previously captured but instead turned north and
captured Tabriz with little resistance, along with Maragha. He ordered heavy
taxation of the people, which was collected by Adil Aqa, who was also given
control over Soltaniyeh. Adil was later executed because Timur suspected him of
corruption. Timur then went north to begin his Georgian and Golden Horde
campaigns, pausing his full-scale invasion of Persia. When he returned, he
found his generals had done well in protecting the cities and lands he had
conquered in Persia. Though many rebelled, and his son Miran Shah, who may have
been regent, was forced to annex rebellious vassal dynasties, his holdings
remained. So he proceeded to capture the rest of Persia, specifically the two
major southern cities of Isfahan and Shiraz.
When he arrived with his army at Isfahan in 1387, the city immediately
surrendered; he treated it with relative mercy as he normally did with cities
that surrendered (unlike Herat). However, after Isfahan revolted against
Timur's taxes by killing the tax collectors and some of Timur's soldiers, he
ordered the massacre of the city's citizens; the death toll is reckoned at
between 100,000 and 200,000. An eye-witness counted more than 28 towers
constructed of about 1,500 heads each. This has been described as a
"systematic use of terror against towns...an integral element of
Tamerlane's strategic element", which he viewed as preventing bloodshed by
discouraging resistance. His massacres were selective and he spared the
artistic and educated. This would later influence the next great Persian
conqueror: Nader Shah.
Timur then began a five-year campaign to the west in 1392, attacking Persian
Kurdistan. In 1393, Shiraz was captured after surrendering, and the Muzaffarids
became vassals of Timur, though prince Shah Mansur rebelled but was defeated,
and the Muzafarids were annexed. Shortly after Georgia was devastated so that
the Golden Horde could not use it to threaten northern Iran. In the same year,
Timur caught Baghdad by surprise in August by marching there in only eight days
from Shiraz. Sultan Ahmad Jalayir fled to Syria, where the Mamluk Sultan Barquq
protected him and killed Timur's envoys. Timur left the Sarbadar prince Khwaja
Mas'ud to govern Baghdad, but he was driven out when Ahmad Jalayir returned.
Ahmad was unpopular but got help from Qara Yusuf of the Kara Koyunlu; he fled
again in 1399, this time to the Ottomans.
Tokhtamysh–Timur war:
In the meantime, Tokhtamysh, now khan of the Golden Horde, turned against his
patron and in 1385 invaded Azerbaijan. The inevitable response by Timur
resulted in the Tokhtamysh–Timur war. In the initial stage of the war,
Timur won a victory at the Battle of the Kondurcha River. After the battle
Tokhtamysh and some of his army were allowed to escape. After Tokhtamysh's
initial defeat, Timur invaded Muscovy to the north of Tokhtamysh's holdings.
Timur's army burned Ryazan and advanced on Moscow. He was pulled away before
reaching the Oka River by Tokhtamysh's renewed campaign in the south.
In the first phase of the conflict with Tokhtamysh, Timur led an army of over
100,000 men north for more than 700 miles into the steppe. He then rode west
about 1,000 miles advancing in a front more than 10 miles wide. During this
advance, Timur's army got far enough north to be in a region of very long
summer days causing complaints by his Muslim soldiers about keeping a long
schedule of prayers. It was then that Tokhtamysh's army was boxed in against
the east bank of the Volga River in the Orenburg region and destroyed at the
Battle of the Kondurcha River, in 1391.
In the second phase of the conflict, Timur took a different route against the
enemy by invading the realm of Tokhtamysh via the Caucasus region. In 1395,
Timur defeated Tokhtamysh in the Battle of the Terek River, concluding the
struggle between the two monarchs. Tokhtamysh was unable to restore his power
or prestige, and he was killed about a decade later in the area of present-day
Tyumen. During the course of Timur's campaigns, his army destroyed Sarai, the
capital of the Golden Horde, and Astrakhan, subsequently disrupting the Golden
Horde's Silk Road. The Golden Horde no longer held power after their losses to
Timur.
Ismailis:
In May 1393, Timur's army invaded the Anjudan, crippling the Ismaili village
only a year after his assault on the Ismailis in Mazandaran. The village was
prepared for the attack, evidenced by its fortress and system of tunnels.
Undeterred, Timur's soldiers flooded the tunnels by cutting into a channel
overhead. Timur's reasons for attacking this village are not yet well
understood. However, it has been suggested that his religious persuasions and
view of himself as an executor of divine will may have contributed to his
motivations. The Persian historian Khwandamir explains that an Ismaili presence
was growing more politically powerful in Persian Iraq. A group of locals in the
region was dissatisfied with this and, Khwandamir writes, these locals
assembled and brought up their complaint with Timur, possibly provoking his
attack on the Ismailis there.
Campaign against the Tughlaq dynasty:
Timur defeated the Sultan of Delhi, Nasir Al-Din Mahmud Tughluq, in the winter
of 1397–1398.
In 1398, Timur invaded northern India, attacking the Delhi Sultanate ruled by
Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq of the Tughlaq dynasty. After crossing
the Indus River on 30 September 1398, he sacked Tulamba and massacred its
inhabitants. Then he advanced and captured Multan by October. His invasion was
unopposed as most of the Indian nobility surrendered without a fight, however
he did encounter resistance from the united army of Rajputs and Muslims at
Bhatner under the command of the Rajput king Dulachand. Dulachand initially
opposed Timur but when hard-pressed he considered surrender. He was locked
outside the walls of Bhatner by his brother and was later killed by Timur. The
garrison of Bhatner then fought and were slaughtered to the last man. Bhatner
was looted and burned to the ground. While on his march towards Delhi, Timur
was opposed by the Jat peasantry, who would loot caravans and then disappear in
the forests, Timur had 2,000 Jats killed and many taken captive. But the
Sultanate at Delhi did nothing to stop his advance.
Capture of Delhi (1398):
The battle took place on 17 December 1398. Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah
Tughluq and the army of Mallu Iqbal had war elephants armored with chain mail
and poison on their tusks. As his Tatar forces were afraid of the elephants,
Timur ordered his men to dig a trench in front of their positions. Timur then
loaded his camels with as much wood and hay as they could carry. When the war
elephants charged, Timur set the hay on fire and prodded the camels with iron
sticks, causing them to charge at the elephants, howling in pain: Timur had
understood that elephants were easily panicked. Faced with the strange
spectacle of camels flying straight at them with flames leaping from their
backs, the elephants turned around and stampeded back toward their own lines.
Timur capitalized on the subsequent disruption in the forces of Nasir-ud-Din
Mahmud Shah Tughluq, securing an easy victory. Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq
fled with remnants of his forces.
Delhi was sacked and left in ruins. Before the battle for Delhi, Timur executed
100,000 captives. The capture of the Delhi Sultanate was one of Timur's
greatest victories, as at that time, Delhi was one of the richest cities in the
world. After Delhi fell to Timur's army, uprisings by its citizens against the
Turkic-Mongols began to occur, causing a retaliatory bloody massacre within the
city walls. After three days of citizens uprising within Delhi, it was said
that the city reeked of the decomposing bodies of its citizens with their heads
being erected like structures and the bodies left as food for the birds by
Timur's soldiers. Timur's invasion and destruction of Delhi continued the chaos
that was still consuming India, and the city would not be able to recover from
the great loss it suffered for almost a century.
Campaigns in the Levant:
Before the end of 1399, Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the
Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Nasir-ad-Din Faraj. Bayezid
began annexing the territory of Turkmen and Muslim rulers in Anatolia. As Timur
claimed sovereignty over the Turkoman rulers, they took refuge behind him. In
1400, Timur invaded Armenia and Georgia. Of the surviving population, more than
60,000 of the local people were captured as slaves, and many districts were
depopulated. He also sacked Sivas in Asia Minor. Then Timur turned his
attention to Syria, sacking Aleppo, and Damascus. The city's inhabitants were
massacred, except for the artisans, who were deported to Samarkand. Timur
invaded Baghdad in June 1401. After the capture of the city, 20,000 of its
citizens were massacred. Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at
least two severed human heads to show him. When they ran out of men to kill,
many warriors killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign, and when they
ran out of prisoners to kill, many resorted to beheading their own wives.
Invasion of Anatolia:
In the meantime, years of insulting letters had passed between Timur and
Bayezid. Both rulers insulted each other in their own way while Timur preferred
to undermine Bayezid's position as a ruler and play down the significance of
his military successes. This is the excerpt from one of Timur's letters
addressed to Ottoman sultan: "Believe me, you are but pismire ant: don't
seek to fight the elephants for they'll crush you under their feet. Shall a
petty prince such as you are contend with us? But your rodomontades
(braggadocio) are not extraordinary; for a Turcoman never spake with judgement.
If you don't follow our counsels you will regret it".
Finally, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara on
20 July 1402. Bayezid was captured in battle and subsequently died in
captivity, initiating the twelve-year Ottoman Interregnum period. Timur's
stated motivation for attacking Bayezid and the Ottoman Empire was the
restoration of Seljuq authority. Timur saw the Seljuks as the rightful rulers
of Anatolia as they had been granted rule by Mongol conquerors, illustrating
again Timur's interest with Genghizid legitimacy. In December 1402, Timur
besieged and took the city of Smyrna, a stronghold of the Christian Knights
Hospitalers, thus he referred to himself as ghazi or "Warrior of
Islam". A mass beheading was carried out in Smyrna by Timur's soldiers.
With the Treaty of Gallipoli in February 1402, Timur was furious with the
Genoese and Venetians, as their ships ferried the Ottoman army to safety in
Thrace. As Lord Kinross reported in The Ottoman Centuries, the Italians
preferred the enemy they could handle to the one they could not. During the
early interregnum, Bayezid I's son Mehmed Çelebi acted as Timur's
vassal. Unlike other princes, Mehmed minted coins that had Timur's name stamped
as "Demur han Gürgân", alongside his own as "Mehmed
bin Bayezid han" This was probably an attempt on Mehmed's part to justify
to Timur his conquest of Bursa after the Battle of Ulubad. After Mehmed
established himself in Rum, Timur had already begun preparations for his return
to Central Asia, and took no further steps to interfere with the status quo in
Anatolia. While Timur was still in Anatolia, Qara Yusuf assaulted Baghdad and
captured it in 1402. Timur returned to Persia and sent his grandson Abu Bakr
ibn Miran Shah to reconquer Baghdad, which he proceeded to do. Timur then spent
some time in Ardabil, where he gave Ali Safavi, leader of the Safaviyya, a
number of captives. Subsequently, he marched to Khorasan and then to
Samarkhand, where he spent nine months celebrating and preparing to invade
Mongolia and China.
Attempts to attack the Ming dynasty :
Timur had aligned himself with the remnants of the Northern Yuan dynasty in his
attempts to conquer Ming China. The fortress at Jiayu Pass was strengthened due
to fear of an invasion by Timur.
Timurid Empire at Timur's death in 1405:
By 1368, Han Chinese forces had driven the Mongols out of China. The first of
the new Ming dynasty's emperors, the Hongwu Emperor, and his son, the Yongle
Emperor, produced tributary states of many Central Asian countries. The
suzerain-vassal relationship between Ming empire and Timurid existed for a long
time. In 1394, Hongwu's ambassadors eventually presented Timur with a letter
addressing him as a subject. He had the ambassadors Fu An, Guo Ji, and Liu Wei
detained. Neither Hongwu's next ambassador, Chen Dewen (1397), nor the
delegation announcing the accession of the Yongle Emperor fared any better.
Timur eventually planned to invade China. To this end Timur made an alliance
with surviving Mongol tribes based in Mongolia and prepared all the way to
Bukhara. Engke Khan sent his grandson Öljei Temür Khan, also known as
"Buyanshir Khan" after he converted to Islam while at the court of
Timur in Samarkand.
Death:
Timur preferred to fight his battles in the spring. However, he died en route
during an uncharacteristic winter campaign. In December 1404, Timur began
military campaigns against Ming China and detained a Ming envoy. He suffered
illness while encamped on the farther side of the Syr Daria and died at Farab
on 17 February 1405, before even reaching the Chinese border. After his death
the Ming envoys such as Fu An and the remaining entourage were released by his
grandson Khalil Sultan. Geographer Clements Markham, in his introduction to the
narrative of Clavijo's embassy, states that, after Timur died, his body
"was embalmed with musk and rose water, wrapped in linen, laid in an ebony
coffin and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried". His tomb, the
Gur-e-Amir, still stands in Samarkand, though it has been heavily restored in
recent years.
