Tamerlane

Tamerlane (1336-1405), Turkoman Mongol conqueror, who established an empire extending from India to the Mediterranean Sea. The name Tamerlane, a European corruption of Timur Lang (“Timur the Lame”) was given to him because his left side was partially disabled. Tamerlane was born on April 10, 1336, into a Mongol sub-group settled at Kesh in Transoxania (present-day Shakhrisyabz, Uzbekistan), and rose to prominence in the service of the Jagataid khan Tughluq Timur. Between 1364 and 1370 he won control of Transoxania, overwhelming former superiors and allies, and in the latter year declared the restoration of the empire of Genghis Khan, whom he falsely claimed as his ancestor. He subjugated nearby khanates, and by 1394 he had conquered Iran, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Georgia, as well as repeatedly overrunning Russia and Lithuania. In 1389-1395 he fought and weakened the Khanate of the Golden Horde; rebellious subjects in Iran were exterminated on his return . In 1398 Tamerlane invaded India, where he captured Delhi and massacred its inhabitants. In 1401 he took Syria from the Mamelukes, stripping Damascus, and slaughtered the population of Baghdad. The following year he defeated the Ottoman sultan Bayazid I. Tamerlane died on February 18, 1405, near Chimkent (Shymkent in present-day Kazakhstan) while leading an expedition against China, and was buried in Samarqand, his capital city. His mausoleum, the Gur-e Amir, is one of Samarqand's great architectural monuments.

Although he was notorious for his cruelty in war and for the many atrocities committed by his armies, Tamerlane was also a lover of scholarship and the arts. His dynasty, the Timurids, which ruled Transoxania and Iran until the early 16th century, was noted for its patronage of Turkish and Persian literature. One of his descendants, Babur, founded the Mughal dynasty of India in 1526.

He is the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's dramatic epic, Tamburlaine the Great (published 1590).