Timur, son of Taragai of the Barlas family, came from a Turkicized Mongol tribe that came to Central Asia with Genghis Khan. Its representatives were considered distant relatives of the Borjigins, the ruling dynasty of the Mongol Empire. Therefore, they were very noble people and received significant possessions in the region. This was the reason why they very quickly adopted the Turkic Karluk language and settled on the land.
According to political necessity, Tamerlane always acted as a Sunni sovereign. But since the time of the Arab Caliphate, Central Asia had become one of the strongholds of Shiism, and he did not change this situation in any way. Although he invaded India and Kara Koyunlu under the motive of restoring just Islamic rule there, his own country was called an abode of heresies by Muslim scribes. Because of the patronage he extended to Shi’ite figures, some historians believe that the Iron Hammer secretly practiced Shi’ism.
Within the international politics of his time, Tamerlane was considered a rebel. He was made governor of Maverannahr by the Genghisid ruler of Moghulistan, the eastern part of the Chagatai Khanate. But soon he betrayed his suzerain and declared war against him. To somehow strengthen his political position, because according to the concepts of those times can sit on the throne only a descendant of Genghis Khan, he appointed a puppet king from the legitimate dynasty and married a Genghisid princess.
In order to have his own people in the Golden Horde, he supported the young Tokhtamysh, whose chances for the throne at that time seemed rather shaky. The latter was defeated and fled several times, but Timur again gave him money and an army. It was only when his protégé was on the throne of the ulus of Juchi that relations between them changed. It must be assumed that the ruler of Central Asia wanted most of the trade duties that were paid on the Great Silk Road. However, the Tatar folk epic «Idigei» says that these rulers quarreled over Tokhtamysh’s falcon, which Timur asked for as a gift.
Despite the fact that Islam prescribes respect for Christians, Tamerlane is known as a persecutor of this religion. Before him, Central Asia had been the main stronghold of Nestorianism, the eastern branch of the Christian faith. Missionaries from Maverannahr even baptized several Turkic and Mongol tribes. But Emir Timur destroyed most of these communities during his conquests, after which the Eastern Christians disappeared forever. The same policy he pursued in the west. For example, during the conquest of Baghdad in 1399, each soldier was ordered to bring to his lord two heads cut off from the Christian inhabitants of the city.
Despite this, throughout Tamerlane’s grandiose empire, Jews lived in complete safety as they traded between Europe and Asia. Dozens, if not hundreds, of urban communities remained from his era, which faded away with the passage of time. During his lifetime, Jews and Muslims even prayed in the same mosque in the city of Bukhara.
With many of the sovereigns against whom he went to war, the emir maintained an extensive correspondence. Most famous are his messages to Sultan Bayazid, the lord of the Ottoman Empire. After his proposal for an alliance against the Shi’ites of Iran and the Golden Horde failed, Timur tried to reason with his colleague. When the latter continued his hostile actions, he compared the Turkish ruler to an ant that taunts elephants.
Having defeated Bayezid in the Battle of Angora, he took the sultan and his harem captive. Central Asian, other Muslim and European authors write about their fate in different ways. The latter claim that the Sultan was treated badly and his Serbian wife was forced to serve Timur’s guests food without clothes.
Legend has it that Tamerlane laughed when he first saw the Turkish sultan. He rebuked him that it was wrong to laugh at the defeated, reminding him how fickle fortune can be. But Timur explained that he was not amused by this at all, but by the fact that the power over such great states went to cripples. The Turk was one-eyed and the Uzbek was dry-armed and lame.
After the victory in the Battle of Angora at the end of 1402, Tamerlane reached the very edge of Asia Minor and besieged the Christian city of Smyrna. At that time this old Byzantine fortress belonged to the Knights Hospitallers. The first thing the eastern commander did was to order the harbor to be blockaded, and then he built stone throwers to break down the high walls. He also drove undercrofts and used Greek fire. After the fortifications were destroyed, most of the city’s defenders were put to death. As was his custom, Tamerlane ordered a mountain of human heads to be piled here. In general, it is estimated that about 17 million people lost their lives during his conquests. That’s about 5% of the world’s population at the time.
As befits a great Muslim sovereign, and throughout his life Tamerlane had eighteen wives. But the most favorite of them, Uljai-turkan aga and Sarai-mulk khanim were each other’s relatives. The former was the sister of his friend and then enemy Emir Hussein, and the latter was his widow. After his death, she went into the harem of the victor, thanks to which Timur acquired the title of gurgan, i.e. a relative of the Genghisid dynasty.