Timurid Empire
The Timurid Empire self-designated as Gurkani was a Persianate Turco-Mongol
empire comprising modern-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan,
Iran, the southern region of the Caucasus, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, much of
Central Asia, as well as parts of contemporary Russia, India, Pakistan, Syria
and Turkey. The empire was founded by Timur (also known as Tamerlane), a
warlord of Turco-Mongol lineage, who established the empire between 1370 and
his death in 1405. He envisioned himself as the great restorer of the Mongol
Empire of Genghis Khan, regarded himself as Genghis's heir, and associated much
with the Borjigin. Timur continued vigorous trade relations with Ming China and
the Golden Horde. The empire led to the Timurid Renaissance, particularly
during the reign of astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Begh. By 1467, the
ruling Timurid dynasty, or Timurids, lost most of Persia to the Aq Qoyunlu
confederation. However, members of the Timurid dynasty continued to rule
smaller states, sometimes known as Timurid emirates, in Central Asia and parts
of India. In the 16th century, Babur, a Timurid prince from Ferghana (modern
Uzbekistan), invaded Kabulistan (modern Afghanistan) and established a small
kingdom there. Twenty years later, he used this kingdom as a staging ground to
invade India and establish the Mughal Empire.
Timurid historian, Sharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi states in his work Zafarnama (Book
of victories) that the name of the Timur's state was Turan Timur personally
ordered to carve the name of his state as Turan into a fragment of the rock in
Ulu Tagh mountainside (present-day Kazakhstan), known today as Karsakpay
inscription. The original text, in particular, states: "... Sultan of
Turan, Timur bey went up with three hundred thousand troops for Islam on the
Bulgarian Khan, Tokhtamysh Khan..."
In the literature of the Timurid era, the realm was referred to as Iran-u-Turan
or Mawarannahr . According to Shia authors, the ruling dynasty of Timurids was
called Gurkani
Main articles: :
Timur and History of Iran:
Timur conquered large parts of ancient great Persian territories in Central
Asia, primarily Transoxiana and Khorasan, from 1363 onwards with various
alliances (Samarkand in 1366, and Balkh in 1369), and was recognized as ruler
over them in 1370. Acting officially in the name of Suurgatmish, the Chagatai
khan, he subjugated Transoxania and Khwarazm in the years that followed.
Already in the 1360s he had gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate and
while as emir he was nominally subordinate to the khan, in reality it was now
Timur that picked the khans who became mere puppet rulers. The western Chagatai
khans were continually dominated by Timurid princes in the 15th and 16th
centuries and their figurehead importance was eventually reduced into total
insignificance.
Rise:
Timur began a campaign westwards in 1380, invading the various successor states
of the Ilkhanate. By 1389, he had removed the Kartids from Herat and advanced
into mainland Persia where he enjoyed many successes. This included the capture
of Isfahan in 1387, the removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, and the
expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad. In 1394–95, he triumphed over
the Golden Horde, following his successful campaign in Georgia, after which he
enforced his sovereignty in the Caucasus. Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden
Horde, was a major rival to Timur in the region. He also subjugated Multan and
Dipalpur in modern-day Pakistan in 1398. Timur gave the north Indian
territories to a non-family member, Khizr Khan, whose Sayyid dynasty replaced
the defeated Tughlaq dynasty of the Sultanate of Delhi. Delhi became a vassal
of the Timurids but obtained independence in the years following the death of
Timur.
In 1400–1401 he conquered Aleppo, Damascus and eastern Anatolia, in 1401
he destroyed Baghdad and in 1402 defeated the Ottomans in the Battle of Ankara.
This made Timur the most preeminent Muslim ruler of the time, as the Ottoman
Empire plunged into civil war. Meanwhile, he transformed Samarkand into a major
capital and seat of his realm.
Stagnation and decline:
Timur appointed his sons and grandsons to the main governorships of the
different parts of his empire, and outsiders to some others. After his death in
1405, the family quickly fell into disputes and civil wars, and many of the
governorships became effectively independent. However, Timurid rulers continued
to dominate Persia, Mesopotamia, Armenia, large parts of Azerbaijan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan minor parts of India, and much of Central Asia, though
the Anatolian and Caucasian territories were lost by the 1430s to the Qara
Qoyunlu. Due to the fact that the Persian cities were desolated by wars, the
seat of Persian culture was now in Samarkand and Herat, cities that became the
center of the Timurid renaissance.
The cost of Timur's conquests amount to the deaths of possibly 17 million
people. Shahrukh Mirza, fourth ruler of the Timurids, dealt with Kara Koyunlu,
who aimed to expand into Iran. But, Jahan Shah (bey of the Kara Koyunlu) drove
the Timurids to eastern Iran after 1447 and also briefly occupied Herat in
1458. After the death of Jahan Shah, Uzun Hasan, bey of the Aq Qoyunlu,
conquered the holdings of the Kara Qoyunlu in Iran between 1469 and 1471.
The power of Timurids declined rapidly during the second half of the 15th
century, largely due to the Timurid tradition of partitioning the empire. The
Aq Qoyunlu conquered most of Iran from the Timurids, and by 1500, the divided
and wartorn Timurid Empire had lost control of most of its territory, and in
the following years was effectively pushed back on all fronts. Persia, the
Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Anatolia fell quickly to the Shiite Safavid
Empire, secured by Shah Ismail I in the following decade. Much of the Central
Asian lands was overrun by the Uzbeks of Muhammad Shaybani who conquered the
key cities of Samarkand and Herat in 1505 and 1507, and who founded the Khanate
of Bukhara. From Kabul, the Mughal Empire was established in 1526 by Babur, a
descendant of Timur through his father and possibly a descendant of Genghis
Khan through his mother. The dynasty he established is commonly known as the
Mughal dynasty though it was directly inherited from the Timurids. By the 17th
century, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India but eventually declined during
the following century. The Timurid dynasty finally came to an end as the
remaining nominal rule of the Mughals was abolished by the British Empire
following the 1857 rebellion.
Siege of Balkh -
1370
The battle of Balkh was a key success in Timur's rise to power, and established
him as the ruler of the western Chaghatai in Transoxiana.
Rise to power Twelve years earlier, Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane) had
been a minor member of the Barlas tribe, one of many tribes in the western part
of the Chagatai Khanate. Since the 1330s, the Khanate had been split in two,
between Mawarannahr (Transoxiana) in the west and Moghulistan in the east.
Between 1347 and 1358, Mawarannahr was ruled by Amir Qazaghan, but in 1358 he
was assassinated on the orders of Tughlugh Timur, Khan of Moghulistan. This was
followed by an invasion from Moghulistan. Hajji Beg, ruler of the Barlas tribe,
decided to flee, but Timur offered his services to the Moghuls, as a result
becoming head of the tribe. During this period, Timur formed an alliance with
Amir Husayn [ru] of Balkh, a grandson of Qazaghan, marrying his sister. Going
underground
Going underground Timur's period as a Moghul vassal came to an end when
Tughlugh Timur appointed his son Ilyas Khoja as governor of Mawarannahr. Timur
and Husayn both rebelled, going underground. Over the next few years, Timur
survived as a bandit and a mercenary, and it was probably during this period
that he suffered the wounds that caused his famous lameness (possible origin of
the name Tamerlane).
Eventually the two men were able to force the Moghuls out of Mawarannahr, after
the battle of Stone Bridge [ru] in 1363, but only for a short time. In 1365,
Ilyas Khoja returned at the head of an army, defeating Timur and Husayn at the
battle of Tashkent. Husayn's failure to support Timur during this battle
probably played a part in the eventual end of their alliance, but for the
moment the two men remained together. Ilyas Khoja was unable to take advantage
of his victory. He advanced to besiege Samarkand, but was repulsed and forced
to retreat back into Moghulistan, where in 1369 his family was overthrown.
In the aftermath of this failed siege, Timur and Husayn were able to seize
control of Samarkand. Something of a 'cold war' period seems to have followed,
with the two men uniting against further Moghul threats, but fighting amongst
themselves the rest of the time. Timur seems to have been more successful at
building up support than Husayn, successfully maintaining a balance between the
nomads who formed the core of his army and the more settled city dwellers. In
contrast Husayn alienated many of the nomads by rebuilding the city and citadel
of Balkh, at the south-western edge of the Chagatai Khanate. This city had an
ancient history and had been one of the jewels of the Islamic world before
being destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1220. It was still uninhabited in 1333, and
Husayn's decision to rebuild will have worried his nomad supporters, who
traditionally preferred their leaders to rely on the strength of their troops
and not on fortifications (similar disputes had hastened the original split in
the Chagatai Khanate).
Battle:
In 1370 (some sources say 1369), Timur decided to attack Husayn at Balkh. After
crossing the Amu Darya at Termez his army surrounded the reconstructed city.
Husayn's army came out of the city to attack Timur's men, perhaps suggesting
that they were unhappy to find themselves being besieged. The same occurred on
the second day of the battle, but this time Timur's men managed to get into the
city. Husayn shut himself up inside the citadel, leaving Timur's men to sack
the city. Realising that he could no long hope to win, Husayn offered to leave
Mawarannahr and go on a pilgrimage to Mecca if Timur spared his life. Tamerlane
agreed to these terms, but Husayn was not convinced that he could be trusted.
After an unsuccessful attempt to hide from Timur's men Husayn was finally
captured and handed over to Timur. He kept to the letter of his promise -
Husayn was killed by Kay-Khusrau, a chief who had a blood feud with him.
Aftermath The defeat of Husayn made Timur the main power in Mawarannahr and
western Chagatai, but the laws laid down by Genghis Khan prevented him from
become Khan in his own right. Instead a 'puppet' khan descended from
Ögedei, Suurgatmish, was installed. Timur increased his own legitimacy by
marrying Husayn's widow Saray Mulk, a princess descended from Genghis Khan. She
became his most important Queen, and allowed Timur to call himself Temur
Gurgan, or 'son-in-law of the Great Khan'. This form of his name was used on
his coins, in Friday prayers, and at ceremonial officials for the rest of his
life. Balkh was looted and the citadel and palace destroyed. Despite this,
Timur chose Balkh as the site for a ceremony in which the tribal leaders of the
western Chagatai agreed to accept his rule. Timur spent most of the next decade
securing his authority over the Chagatai as well as on campaigns in the east,
before beginning his famous series of conquests during the 1380s.
Sarbadars
The Sarbadars (from Persian sarbadar, "head on gallows"; also known
as Sarbedaran were a mixture of religious dervishes and secular rulers that
came to rule over part of western Khurasan in the midst of the disintegration
of the Mongol Ilkhanate in the mid-14th century (established in 1337). Centered
in their capital of Sabzavar, they continued their reign until Khwaja 'Ali-yi
Mu'ayyad submitted to Timur in 1381, and were one of the few groups that
managed to mostly avoid Timur's famous brutality. The Sarbadar state was marked
by divisions in religious belief during its existence. Its rulers were Shi'i,
though often Sunnis claimed leadership among the people with the support of
Ilkhanid rulers. The leadership of the Shi'is stemmed chiefly from the charisma
of Sheikh Khalifa; a scholar from Mazandaran, the shaikh had arrived in
Khurasan some years before the founding of the Sarbadar state and was
subsequently murdered by Sunnis. His successor, Hasan Juri, established the
former's practices in the Sarbadar state. The followers of these practices were
known as "Sabzavaris" after the city. The Sabzavaris, however, were
divided; among their number were moderate Shi'is who were often at odds with
the dervishes, adherents of a mystic ideology. The capital city of Sabzavar
likely had a large Shi'ite community, but as the Sarbadars conquered the
neighboring territory, they acquired cities with Sunni populations.
The Sarbadars are unique among the major contenders in post-Ilkhanid Persia in
that none of their leaders ruled as legitimate sovereigns. None of them had a
legitimate claim to the Ilkhanid throne, or were related to a Mongol or any
other royal house, and none of them had previously held a high post within the
Ilkhanate. While they on occasion recognized claimants to the Ilkhanid throne
as their overlord, they did so purely as a matter of convenience, and in all
other aspects they had no ties to the Ilkhanate. This fact had a strong
influence regarding the nature of the Sarbadar political state. The Sarbadars
had a form of government which would, in modern times, probably be identified
as an oligarchy or a republic. Unlike their neighbors, the Sarbadars had no
dynastic lines; power usually went to the most ambitious.
This view is not universally held, however. Some point to the fact that one of
the Sarbadar rulers, Vajih al-Din Mas'ud, produced a son who also eventually
reigned, named Lutf Allah. While seven other rulers separated the reign of
Mas'ud and that of his son, those seven rulers are sometimes considered regents
for Lutf Allah, until he was old enough to grab power for himself.
Nevertheless, the seven are generally considered the heads of state in their
own right. A ruler would hold power for as long as he could; the fact that
several of them met violent deaths was a sign of the instability that plagued
the state for most of its existence. The founder of the Sabadar state, 'Abd
al-Razzaq, used the title of amir during his reign. While many of the Sarbadar
leaders were secular, the dervishes also had their turns in power, and on
occasion they ruled the state in co-dominion with each other; such
partnerships, however, tended to fall apart quickly. Because the two sides held
radically different views on how the Sarbadar government should be run, there
were often drastic changes in policy as one side would supplant the other as
the most powerful.
The Sarbadar state came into existence around early 1337.
At that time, much of Khurasan was under the control of the Ilkhanid claimant
Togha Temur and his amirs. One of his subjects, 'Ala' al-Din Muhammad, had
jurisdiction over the city of Sabzavar. His oppressive taxation of the area
caused an 'Abd al-Razzaq, a member of the feudal ruling class, to murder a
government official in Bashtin, a district of the city. The official was a
nephew of 'Ala' al-Din, and 'Abd al-Razzaq raised the standard of revolt. The
rebels at first settled in the mountains, where they defeated militias sent
against them and raided caravans and herds of cattle, and then in the summer of
1337 took possession of Sabzavar. Togha Temur was most likely campaigning in
the west at this time, against the Jalayirids, making him unable to deal with
the revolt. 'Abd al-Razzaq took the title of amir and had coins made in his
name, but he was stabbed to death by his brother Vajih al-Din Mas'ud during an
argument in 1338. Mas'ud, taking command of the Sarbadars, made peace with
Togha Temur, promising to recognize him as sovereign and to pay taxes to him.
The khan agreed, in the hope that it would put a stop to the Sarbadar raids on
his supply trains.
In the meantime, Shaikh Kalifa's follower Hasan Juri had been preaching in
towns all across Khurasan, with great success. His accomplishments attracted
the suspicion of the government authorities, and in May 1336 he fled to eastern
Iraq. When he returned some years later, Togha Temur's lieutenant and commander
of the Ja'un-i Qurban, Arghun Shah, had him arrested in 1339 or 1340. He was
eventually released, perhaps due to the insistence of Mas'ud, who soon after
decided to take advantage of Hasan Juri's popularity. He joined Hasan's order
as a novice, and had him proclaimed as joint ruler. Hasan Juri proclaimed that
the Twelfth Imam would soon return.
While the sharing of power began well, differences quickly emerged between the
two. Mas'ud believed in accepting the nominal suzerainty of Togha Temur, while
Hasan Juri was intent on establishing a Shi'i state. The two rulers each gained
bases of support; the former had his family and the gentry, while the latter
had the dervishes, the aristocracy, and the trade guilds. Both also had their
own armed forces; Mas'ud had 12,000 armed peasants and a bodyguard of 700
Turkish slave troops, while Hasan Juri had an army composed of artisans and
merchants. In 1340 Mas'ud moved against the Ja'un-i Qurban under Arghun Shah;
the latter was forced to abandon Nishapur and retreat to Tus.
The Sarbadars continued to mint coins in Togha Temur's name, in the hope that
he would ignore this move as he was campaigning in the west again at this time.
The khan, however, moved against them; his forces were destroyed, and while
fleeing to Mazandaran several important figures such as 'Ala' al-Din (formerly
in charge of Sabzavar), 'Abd-Allah, and Togha's own brother 'Ali Ke'un were
killed. The Sarbadars gained control of Jajarm, Damghan and Simnan, along with
Togha's capital of Gurgan. Mas'ud and Hasan Juri, however, soon came into
disagreement over several issues. Mas'ud, following the defeat of Togha Temur,
gained a new suzerain in the form of Hasan Kucek of the Chobanids, as well as
the latter's puppet khan Sulaiman. Mas'ud considered the move necessary; with
the conquest of Simnan, the Chobanids were now neighbors. Since the Chobanids
were Sunnis, however, this doubtless did not go over well with Mas'ud's
co-ruler.
With the defeat of the Ja'un-i Qurban and Togha Temur, the Sarbadars still had
one more force to contend with in Khurasan: the Kartids of Herat
Kurt dynasty 1244 -
1381. or Kart
Their leader Mu'izz al-Din Husain also recognized Togha Temur's overlordship,
and when the Sarbadars threw off the khan's nominal rule, they became enemies.
The Sarbadars decided to destroy the Kartids with an offensive campaign. The
armies of the two forces met at the Battle of Zava on July 18, 1342. The battle
started out well for the Sarbadars, but then Hasan Juri was taken and killed.
His supporters, assuming (perhaps correctly) that his death had been the result
of an assassin of Mas'ud, promptly retreated, turning the tide of the battle.
The Kartids therefore survived. Following the return home, Mas'ud attempted to
rule without the support of the dervishes, but his power was decreased. He
attempted to end the threat of Togha Temur, who had in the meantime made his
camp in the Amul region and was preventing the Sarbadars from staying in
contact with the Chobanids. Mas'ud undertook a campaign against him in 1344
which got off to a good start, but ended in disaster. On the route from Sari to
Amul, the Sarbadar army was trapped in a pincer movement, and Mas'ud was taken
prisoner and executed. Most of the Sarbadar conquests were lost as a result of
the two losses; only the region around Sabzavar, as well as maybe Juvain and
Nishapur remained in their hands. Togha Temur returned to Gurgan and once again
gained the allegiance of the Sarbadars.
1344–1361 Mas'ud's first three successors ruled for a period totaling only
three years. Both of the first two men had served as his military commanders;
Mas'ud's brother Shams al-Din came next, only to fall as well. These internal
conflicts were countered by good news on the external front; namely, the death
of Arghun Shah in 1343, and the rise of his successor Muhammad Beg, who
abandoned the alliance of the Ja'un-i Qurban with Togha Temur in favor of one
with the Sarbadars. Shams al-Din was replaced in turn by the dervish Shams
al-Din 'Ali in 1347, marking the loss of power by Mas'ud's adherents. Shams
al-Din 'Ali was an effective administrator, reorganizing the state finances,
carrying out tax reforms, and paying officials in cash. As a religious man, he
attempted to stamp out prostitution, drugs and alcohol, and lived a simple
life. His military was effective; although he failed to take Tus, he was able
to destroy a rebellion in Damghan in the west. He was, however, prevented from
turning the Sarbadar state to the Shi'i creed by Mas'ud's supporters, who kept
the government Sunni. In the meantime, he gained enemies among the opponents of
the dervishes, as well as the corrupt officials of the state that hated his
reforms.
One of these officials named Haidar Qassab, who was possibly a member of the
artisan guild, murdered him around 1352. Shams al-Din 'Ali's successor was a
member of the Sabzavari aristocracy named Yahya Karavi. Yahya was forced to
deal with Togha Temur, who in spite of the loss of the allegiance of the
Ja'un-i Qurban and, in 1349, the Kartids, still was a danger of the Sarbadars.
His army of 50,000 dwarfed the Sarbadar army, which numbered only around
22,000. Yahya neutralized the khan by recognizing him as suzerain, striking
coins in his name and paying taxes to him. He also promised to visit Togha
Temur once a year. He was probably making one of these visits when he arrived
in November or December 1353 at the khan's camp of Sultan-Duvin near Astarabad.
Yahya and a group of his followers entered the camp and were allowed into Togha
Temur's tent. There, they murdered the khan and his courtiers, then put to
death the Mongol troops and killed the nomads' herds. With the death of Togha
Temur, the last serious contender for the Ilkhanid throne was gone.
The Sarbadar lands then expanded to the borders reached by Mas'ud, and then
gained even more: the area around Ray, the city of Tus, and Astarabad and
Shasman. Yahya, however, was murdered around 1356, possibly at the hands of
Mas'ud's adherents. Mas'ud's son Lutf Allah was possibly involved in the
murder. Haidar Qassib, the murderer of Shams al-Din 'Ali, now took advantage of
the situation. Arriving from Astarabad, ostensibly to hunt down Yahya's
killers, he installed Yahya's nephew Zahir al-Din Karavi to rule. Soon
afterwards, however, he removed him from power and ruled in his own name.
Unfortunately for him, he was unpopular with nearly everyone even before he
came to power. As a former member of Shams al-Din 'Ali's party, the supporters
of Mas'ud disliked him, and his murder of Shams al-Din 'Ali alienated him from
the dervishes. Nasr Allah, Lutf Allah's tutor, allied with Yahya's murderers
and rose in revolt in Isfara'in, the second city of the Sarbadars. Haidar moved
to put the rebellion down, but before he could he was stabbed to death by an
assassin hired by a Hasan Damghani. Lutf Allah now gained control of the state,
but he soon came into conflict with Hasan Damghani as well. He was defeated,
and in the process Mas'ud's adherents were mostly eliminated. Hasan Damghani
was now forced to deal with Amir Vali, who was a son of the former governor of
Astarabad before its conquest by the Sarbadars.
Amir Vali had taken advantage of Haidar Qassib's move out of Astarabad to
return to the city. Amir Vali then claimed to be acting in the name of Luqman,
the son of Togha Temur, although he never handed power over to him. Hasan sent
two expeditions against him, both of which ended in failure; he himself led a
third force, but met no more success, allowing Amir Vali to be in a position to
gain more Sarbadar territory. Meanwhile, in the east a radical Shi'i named
Darvish 'Aziz revolted and established a theocratic state in Mashhad in the
name of the Twelfth Imam. Darvish 'Aziz gained more territory with his conquest
of Tus. Hasan recognized that the entire Sarbadar state was in jeopardy: the
Sabzavari dervishes might declare their support for the theocratic state at any
time. He moved against Darvish 'Aziz, defeated him and destroyed the Mahdist
state; Darvish 'Aziz went to Isfahan in exile. Soon afterward, however, an
'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad rose in revolt in Damghan and gained the support of Hasan's
enemies. He recalled Darvish 'Aziz from exile and joined his order. While Hasan
was besieging the castle of Shaqqan, near Jajarm, 'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad captured
Sabzavar around 1361. In the process, he captured the possessions and families
of many of Hasan's followers. When he demanded Hasan's head, they therefore
complied.
Decline and submission to Timur
'Ali-yi Mu'ayyad enjoyed, by far, the longest reign out of all the Sarbadar
rulers. The partnership with Darvish 'Aziz lasted for ten months; while 'Ali-yi
Mu'ayyad, who was Shi'i, helped raised Shi'ism to the state religion, he
opposed several of Darvish 'Aziz's theocratic ideas. Tensions were high when a
campaign was begun against the Kartids of Herat. Even before they had met any
resistance, the Sarbadar army erupted in violence. While on the march, 'Ali's
men picked a quarrel with the dervishes; Darvish 'Aziz and many of his
followers were killed trying to escape. 'Ali returned and attempted to destroy
the power of the dervishes completely. He moved against their organization and
forced them out of Sabzavar, and even destroyed the graves of Shaikh Khalifa
and Hasan Juri. The dervishes, however, fled, being granted refuge by the
Kartids, the Ja'un-i Qurban, and the Muzaffarids of Shiraz. Meanwhile, the
Ja'un-i Qurban regained Tus, though the two sides seemed to have no further
conflict. Amir Vali gained control of Simnan and Bistam, though Astarabad was
temporarily reconquered by the Sarbadars (1365/6-1368/9.
Administratively, 'Ali increased the quality of the coinage, and instituted tax
reforms. In 1370 Mu'izz al-Din Husain of the Kartids died, to be succeeded by
his sons Ghiyas al-Din Pir 'Ali and Malik Muhammad. Pir 'Ali, a grandson of
Togha Temur by his mother Sultan Khatun, considered the Sarbadars his enemy,
and used the emigrant Sabzavaris in his realm to stir up discontent against
Ali-yi Mu'ayyad. The latter responded by supporting Malik Muhammad, who ruled a
small part of the Kartid lands from Sarakhs. Pir 'Ali then moved against his
stepbrother, but Ali-yi Mu'ayyad stopped him by a flanking attack after
overcoming one of Pir 'Ali's castles near the border, whose commanders were
Sabzavaris. Pir 'Ali was forced to come to terms with his stepbrother. The
fighting with the Sabadars, however, continued, and 'Ali was forced to throw
his forces to defend Nishapur, leaving the western part of his lands exposed.
At the same time, he made a hostile enemy out of Shah Shuja of the Muzaffarids.
A revolt in 1373 in Kirman against Shah Shuja led by Pahlavan Asad received
military support from 'Ali, but the rebellion was defeated in December 1374.
The dervishes in Shiraz, meanwhile, found a leader in Rukn al-Din, a former
member of Darvish 'Aziz's order. Shah Shuja gave them money and arms, and they
conquered Sabzavar around 1376, forcing 'Ali to flee to Amir Vali. At about the
same time, Nishapur was conquered by the Kartids of Pir 'Ali. The new
government in Sabzavar established a Shi'i rule based on the teachings of Hasan
Juri. Not long afterward, however, Amir Vali arrived before the city. His group
included Ali-yi Mu'ayyad, as well as the Muzaffarid Shah Mansur. 'Ali was
reinstated as Sarbadar ruler once the city was captured, but many of his
reforms had been abandoned.
The partnership with Amir Vali furthermore did not last, and in 1381 the latter
was besieging Sabzavar again. 'Ali, believing he had little other choice, asked
for the assistance of Timur the Lame. He submitted to the conqueror in
Nishapur, and Timur responded by ravaging Amir Vali's lands in Gurgan and
Mazandaran. In Radkan, as he was returning from the victorious campaign, he
confirmed 'Ali as governor of Sabzavar. 'Ali remained loyal to Timur, dying in
1386 after being wounded during Timur's campaign in Lesser Luristan. As a
reward for this loyalty, Timur never occupied Sabzavar with his own troops, and
allowed 'Ali to retain his local administration. After 'Ali's death, the
Sarbadar territories were split amongst his relatives, who mostly remained
loyal to Timur as well and took part in his campaigns. Muluk Sabzavari did
become involved with the revolt of Hajji Beg of the Ja'un-i Qurban (which had
been forcibly submitted to Timur's rule around 1381) in Tus in 1389, and
afterwards sought refuge with the Muzaffarid Shah Mansur in Isfahan, but was
eventually pardoned by Timur and given the governorship of Basra near the end
of 1393. That same year, following the conquest of Baghdad by Timur, the
governorship of that city was given to 'Ali's nephew Khwaja Mas'ud Sabzavari,
who had a force of 3,000 Sarbadars. Despite this, he was forced to retreat in
1394 when Sultan Ahmad of the Jalayirids marched to recapture the city, and he
retreated to Shushtar. Following the death of Timur, the Sarbadars slowly fell
out of prominence.
Legacy
Historically, the Sarbadars have been considered a robber-state; they have been
accused of being a group of religious fanatics who terrorized their neighbors,
with little regard for legitimate rule. Considering the conduct of nearly all
of the Persian states during this time period, this assessment seems needlessly
harsh. Other historians have considered the Sarbadars to be an example of class
struggle; the downtrodden rising up against oppressive taxation by their
masters, and establishing a republic in the middle of several feudal states.
This, however, is not entirely accurate either. 'Abd al-Razzaq was a member of
the ruling class, which was taxed the heaviest at the time. It could however be
said that it was definitely a struggle of a people with a certain belief system
against an oppressive ruler desiring to establish what could be easily be
labelled a republic. Religious orders were common in this period of Persian
history, as the order of the Ilkhanate fell apart, to be replaced by a period
of anarchy and incessant warfare. Aside from the Safavid dynasty of Persia in
the 16th century, the Sarbadars were probably the most successful example of
such orders, although they rarely managed to achieve the state that they so
desired.
Togha Temur
Togha Temür (died late 1353), also known as Taghaytimur, was a claimant to
the throne of the Ilkhanate in the mid-14th century. Of the many individuals
who attempted to become Ilkhan after the death of Abu Sa'id, Togha Temür
was the only one who hailed from eastern Iran, and was the last major candidate
who was of the house of Genghis Khan. His base of power was Gurgan and western
Khurasan. His name "Togoy Tomor" means "Bowl/Pot Iron" in
the Mongolian language. Togha Temür descended from Hasar, Genghis Khan's
brother. Eventually, his family became the rulers of a nomadic tribe, the
Chete. His grandfather Baba Kawun had moved the Chete into the region between
Astarabad (modern-day Gurgan) and Kalbush on the east Gurgan River. This
region's principal cities were Astarabad and Jurjan. When Togha Temür
became the leader of the Chete, they were still in this area.
Struggles with the Jalayirids and Chobanids :
A few months after the death of Ilkhan Abu Sa'id in 1335, Togha Temür
became involved in the succession struggle. The governor of Khurasan, Shaikh
'Ali b. 'Ali Qushji, noting Togha Temür's relation to Chinngis Khan,
proposed naming him Ilkhan, and most of the princes of eastern Iran were
convinced to accept him as sovereign. After his name was added to the coinage
and in the official prayers, an expedition into western Iran was planned. In
that part of the country two Ilkhans, Arpa Ke'un and Musa Khan, had already
been overthrown, and it was believed that the troops of Khurasan could overcome
the instability there. In the spring of 1337 Togha Temür's forces began
the campaign. There was dissension within his ranks, however; several local
princes resented the power of Shaikh 'Ali over the would-be Ilkhan, and hated
the economic policies that he had been in charge of implementing as governor of
Khurasan. As a result, two of his supporters, namely Arghun Shah, who was chief
of the Jauni Kurban tribe, and 'Abd-Allah b. Mulai, who held Kuhistan, withdrew
from the campaign at Bistam.
This was offset by the addition of the former Ilkhan Musa Khan and his troops,
who had been in flight since their defeat by the Jalayirid Hasan Buzurg and his
puppet khan, Muhammad Khan. Together they occupied the old Ilkhan capital
Soltaniyeh, but in June 1337 Hasan Buzurg met and defeated them on the field,
forcing Togha Temür and Shaikh 'Ali to evacuate the region. In July 1337,
while returning to Khurasan, Shaikh 'Ali was captured by Arghun Shah, who
executed him and sent his head to Hasan Buzurg. From this point on Arghun Shah
was Togha Temür's most powerful supporter. He convinced Togha Temür
to resist Muhammad-i Mulai, who arrived in Khurasan to act as Hasan Buzurg's
governor there. Togha Temür and Arghun Shah defeated and executed him in
the fall of that year, making sure that Khurasan remained free of the
Jalayirids.
Less than a year later, Togha Temür was again drawn into events in the
west. Hasan Buzurg's rule there had been contested by the Chobanid Hasan Kucek,
who had defeated the Jalayirids, killed Hasan Buzurg's puppet khan, and taken
control of Tabriz in July 1338. In response, Hasan Buzurg requested the
assistance of Togha Temür. After consulting Arghun Shah, he accepted, and
in 1339 he returned to western Iran. As part of the deal, Hasan Buzurg
recognized him as Ilkhan. Hasan Kucek, however, acted quickly to destroy the
alliance. He sent a letter to Togha Temür, offering him the hand of his
own Ilkhan puppet, Sati Beg, in marriage with the prospect of an alliance
between the Chobanids and Khurasanis. Togha Temür was pleased with the
idea, so he sent a response accepting the offer. Hasan Kucek then forwarded the
response to Hasan Buzurg with a supplementary letter warning him that Togha
Temür was an untrustworthy person and claiming that the Jalayirids and
Chobanids believed in many of the same things and could together work towards
the reunification of the Ilkhanid state. Hasan Buzurg, believing his Chobanid
rival, decided to turn against the Khurasanis. With both Jalayirid and Chobanid
forces opposing him, Togha Temür had little choice but to return to
Khurasan. Although in 1340 Togha Temür was again recognized by Hasan
Buzurg as Ilkhan, and continued to be recognized as such until 1344, his
attempts to unify the Ilkhanate under his rule had effectively failed. The
regular Khurasani army had been decimated, leaving Togha Temür dependent
on his and his allies' tribal forces, which were insufficient to conquer the
west.
Conflict with the Sarbadars:
In the west the Jalayirids and Chobanids had prevented Togha Temür from
extending his rule across much of the Ilkhanate. Another group opposed him much
more directly - they threatened his rule in Khurasan itself. The Sarbadars came
to power by revolting against one of Togha Temür's subordinates, 'Ala'
al-Din Muhammad, as a result of increasingly harsh tax demands. Initially the
Sarbadars claimed that their revolt was against 'Ala' al-Din only and not
against Togha Temür, and continued to put Togha Temür's name on their
coins. When they attacked Arghun Shah's Jauni Kurban, however, Togha Temür
was prompted to send his forces against them, but they were defeated and both
'Ala' al-Din and 'Abd-Allah b. Mulai were killed. Following this, the Sarbadars
took much of Khurasan and transferred their allegiance to the Chobanids,
recognizing Hasan Kucek's puppet khan Suleiman Khan. Togha Temür and his
supporters fled to the Jajrud valley, to the south of Amol (in Mazandaran),
whose ruler, the Bavandid Hasan II, was his vassal. In 1344 the Sarbadars
decided to wipe out Togha Temür and moved against him, but the Bavandids
trapped their army and killed their leader, Mas'ud. This allowed Togha
Temür to reclaim much of the territory the Sarbadars had captured, and he
even briefly regained their allegiance. Despite this, the Sarbadars continued
to pose a problem. Togha Temür was not helped by the death of Arghun Shah,
who died in 1345 or 1346, after which the Jauni Kurban ceased to support him
against the Sarbadars. Fighting between the two sides continued until Yahya
Karawi took control of the Sarbadars in around 1352. He decided to submit to
Togha Temür, minted coins in his name, sent him tribute, and promised to
present himself before the khan every year. Togha Temür accepted this
proposal, and it seemed like peace had been achieved. However, Yahya did not
intend to remain Togha Temür's vassal. In November or December 1353 Yahya
and a group of Sarbadars presented themselves before Togha Temür in his
camp. They struck him down, then slaughtered his family and his army and killed
the nomads' animals. Much of Togha Temür's territories then passed into
the Sarbadars' hands again. The remaining lands were supposed to fall into his
son Luqman's hands, but Amir Vali, the son of Togha Temür's governor of
Astarabad, set him aside; it was he who continued the struggle with the
Sarbadars.
Battle of Zava -
1342
The Battle of Zava was fought on July 18, 1342 between the armies of the
Sarbadars and the Kartids (or Kurt dynasty). Since their appearance as a
political force in Khorasan, the Sarbadars had fought to expand their influence
in north-eastern Iran and defend against the forces of the claiming Ilkhan
Togha Temür who sought to regain Khorasan. Mu'izz al-Din Husain, the chief
of the Kartids of Herat, recognized Togha Temur's overlordship, and when the
Sarbadars secured their hold on Khorasan they sought to eliminate the Kartid
threat to the east. The Sarbadars attacked the Kartids' territory in 1342,
meeting the Kartid army in Zava (today called Torbat-e Heydarieh) on July 18,
1342. The battle started well for the Sarbadars, but when Hasan Juri was
captured and killed, his supporters believed that he had been assassinated by
Mas'ud's men and retreated. The retreat of Hasan's followers turned the battle
in the Kartids' favor and the Sarbadars had to retreat back to Khorasan.
Following the return home, Mas'ud attempted to rule without the support of the
dervishes, but his power was decreased.
Shah Rukh 1377 -1447
Shah Rukh] (20 August 1377 – 13 March 1447) was the ruler of the Timurid
Empire between 1405 and 1447. He was the son of the Central Asian conqueror
Timur (Tamerlane), who founded the Timurid dynasty in 1370. However, Shah Rukh
ruled only over the eastern portion of the empire established by his father,
comprising most of Persia and Transoxiana, the western territories having been
lost to invaders in the aftermath of Timur's death. In spite of this, Shah
Rukh's empire remained a cohesive dominion of considerable extent throughout
his reign, as well as a dominant power in Asia. Shah Rukh controlled the main
trade routes between Asia and Europe, including the legendary Silk Road, and
became immensely wealthy as a result. He chose to have his capital not in
Samarqand as his father had done, but in Herat. This was to become the
political centre of the Timurid empire and residence of his principal
successors, though both cities benefited from the wealth and privilege of Shah
Rukh's court. Shah Rukh was a great patron of the arts and sciences, which
flourished under his rule. He spent his reign focusing on the stability of his
lands, as well as maintaining political and economic relations with
neighbouring kingdoms. In the view of historians Thomas W. Lentz and Glenn D.
Lowry, "unlike his father, Shahrukh ruled the Timurid empire, not as a
Turco-Mongol warlord-conqueror, but as an Islamic sultan. In dynastic
chronicles he is exalted as a man of great piety, diplomacy, and modesty –
a model Islamic ruler who repaired much of the physical and psychological
damage caused by his father."
Timur appears not to have had particularly close relations with Shah Rukh,
despite the latter never having incurred his displeasure. In 1397, Shah Rukh
was appointed governor of Khorasan by his father, with his viceregal capital
being Herat. Although this was a significant region, this was also the same
post that had been awarded to Shah Rukh's brother Miran Shah when the latter
had been thirteen years old. Shah Rukh was never promoted beyond this position
during his father's lifetime. Further to this, during Timur's campaign to
China, Shah Rukh's young sons took pride of place in the procession while he
himself was passed over. Historical sources give no explanation for their
relationship, though there is some evidence which suggests that it was Shah
Rukh's ancestry which had affected Timur's lack of favour, being the son of a
concubine as opposed to a freeborn wife.
Alternatively, there have been suggestions that Timur believed Shah Rukh did
not possess the personal qualities required for ruling; the prince by this
point had acquired a reputation for excessive modesty as well as personal
piety. It might also have been this Islamic adherence and subsequent rejection
of the laws of Genghis Khan, which had always been so strongly revered by
Timur, that had resulted in the alienation of Shah Rukh from his father. Shah
Rukh, alongside most of the royal family, accompanied Timur west in his
campaign against the Ottoman Empire, which culminated in the Battle of Ankara
in 1402. Shah Rukh commanded the left wing of the army, Miran Shah the right
and Timur himself in the centre. The vanguard was headed by two of Shah Rukh's
nephews. The battle resulted in a Timurid victory, as well as the capture and
subjugation of the Ottoman Sultan, Bayezid I.
Timur died in 1405, whilst leading his army east in a campaign against the Ming
Dynasty. He was reported to have said on his deathbed that he "had no
other desire than to see the Mirza Shah Rukh once more" and had lamented
the fact that he did not have time to do so.
Timur had no unambiguously appointed heir at the time of his death; as a
result, a succession dispute erupted among his surviving sons and
grandsons.[15] Khalil Sultan proclaimed himself emperor at Tashkent soon after
his grandfather's death and seized the royal treasury, as well as Timur's
imperial capital Samarqand.[16] Shah Rukh marched his army out of Herat to the
Oxus river but made no offensive move against his nephew at this point. This
was likely due to Miran Shah, Khalil Sultan's father, who posed a serious
threat as he, along with his other son Abu Bakr, had led an army out of
Azerbaijan in support of the younger prince. They were both forced to withdraw
prior to joining with Khalil Sultan however, due to invasions to their rear by
the Jalayirids and the Qara Qoyunlu, who took advantage of the death of the old
emperor to seize territory. Miran Shah was killed in battle in 1408 whilst
attempting to repel the invaders, with Abu Bakr dying similarly the year
after.[17][18] In the years following Timur's death, Shah Rukh and Khalil
Sultan had a series of unproductive negotiations as well as many military
encounters, with Khalil Sultan frequently emerging victorious.[16] During this
time, other pretenders also pursued their own claims to the throne. Among these
was Sultan Husayn Tayichiud, a maternal grandson of Timur who later aligned
himself with Khalil Sultan, before betraying him in order to reassert his own
claim. Sultan Husayn was defeated by his former ally and fled to Shah Rukh, who
had him executed, with his body parts being displayed in the bazaars of
Herat.[19] Two more of Timur's grandsons, Iskandar and Pir Muhammad, also made
bids for the throne. They were defeated by Shah Rukh and Khalil Sultan
respectively, with each being spared by their subjugator. Pir Muhammad was
later assassinated by one of his nobles in 1407, while Iskandar was executed in
1415 following a failed rebellion.[20][21] It was not until 1409 that the war
started to turn in Shah Rukh's favour.
During this time, Khalil Sultan began to lose support among his emirs in
Samarqand. His wife Shadi Mulk had been given a large amount of authority in
court.[b] Under her influence, low-ranking individuals were given high
positions instead of Timur's old nobles. Additionally, several of the old
emperor's widows and concubines were remarried (somewhat forcefully) to men of
undistinguished backgrounds. Following a famine which further spread discontent
among the populace, Khalil Sultan was eventually taken captive by the powerful
emir Khudaidad Hussain, leader of the Dughlat tribe and a former mentor of the
prince. Hussain took Khalil Sultan to Ferghana and had him proclaimed ruler in
Andijan. Samarqand, having been left abandoned, was taken unopposed by Shah
Rukh. When he later captured Shadi Mulk, Khalil Sultan was forced to go to his
uncle in Samarqand and submit to him. The prince had his wife returned to him
and was appointed governor of Rayy, but died in 1411, with Shadi Mulk
committing suicide soon after. Following the deaths of Khalil Sultan, Sultan
Husayn and Pir Muhammad, Shah Rukh had no immediate Timurid rivals to contest
his rule and he began his reign as Timur's successor. However, rather than
ruling from Samarqand as his father had done, Shah Rukh held court in Herat,
which had formerly been his viceregal capital. Samarqand was instead bestowed
on his eldest son Ulugh Beg, who was appointed governor of Transoxiana.
War with the Qara Qoyunlu:
The new emperor began his reign by launching expeditions against regions which
had begun to break away during the war of succession. Fars, which was held by
Shah Rukh's nephew Bayqara, was taken in 1414. Two years later Kirman, which
had been ruled as an independent kingdom by Sultan Uwais Barlas since 1408, was
also subdued. The area under Shah Rukh's rule continued to be extended and
consolidated over the following years, either through voluntary subjugation by
minor rulers or through alliances. By 1420, the eastern portion of Timur's
empire, as well as central and southern Persia, had been brought under Shah
Rukh's rule. However, despite Shah Rukh's successes, the western portion of the
empire, including Azerbaijan and Mesopotamia, remained out of his control.
These were held by Qara Yusuf of the Qara Qoyunlu (Black Sheep Turkoman), who
had defeated and killed Shah Rukh's brother Miran Shah several years
previously.
With the conquests of several prominent cities such as Baghdad, Qazvin and
Diyarbakir, the Qara Qoyunlu had established themselves as dangerous neighbours
to the Timurids. This threat was one which remained unresolved for decades.
Shah Rukh made many attempts to pacify his western border, both through
political and military means (having launched three campaigns against
Azerbaijan), none of which proved entirely successful.
Qara Yusuf died during the first of the campaigns in November 1420, which ended
in the Timurid capture of Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, less than a year
later Shah Rukh was forced to face off a rebellion by the late Turkoman
prince's sons. One of these sons, Qara Iskander, continued his attempts to
reassert Turkoman authority over the following years, necessitating the second
campaign in 1429. This too resulted in a Timurid victory and the installation
of a Qara Qoyunlu prince, Abu Said, as a puppet ruler.
However, Qara Iskander reoccupied the city of Tabriz two years later and had
Abu Said executed. This action prompted the third and final campaign in 1434,
in which Qara Iskander was once more forced to flee. He was later assassinated
by his son Qubad in the fortress of Alinja. Although this campaign did not
result in a final resolution of the Turkoman issue, it did achieve stability in
the region for the remainder of Shah Rukh's reign with the installation of Qara
Iskander's less bellicose brother Jahan Shah as the Turkoman ruler.
In the early part of his reign, in what was likely an attempt to stave off
rebellion amongst his relations, Shah Rukh regularly made transfers between the
governorships they held. For example, Khalil Sultan was moved from Samarqand to
Rayy, Umar Mirza from Azerbaijan to Astrabad, Iskandar Mirza from Ferghana to
Hamadan to Shiraz etc. These attempts did not prove to be entirely successful,
as Shah Rukh had to repeatedly suppress rebellions by his various family
members. Iskandar Mirza, after encouraging his brother to revolt in 1413,
himself rebelled and devastated the cities of Isfahan and Kerman. Bayqara,
after his initial defeat in Fars, rebelled once more soon after in Shiraz.
These insurrections even continued into Shah Rukh's old age. In 1446, at nearly
seventy years old, he had to march against his grandson Sultan Muhammad, who
had revolted in the empire's western provinces.
During Shah Rukh's reign, relations between the Timurid state and Ming China,
under the rule of the Yongle Emperor and his descendants, were normalised. This
was contrasted by the preceding era of Timur and the Hongwu Emperor (the first
emperor of Ming China) who almost started a war with each other (which was
averted only due to the death of Timur). Chinese embassies, led by Chen Cheng,
visited Samarqand and Herat several times in 1414–1420, while a large
embassy sent by Shah Rukh (and immortalized by its diarist, Ghiyath-ud-din
Naqqash) travelled to Beijing in 1419–22 and were hosted with lavish
banquets and the exchange of gifts.
Shah Rukh sent two letters in Arabic & Persian to the Yongle emperor
inviting him to Islam & praising the virtues of Islamic Law (as opposed to
the Yasa)
The letters were also meant to assert Shah Rukh's independence & to clarify
that the Timurids were not the vassals of the Ming dynasty. Through his
promotion of commercial and political relations with neighbouring kingdoms,
Shah Rukh also maintained contact with several other contemporary rulers.
Monarchs of the Aq Qoyunlu, India, Hurmuz and (in the early part of his reign)
the Ottoman Empire made homage to him. Successive Sultans of Delhi, starting
with Khizr Khan, exchanged embassies with the Timurid court and swore their
loyalty to the emperor, while the Sultan of Bengal, Shamsuddin Ahmad Shah, had
sought his military support. Relations with the Mamluks of Egypt, however, were
increasingly tense due to Shah Rukh's attempts to assert dominance. They
eventually normalised on the ascension of Sultan Jaqmaq, under whom the two
rulers were amicable, but equal.
Soon after suppressing Sultan Muhammad's revolt, Shah Rukh, by this point
weakened by ill-health, died in his winter quarters in Rayy in March 1447.
Despite initial attempts to conceal it, news of the emperor's death quickly
spread. Chaos erupted in the military camp, rendering transport of Shah Rukh's
body to the capital for burial impossible. It was only on the third day
following his death that the body, accompanied by the now-dowager empress
Gawhar Shad and Shah Rukh's grandson Abdal-Latif, began its journey east.
However, within a few days Abdal-Latif took both his grandmother and the corpse
hostage, possibly in the hopes of launching his own bid for the vacant throne,
or to support that of his father, Shah Rukh's last surviving son Ulugh Beg. Ala
al-Dawla, another grandson, defeated his cousin's troops and liberated Gawhar
Shad, and afterwards had Shah Rukh interred in the Gawhar Shad Mausoleum in
Herat. When Ulugh Beg captured the city the following year, he ordered his
father's body to be exhumed before reburying it with Timur's in the Gur-e-Amir
in Samarqand. The succession struggle among Shah Rukh's family continued for
several years, initially between Ulugh Beg and Ala al-Dawla, in which the
former emerged victorious. However, he was murdered by his son Abdal-Latif in
1449, and in the subsequent civil wars, control of the Timurid Empire passed
from Shah Rukh's descendants.
Ulugh Beg 1394 - 1449
Mirza Muhammad Taraghay bin Shahrukh , better known as Ulugh Beg (22 March 1394
– 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and
mathematician. Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related
mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry, as well as his
general interests in the arts and intellectual activities. It is thought that
he spoke five languages: Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Uzbek Mongolian, and a small
amount of Chinese. During his rule (first as a governor, then outright) the
Timurid Empire achieved the cultural peak of the Timurid Renaissance through
his attention and patronage. Samarkand was captured and given to Ulugh Beg by
his father Shah Rukh. He built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand
between 1424 and 1429. It was considered by scholars to have been one of the
finest observatories in the Islamic world at the time and the largest in
Central Asia. Ulugh Beg was subsequently recognized as the most important
observational astronomer from the 15th century by many scholars. He also built
the Ulugh Beg Madrasah (1417–1420) in Samarkand and Bukhara, transforming
the cities into cultural centers of learning in Central Asia. However, Ulugh
Beg's scientific expertise was not matched by his skills in governance. During
his short reign, he failed to establish his power and authority. As a result,
other rulers, including his family, took advantage of his lack of control, and
he was subsequently overthrown and assassinated.
He was a grandson of the great conqueror and king, Timur (Tamerlane)
(1336–1405), and the oldest son of Shah Rukh, both of whom came from the
Turkicized Barlas tribe of Transoxiana (now Uzbekistan). His mother was a
noblewoman named Gawhar Shad, daughter of a member of the representative Turkic
tribal aristocracy, Ghiyasuddin Tarkhan. Ulugh Beg was born in Sultaniyeh
during his grandfather's invasion of Persia. He was given the name Mirza
Muhammad Taraghay. Ulugh Beg, the name he most commonly known by, was not truly
a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as
"Great Ruler" (compare modern Turkish ulu, "great", and
bey, "chief") and is the Turkic equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic
title Amir-e Kabir. As a child he wandered through a substantial part of the
Middle East and India as his grandfather expanded his conquests in those areas.
After Timur's death, Shah Rukh moved the empire's capital to Herat (in modern
Afghanistan). Sixteen-year-old Ulugh Beg subsequently became the governor of
the former capital of Samarkand in 1409. In 1411, he was named the sovereign
ruler of the whole of Mavarannahr. The teenage ruler set out to turn the city
into an intellectual center for the empire. Between 1417 and 1420, he built a
madrasa ("university" or "institute") on Registan Square in
Samarkand (currently in Uzbekistan), and he invited numerous Islamic
astronomers and mathematicians to study there. The madrasa building still
survives. Ulugh Beg's most famous pupil in astronomy was Ali Qushchi (died in
1474). Qadi Zada al-Rumi was the most notable teacher at Ulugh Beg's madrasa
and Jamshid al-Kashi, an astronomer, later came to join the staff.
Astronomy piqued Ulugh Beg's interest when he visited the Maragheh Observatory
at a young age. This observatory, located in Maragheh, Iran, is where the
well-known astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi practised. In Ulugh Beg's time, the
walls were lined with polished marble. In 1428, Ulugh Beg built an enormous
observatory, similar to Tycho Brahe's later Uraniborg as well as Taqi al-Din's
observatory in Constantinople. Lacking telescopes to work with, he increased
his accuracy by increasing the length of his sextant; the so-called Fakhri
sextant had a radius of about 36 meters (118 feet) and the optical separability
of 180" (seconds of arc). The Fakhri sextant was the largest instrument at
the observatory in Samarkand (an image of the sextant is on the side of this
article). There were many other astronomical instruments located at the
observatory, but the Fakhri sextant is the most well-known instrument there.
The purpose of the Fakhri sextant was to measure the transit altitudes of the
stars. This was a measurement of the maximum altitude above the horizon of the
stars. It was only possible to use this device to measure the declination of
celestial objects. The image, which can be found in this article, shows the
remaining portion of the instrument, which consists of the underground, lower
portion of the instrument that was not destroyed. The observatory built by
Ulugh Beg was the most pervasive and well-known observatory throughout the
Islamic world. With the instruments located in the observatory in Samarkand,
Ulugh Beg composed a star catalogue consisting of 1018 stars, which is eleven
fewer stars than are present in the star catalogue of Ptolemy.
Ulugh Beg utilized dimensions from al-Sufi and based his star catalogue on a
new analysis that was autonomous from the data used by Ptolemy. Throughout his
life as an astronomer, Ulugh Beg came to realize that there were multiple
mistakes in the work and subsequent data of Ptolemy that had been in use for
many years. Using it, he compiled the 1437 Zij-i-Sultani of 994 stars,
generally considered the greatest star catalogue between those of Ptolemy and
Tycho Brahe, a work that stands alongside Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's Book of Fixed
Stars. The serious errors which he found in previous Arabian star catalogues
(many of which had simply updated Ptolemy's work, adding the effect of
precession to the longitudes) induced him to redetermine the positions of 992
fixed stars, to which he added 27 stars from Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's catalogue
Book of Fixed Stars from the year 964, which were too far south for observation
from Samarkand.
This catalogue, one of the most original of the Middle Ages, was first edited
by Thomas Hyde at Oxford in 1665 under the title Tabulae longitudinis et
latitudinis stellarum fixarum ex observatione Ulugbeighi and reprinted in 1767
by G. Sharpe. More recent editions are those by Francis Baily in 1843 in vol.
xiii of the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society and by Edward Ball Knobel
in Ulugh Beg's Catalogue of Stars, Revised from all Persian Manuscripts
Existing in Great Britain, with a Vocabulary of Persian and Arabic Words
(1917).
In 1437, Ulugh Beg determined the length of the sidereal year as
365.2570370...d=365d 6h 10m 8s (an error of +58 seconds). In his measurements
over the course of many years he used a 50 m high gnomon. This value was
improved by 28 seconds in 1525 by Nicolaus Copernicus, who appealed to the
estimation of Thabit ibn Qurra (826–901), which had an error of +2
seconds. However, Ulugh Beg later measured another more precise value of the
tropical year as 365d 5h 49m 15s, which has an error of +25 seconds, making it
more accurate than Copernicus's estimate which had an error of +30 seconds.
Ulugh Beg also determined the Earth's axial tilt as 23°30'17" in the
sexagesimal system of degrees, minutes and seconds of arc, which in decimal
notation converts to 23.5047°.
War of succession and death:
In 1447, upon learning of the death of his father Shah Rukh, Ulugh Beg went to
Balkh. Here, he heard that Ala al-Dawla, the son of his late brother
Baysunghur, had claimed the rulership of the Timurid Empire in Herat.
Consequently, Ulugh Beg marched against Ala al-Dawla and met him in battle at
Murghab. He defeated his nephew and advanced toward Herat, massacring its
people in 1448. However, Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza, Ala al-Dawla's brother, came
to the latter's aid and defeated Ulugh Beg. Ulugh Beg retreated to Balkh where
he found that its governor, his oldest son Abdal-Latif Mirza, had rebelled
against him. Another civil war ensued. Abdal-Latif recruited troops to meet his
father's army on the banks of the Amu Darya river. However, Ulugh Beg was
forced to retreat to Samarkand before any fighting took place, having heard
news of turmoil in the city. Abdal-Latif soon reached Samarkand and Ulugh Beg
involuntarily surrendered to his son. Abd-al-Latif released his father from
custody, allowing him to make pilgrimage to Mecca. However, he ensured Ulugh
Beg never reached his destination, having him, as well as his brother
Abdal-Aziz assassinated in 1449. Eventually, Ulugh Beg's reputation was
rehabilitated by his nephew, Abdallah Mirza (1450–1451), who placed his
remains at Timur's feet in the Gur-e-Amir in Samarkand, where they were found
by Soviet archaeologists in 1941.
Abdal Latif Mirza
Abdal-Latif Mirza (c. 1420 – 9 May 1450) was the great-grandson of Central
Asian emperor Timur. He was the third son of Ulugh Beg, Timurid ruler of
Transoxiana (modern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and parts of Turkmenistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan). Having been given the governorship of Balkh,
Abdal-Latif Mirza served under his father. During the succession struggle that
followed the death of Shah Rukh, he occupied Herat, although after Ulugh Beg
left the city at the end of 1448 it was conquered by Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza.
Abdal-Latif Mirza did not remain loyal to his father. Angry over the fact that
he was to be passed over in the transfer of rule of Samarkand, he revolted
while Ulugh Beg was marching to retake Khorasan. He defeated his father at
Dimashq, near Samarkand, in the fall of 1449. Ulugh Beg later decided to
surrender himself, and Abdal-Latif Mirza granted him permission to take a
pilgrimage to Mecca, but while Ulugh Beg was on his way he was murdered by his
son on the latter's order. This earned Abdal-Latif Mirza the infamous nickname
Padarkush, or Pidarkush (from Persian "killer of his father". few
days later he also had his brother 'Abd al-'Aziz killed. In this manner he
became ruler of Transoxiana. A somewhat pious person, he gained the support of
the local religious groups, but this did not save him from a conspiracy hatched
against him by the amirs. His reign lasted for only six months. He was
succeeded by his cousin Abdullah Mirza.
Shaybanids
The Shaybanids were a Persianized Turko-Mongol dynasty in Central Asia who
ruled over most of modern-day Kazakhstan, much of Uzbekistan, and parts of
southern Russia in the 15th century. They were the patrilineal descendants of
Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan. Until the mid-14th
century, they acknowledged the authority of the descendants of Shiban's
brothers Batu Khan and Orda Khan, such as Öz Beg Khan. The Shaybanids
originally led the grey horde southeast of the Urals (also known as the Uzbegs,
after the Uzbeks), and converted to Islam in 1282. At its height, the khanate
included parts of modern-day Afghanistan and other parts of Central Asia. As
the lineages of Batu and Orda died out in the course of the great civil wars of
the 14th century, the Shaybanids under Abu'l-Khayr Khan declared themselves the
only legitimate successors to Jochi and put forward claims to the whole of his
enormous ulus, which included parts of Siberia and Kazakhstan. Their rivals
were the Tukay-Timurid dynasty, who claimed descent from Jochi's thirteenth son
by a concubine. Several decades of strife left the Tukay-Timurids in control of
the Great Horde and its successor states in Europe, namely the Khanates of
Kazan, Astrakhan, and Crimea.
Under Abu'l-Khayr Khan (who led the Shaybanids from 1428 to 1468), the dynasty
began consolidating disparate Ozbeg (Uzbek) tribes, first in the area around
Tyumen and the Tura River and then down into the Syr Darya region. His grandson
Muhammad Shaybani (ruled 1500-10), who gave his name to the Shaybanid dynasty,
conquered Samarkand, Herat, Balkh and Bukhara, thus ending the Timurid dynasty
and establishing the short-lived Shaybanid Empire. After his death at the hands
of Shah Ismail I, he was followed successively by an uncle, a cousin, and a
brother, whose Shaybanid descendants would rule the Khanate of Bukhara from
1505 until 1598 and the Khanate of Khwarezm (Khiva) from 1511 until 1695.
Another state ruled by the Shaybanids was the Khanate of Sibir, seizing the
throne in 1563. Its last khan, Kuchum, was deposed by the Russians in 1598. He
escaped to Bukhara, but his sons and grandsons were taken by the Tsar to
Moscow, where they eventually assumed the surname of Sibirsky.
Muhammad Shaybani
1451 -1510
Muhammad Shaybani Khan , also known as Abul-Fath Shaybani Khan or Shayabak Khan
or Shahi Beg Khan, originally named "Shibägh", which means
"wormwood" or "obsidian") (c. 1451 – 2 December 1510),
was an Uzbek leader who consolidated various Uzbek tribes and laid the
foundations for their ascendance in Transoxiana and the establishment of the
Khanate of Bukhara. He was a Shaybanid or descendant of Shiban (or Shayban),
the fifth son of Jochi, Genghis Khan's eldest son. He was the son of
Shah-Budag, thus a grandson of the Uzbek conqueror Abu'l-Khayr Khan. The ruler
of the Uzbek ulus Abu'l-Khayr Khan (1428-1468) had eleven sons, one of whom was
Budaq Sultan, the father of Shaybani Khan. Shaybani Khan's mother's name was Aq
Quzi Begum. Through his mother, Muhammad Shaybani was therefore the cousin of
Janibek's son Kasym Khan, the latter of whom ultimately conquered most of
Shaybani's territory to expand the Kazakh Khanate. According to the historian
Kamal ad-Din Binai, Budaq Sultan named his eldest son as Sultan Muhammad
Shaybani, and gave him a nickname - "Shibag".
According to sources, the genealogy of Shaybani Khan is as follows: Abu'l-Fath
Muhammad Khan Shaybani, known under the name of Shakhibek Khan, son of Sultan
Budaq, son of Abu'l-Khayr Khan, son of Daulat Shaikh-oglan, son of
Ibrahim-oglan, son of Fulad-oglan, son of Munk Timur Khan, son of Abdal-oglan,
son of Jochi-Buk Khan, son of Yis-Buk, son of Baniyal-Bahadur, son of Shayban,
son of Jochi Khan, son of Genghis Khan. It is interesting that in
"Tavarikh-i guzida-yi nusrat-namah", ("Selected stories from the
Book of Victories"), it is noted that the wife of the ancestor of Shaybani
Khan, Munk Timur was the daughter of Jandibek, who was a descendant of Ismail
Samani. Shaybani's father Budaq Sultan was an educated person, on whose order
extensive translations of Persian works into the Turkic languages were
accomplished.
Shaybani was initially an Uzbek warrior leading a contingent of 3,000 men in
the army of the Timurid ruler of Samarkand, Sultan Ahmed Mirza under the Amir,
Abdul Ali Tarkhan. However, when Ahmed Mirza went to war against Sultan Mahmud
Khan, the Khan of Moghulistan, to reclaim Tashkent from him, Shaybani secretly
met the Moghul Khan and agreed to betray and plunder Ahmed's army. This
happened in the Battle of the Chirciq River in 1488 CE, resulting in a decisive
victory for Moghulistan. Sultan Mahmud Khan gave Turkistan to Shaybani as a
reward. Here, however, Shaybani oppressed the local Kazakhs, resulting in a war
between Moghulistan and the Kazakh Khanate. Moghulistan was defeated in this
war, but Shaybani gained power among the Uzbeks. He decided to conquer
Samarkand and Bukhara from Ahmed Mirza. Sultan Mahmud's subordinate emirs
convinced him to aid Shaybani in doing so, and together they marched on
Samarkand.
Continuing the policies of his grandfather, Abul-Khayr Khan, Shaybani ousted
the Timurids from their capital Samarkand by 1500.
He fought successful campaigns against the Timurid leader Babur, founder of the
Mughal Empire. In 1501 he recaptured Samarkand and in 1507 also took Herat, the
southern capital of the Timurids. Shaybani conquered Bukhara in 1506 and
established the Shaybanid Dynasty of the Khanate of Bukhara. In 1508–09,
he carried out many raids northward, pillaging the land of the Kazakh Khanate.
However he suffered a major defeat from Kazakhs under Kasim Khan in 1510.
Shaybani Khan maintained ties with Ottoman Empire and China. In 1503, his
ambassadors arrived at the court of the Ming Empire Emperor.
In Alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II (1481-1512), Shaybani Khan
opposed the Safavid Shah Ismail I.The last years of Shaybani Khan were not
easy. In the spring of 1509, his mother died. After her funeral in Samarkand,
he went to Qarshi, where he held a meeting with relatives and allowed them to
disperse to their uluses (beyliks or small countries). Ubaydulla's nephew went
to Bukhara, Muhammad Temur to Samarkand, and Hamza Sultan to Gissar. Shaybani
Khan himself with a small detachment went to Merv (Mary, present-day
Turkmenistan).
In 1510, Shaybani Khan was in Herat. At this time, Ismail I, having learned
about the failures of Shaybani Khan in the battle against the Hazaras, invaded
Western Khorasan and began to rapidly advance towards Herat. Shaybani Khan did
not have a strong army at his disposal. During the military campaign against
the Hazaras, he lost most of his cavalry.
The main army was stationed in Mawarannahr, so he, having consulted with his
emirs, hastened to hide behind the walls of Merv. Safavid troops captured
Astrabad, Mashhad, and also Sarakhs. All Shaybani's emirs who were in Khorasan,
including Jan Wafa, fled from the Safavid-Qizilbash army and arrived to Merv.
Shaybani Khan sent a messenger to Ubaydulla Khan and Muhammad Timur Sultan for
help. Meanwhile, Shah Ismail surrounded Merv and besieged the city for a whole
month, but to no avail. Therefore, in order to lure the Khan out of the city,
he resorted to a feigned retreat. According to some sources, one of the wives
of Muhammad Shaybani Khan, Aisha Sultan Khanum, better known as Moghul Khanum,
enjoyed great influence on her husband and his court. The sources say that at
the Kengesh (council of the Khan), question arouse whether or not to come out
of Merv and fight the retreating troops of Shah Ismail.
The emirs of Shaybani Khan suggested waiting two or three days until the
auxiliary forces arrive from Mawarannahr. But the beloved wife of Muhammad
Shaybani, Mogul Khanum, who took part in the military council, said to the
Khan: “And you are afraid of the Qizilbash! If you are afraid, I will take
the troops myself and lead them. Now is the right moment, there will be no such
moment again." After these words of Mogul Khanum, everyone seemed to be
ashamed, and the Khan's troops went into battle, which resulted in their
complete defeat and the death of Shaybani Khan.
In the Battle of Marv (1510), Muhammad Shaybani was defeated and killed when
trying to escape. Shaybani Khan's army was surrounded by Ismail's 17,000-strong
army and was defeated after fierce resistance. The remnants of the army ended
up dying under enemy arrows. At the time of Shaybani's death, the Uzbeks
controlled all of Transoxiana, that is, the area between the Syr Darya and Amu
Darya rivers. After capturing Samarkand from Babur, Shaybani married Babur's
sister, Khanzada Begum. Babur's liberty to leave Samarkand was made contingent
upon his assent to this alliance. After Shaybani's death, Ismail I gave liberty
to Khanzada Begum with her son and, at Babur's request, sent them to his court.
For this reason Shaybani was succeeded not by a son but by an uncle, a cousin
and a brother whose descendants would rule Bukhara until 1598 and Khwarizm
(later named Khiva) until 1687. From the accounts of Babur, i.e. the Baburnama,
we came to know that the Shah of Persia Ismail beheaded Shaybani and had his
skull turned into a bejeweled drinking goblet which was drunk from when
entertaining; he later sent the cup to Babur as a goodwill gesture. The rest of
Shaybani's body parts were either sent to various areas of the empire for
display or put on a spike at the main gate of Samarkand.
Battle of Marv 1510
The Battle of Merv (or Marv) occurred on 2 December 1510 as a result of the
Uzbek invasion of Khorasan. It ended with a decisive victory for the Safavid
dynasty. The result was that the Safavids regained control of the Khorasan
region (north-eastern and east of present Iran, southern parts of present-day
Turkmenistan, and western and northern Afghanistan). After the Shaybani Uzbeks
began to rise to power in Transoxiana around 1495, Muhammad Shaybani Khan was
waiting for a chance to annex the territory of the Timurids in Herat, which
eventually occurred when the forces of the Uzbek Khan occupied the city and its
environs in 1507. Shah Ismail started his campaign in Azerbaijan in 1502, and
had re-unified all of Iran by 1509. Badi' al-Zaman Mirza, Sultan Husayn
Bayqara's son and heir, sought asylum at Ismail's court and induced him to
launch a campaign in the east. Shah Ismail reached Khorasan with great speed;
Shaybani Khan retreated to Merv castle to await reinforcement from Uzbek
tribes. The Safavid army then pretended to retreat, encouraging the Uzbeks to
leave the castle in pursuit, only to be ambushed and destroyed by the Qizilbash
("Red Heads") troops of Shah Ismail once they were too far from the
castle to regain its safety. The Safavid forces were reportedly heavily
outnumbered by the army of Shaybani Khan, who was caught and killed trying to
escape the battle. Shah Ismail had his body parts sent to various areas of the
empire for display, while famously having his skull coated in gold and made
into a jeweled drinking goblet.The primary outcome of the battle renewed
Safavid control of Khorasan, the historic region which lies mostly in parts of
modern-day Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan.
Battle of Ghazdewan
1512
The Battle of Ghazdewan occurred near the city of Ghijduvan, what is now
Uzbekistan in November 1512 AD between Safavid army and Uzbek army. After
Babur's defeat at the Battle of Kul Malek, he requested assistance from Biram
Khan Karamanlu, the commander serving the Safavid Persian Shah Ismail I at
Balkh. With additional support from Biram's detachment, the Uzbeks eventually
withdrew from the country of Hissar. After this victory, and in response to his
defeat at Kul Malek, Babur personally visited Shah Ismail I to solicit an
additional force which he could use to finally defeat the Uzbeks from
Mawarannahr (Transoxiana). The Shah accordingly called on Najm-e Sani, his
minister of finance, whom he had entrusted with the settlement of Khurasan.
Ismail gave him instructions to render assistance to Babur in recovering the
dominions he had previously possessed. On reaching Balkh, Najm resolved to
march in person into Mawarannahr, taking with him the governor of Herat, the
Amirs of Khurasan, and Biram Khan of Balkh. During his journey, Najm passed the
Amu Darya and was soon joined by Babur, creating an army that is said to have
been 60,000 men strong.
Battle:
Early in the Autumn the army advanced to Khozar, ultimately seizing the city.
They then proceeded to Karshi, which had been strongly fortified and garrisoned
by Sultan Ubaydullah Sultan, the chief of Bukhara. It was proposed to leave
Karshi behind as had been done with success in preceding campaigns, but Najm,
believing it was Sultan Ubaydullah Sultan's lair, declared that it must be
taken. The city was therefore besieged and carried by storm with all
inhabitants, Uzbek or not, being put to the sword regardless of age, sex, or
sanctity. The circumstances of this massacre disgusted Babur, who found himself
playing a subordinate role in an army that was professedly acting under his
authority. In his desire to save the inhabitants, who were Chaghatai Turks of
his own race and sect, he earnestly besought Najm to comply with his wishes.
But the unrelenting Persian, deaf to his entreaties, let loose all the fury of
war on the devoted city. Among the casualties was the poet Maulana Binai, one
of the most eminent minds of his time who happened to be in the town when it
fell in the indiscriminate slaughter, along with many Syeds and holy men. From
that time forward, Najm failed to prosper in any more of his undertakings. The
Uzbek chiefs, after the massacre at Karshi, appeared for some time to have
retired and fortified themselves in their strongholds. Najm eventually moved on
to attack Ghazdewan, on the border of the desert, without having taken Bukhara.
The Uzbek sultans now had time to assemble under the command of Ubaydullah
Sultan. Joined by Timur Sultan from Samarkand, they threw themselves into the
fort the very night that Babur and Najm had taken their ground before it,
preparing their engines and ladders for an assault. In the morning, the Uzbeks
drew out their army and took up a position among the houses and gardens in the
suburbs of the town with the confederates advancing to meet them. The Uzbeks,
who were protected by the broken ground and by the walls of the enclosures and
houses, had posted archers in every corner to pour a shower of arrows on the
Qizilbashes as they approached. Once Biram Khan, the chief military commander
of the Qizilbash troops, had fallen off his horse and had been wounded, the
main body of the army fell into disorder. In the course of an hour the invaders
were routed with most of them falling in the field.
Babur routed and discomfited fled back to Hissar. It is said that the Qizilbash
chiefs, disgusted with the haughtiness and insolence of Najm, did not use their
utmost efforts to assist him and he was eventually taken prisoner and put to
death. Many of the Persian chiefs who fled from the battle crossed the Amu
Darya at Kirki and entered Greater Khorasan.
Aftermath:
It resulted in Safavid's and Babur's defeat after which he resigned hope of
recovering his father's empire of Ferghana. It also helped solidify the
alliance between the Timurids and the Ottoman Empire. The Uzbeks now not only
recovered the country which they had lost in Transoxiana, but also made
incursions into Khurasan, ravaging the northern part of the province. Shah
Ismail I, on hearing of this disaster, resolved to return. On his approach the
Uzbeks retreated in alarm. He caused several of the officers who had escaped
from the battle to be seized and some of them to be executed for deserting
their commander. Certain inhabitants of the province, accused of having shown
attachment to the Uzbeks and their creed and of having vexed the Shias, were
consumed in the fire of his wrath.
The fatal battle of Ghazdewan, the destruction of Babur's Persian allies, and
the numbers and power of the Uzbeks seemed to leave him no hopes of again
ascending the throne of Samarkand and Bukhara. Babur had now resigned all hopes
of recovering Fergana, and although he dreaded an invasion from the Uzbeks to
his West, his attention increasingly turned towards India and its lands in the
East.
Babur 1483 -1530
Babur 14 February 1483 – 26 December 1530), born Zahir ud-Din Muhammad,
was the founder of the Mughal Empire and first Emperor of the Mughal dynasty
(r. 1526–1530) in the Indian subcontinent. He was a descendant of Timur
and Genghis Khan through his father and mother respectively. He was also given
the posthumous name of Firdaws Makani ('Dwelling in Paradise'). Of Chagatai
Turkic originand born in Andijan in the Fergana Valley (in present-day
Uzbekistan), Babur was the eldest son of Umar Sheikh Mirza (1456–1494,
governor of Fergana from 1469 to 1494) and a great-great grandson of Timur
(1336–1405). Babur ascended the throne of Fergana in its capital Akhsikent
in 1494 at the age of twelve and faced rebellion. He conquered Samarkand two
years later, only to lose Fergana soon after. In his attempt to reconquer
Fergana, he lost control of Samarkand. In 1501 his attempt to recapture both
the regions failed when Muhammad Shaybani Khan defeated him. In 1504 he
conquered Kabul, which was under the putative rule of Abdur Razaq Mirza, the
infant heir of Ulugh Beg II. Babur formed a partnership with the Safavid ruler
Ismail I and reconquered parts of Turkistan, including Samarkand, only to again
lose it and the other newly conquered lands to the Sheybanids. After losing
Samarkand for the third time, Babur turned his attention to India and employed
aid from the neighbouring Safavid and Ottoman empires Babur defeated Ibrahim
Lodi, Sultan of Delhi, at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 CE and founded
the Mughal Empire. At the time, the sultanate at Delhi was a spent force that
was long crumbling. The Mewar kingdom, under the able rule of Rana Sanga, had
turned into one of the strongest powers of northern India. Sanga unified
several Rajput clans for the first time after Prithviraj Chauhan and advanced
on Babur with a grand coalition of 100,000 Rajputs. However, Sanga suffered a
major defeat in the Battle of Khanwa due to Babur's skillful positioning of
troops and modern tactics and firepower.
The Battle of Khanua was one of the most decisive battles in Indian history,
more so than the First Battle of Panipat, as the defeat of Rana Sanga was a
watershed event in the Mughal conquest of northern India. Babur married several
times. Notable among his sons are Humayun, Kamran Mirza and Hindal Mirza. Babur
died in 1530 in Agra and Humayun succeeded him. Babur was first buried in Agra
but, as per his wishes, his remains were moved to Kabul and reburied. He ranks
as a national hero in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Many of his poems have become
popular folk songs. He wrote the Baburnama in Chaghatai Turkic; it was
translated into Persian during the reign (1556–1605) of his grandson, the
Emperor Akbar. Babur's memoirs form the main source for details of his life.
They are known as the Baburnama and were written in Chaghatai Turkic, his
mother-tongue, though, according to Dale, "his Turkic prose is highly
Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology or word formation and
vocabulary." Baburnama was translated into Persian during the rule of
Babur's grandson Akbar.
Babur hailed from the Barlas tribe, which was of Mongol origin and had embraced
Turkic and Persian culture] They had also converted to Islam centuries earlier
and resided in Turkestan and Khorasan. Aside from the Chaghatai language, Babur
was equally fluent in Persian, the lingua franca of the Timurid elite. Hence,
Babur, though nominally a Mongol (or Moghul in Persian language), drew much of
his support from the local Turkic and Iranian people of Central Asia, and his
army was diverse in its ethnic makeup. It included Persians (known to Babur as
"Sarts" and "Tajiks"), ethnic Afghans, Arabs, as well as
Barlas and Chaghatayid Turko-Mongols from Central Asia.
As ruler of Fergana In 1494, eleven-year-old Babur became the ruler of Fergana,
in present-day Uzbekistan, after Umar Sheikh Mirza died "while tending
pigeons in an ill-constructed dovecote that toppled into the ravine below the
palace". During this time, two of his uncles from the neighbouring
kingdoms, who were hostile to his father, and a group of nobles who wanted his
younger brother Jahangir to be the ruler, threatened his succession to the
throne. His uncles were relentless in their attempts to dislodge him from this
position as well as from many of his other territorial possessions to come.
Babur was able to secure his throne mainly because of help from his maternal
grandmother, Aisan Daulat Begum, although there was also some luck involved.
Most territories around his kingdom were ruled by his relatives, who were
descendants of either Timur or Genghis Khan, and were constantly in conflict.
At that time, rival princes were fighting over the city of Samarkand to the
west, which was ruled by his paternal cousin. Babur had a great ambition to
capture the city. In 1497, he besieged Samarkand for seven months before
eventually gaining control over it. He was fifteen years old and for him the
campaign was a huge achievement. Babur was able to hold the city despite
desertions in his army, but he later fell seriously ill.
Meanwhile, a rebellion back home, approximately 350 kilometres (220 mi) away,
amongst nobles who favoured his brother, robbed him of Fergana. As he was
marching to recover it, he lost Samarkand to a rival prince, leaving him with
neither. He had held Samarkand for 100 days, and he considered this defeat as
his biggest loss, obsessing over it even later in his life after his conquests
in India. For three years, Babur concentrated on building a strong army,
recruiting widely amongst the Tajiks of Badakhshan in particular. In
1500–1501, he again laid siege to Samarkand, and indeed he took the city
briefly, but he was in turn besieged by his most formidable rival, Muhammad
Shaybani, Khan of the Uzbeks. The situation became such that Babar was
compelled to give his sister, Khanzada, to Shaybani in marriage as part of the
peace settlement. Only after this were Babur and his troops allowed to depart
the city in safety. Samarkand, his lifelong obsession, was thus lost again. He
then tried to reclaim Fergana, but lost the battle there also and, escaping
with a small band of followers, he wandered the mountains of central Asia and
took refuge with hill tribes. By 1502, he had resigned all hopes of recovering
Fergana; he was left with nothing and was forced to try his luck elsewhere. He
finally went to Tashkent, which was ruled by his maternal uncle, but he found
himself less than welcome there. Babur wrote, "During my stay in Tashkent,
I endured much poverty and humiliation. No country, or hope of one!" Thus,
during the ten years since becoming the ruler of Fergana, Babur suffered many
short-lived victories and was without shelter and in exile, aided by friends
and peasants.
Kabul was ruled by Babur's paternal uncle Ulugh Beg II, who died leaving only
an infant as heir. The city was then claimed by Mukin Begh, who was considered
to be a usurper and was opposed by the local populace. In 1504, Babur was able
to cross the snowy Hindu Kush mountains and capture Kabul from the remaining
Arghunids, who were forced to retreat to Kandahar. With this move, he gained a
new kingdom, re-established his fortunes and would remain its ruler until 1526.
In 1505, because of the low revenue generated by his new mountain kingdom,
Babur began his first expedition to India; in his memoirs, he wrote, "My
desire for Hindustan had been constant. It was in the month of Shaban, the Sun
being in Aquarius, that we rode out of Kabul for Hindustan". It was a
brief raid across the Khyber Pass. Babur leaves for Hindustan from Kabul In the
same year, Babur united with Sultan Husayn Mirza Bayqarah of Herat, a fellow
Timurid and distant relative, against their common enemy, the Uzbek Shaybani.
However, this venture did not take place because Husayn Mirza died in 1506 and
his two sons were reluctant to go to war.
Babur instead stayed at Herat after being invited by the two Mirza brothers. It
was then the cultural capital of the eastern Muslim world. Though he was
disgusted by the vices and luxuries of the city, he marvelled at the
intellectual abundance there, which he stated was "filled with learned and
matched men"
He became acquainted with the work of the Chagatai poet Mir Ali Shir Nava'i,
who encouraged the use of Chagatai as a literary language. Nava'i's proficiency
with the language, which he is credited with founding, may have influenced
Babur in his decision to use it for his memoirs. He spent two months there
before being forced to leave because of diminishing resources; it later was
overrun by Shaybani and the Mirzas fled. Babur became the only reigning ruler
of the Timurid dynasty after the loss of Herat, and many princes sought refuge
with him at Kabul because of Shaybani's invasion in the west.
He thus assumed the title of Padshah (emperor) among the Timurids—though
this title was insignificant since most of his ancestral lands were taken,
Kabul itself was in danger and Shaybani continued to be a threat Babur
prevailed during a potential rebellion in Kabul, but two years later a revolt
among some of his leading generals drove him out of Kabul. Escaping with very
few companions, Babur soon returned to the city, capturing Kabul again and
regaining the allegiance of the rebels. Meanwhile, Shaybani was defeated and
killed by Ismail I, Shah of Shia Safavid Persia, in 1510. Babur and the
remaining Timurids used this opportunity to reconquer their ancestral
territories. Over the following few years, Babur and Shah Ismail formed a
partnership in an attempt to take over parts of Central Asia. In return for
Ismail's assistance, Babur permitted the Safavids to act as a suzerain over him
and his followers.
Thus, in 1513, after leaving his brother Nasir Mirza to rule Kabul, he managed
to take Samarkand for the third time; he also took Bokhara but lost both again
to the Uzbeks. Shah Ismail reunited Babur with his sister Khanzada, who had
been imprisoned by and forced to marry the recently deceased Shaybani. Babur
returned to Kabul after three years in 1514. The following 11 years of his rule
mainly involved dealing with relatively insignificant rebellions from Afghan
tribes, his nobles and relatives, in addition to conducting raids across the
eastern mountains Babur began to modernise and train his army despite it being,
for him, relatively peaceful times.
Babur still wanted to escape from the Uzbeks, and he chose India as a refuge
instead of Badakhshan, which was to the north of Kabul. He wrote, "In the
presence of such power and potency, we had to think of some place for ourselves
and, at this crisis and in the crack of time there was, put a wider space
between us and the strong foeman." After his third loss of Samarkand,
Babur gave full attention to the conquest of North India, launching a campaign;
he reached the Chenab River, now in Pakistan, in 1519. Until 1524, his aim was
to only expand his rule to Punjab, mainly to fulfill the legacy of his ancestor
Timur, since it used to be part of his empire.At the time parts of North India
were part of the Delhi Sultanate, ruled by Ibrahim Lodi of the Lodi dynasty,
but the sultanate was crumbling and there were many defectors. Babur received
invitations from Daulat Khan Lodi, Governor of Punjab and Ala-ud-Din, uncle of
Ibrahim.
He sent an ambassador to Ibrahim, claiming himself the rightful heir to the
throne, but the ambassador was detained at Lahore, Punjab, and released months
later. Babur started for Lahore in 1524 but found that Daulat Khan Lodi had
been driven out by forces sent by Ibrahim Lodi. When Babur arrived at Lahore,
the Lodi army marched out and his army was routed. In response, Babur burned
Lahore for two days, then marched to Dibalpur, placing Alam Khan, another rebel
uncle of Lodi, as governor.[46] Alam Khan was quickly overthrown and fled to
Kabul. In response, Babur supplied Alam Khan with troops who later joined up
with Daulat Khan Lodi, and together with about 30,000 troops, they besieged
Ibrahim Lodi at Delhi. The sultan easily defeated and drove off Alam's army,
and Babur realised that he would not allow him to occupy the Punjab.
Continued in the next chapter
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