Personality

A Timurid-era illustration of Timur

Timur is regarded as a military genius and as a brilliant tactician with an uncanny ability to work within a
highly fluid political structure to win and maintain a loyal following of nomads during his rule in Central Asia.
He was also considered extraordinarily intelligent – not only intuitively but also intellectually. [13]:16 In
Samarkand and his many travels, Timur, under the guidance of distinguished scholars, was able to learn the
Persian, Mongolian, and Turkish languages[9]:9 (according to Ahmad ibn Arabshah, Timur could not speak
Arabic).[107] According to John Joseph Saunders, Timur was "the product of an Islamized and Iranized society",
and not steppe nomadic.[108] More importantly, Timur was characterized as an opportunist. Taking advantage
of his Turco-Mongolian heritage, Timur frequently used either the Islamic religion or the sharia law, fiqh, and
traditions of the Mongol Empire to achieve his military goals or domestic political aims. [9] Timur was a learned
king, and enjoyed the company of scholars; he was tolerant and generous to them. He was a contemporary
of the Persian poet Hafez, and a story of their meeting explains that Timur summoned Hafiz, who had written
a ghazal with the following verse:

For the black mole on thy cheek

Timur upbraided him for this verse and said, "By the blows of my well tempered sword I have conquered the
greater part of the world to enlarge Samarkand and Bukhara, my capitals and residences; and you, pitiful
creature, would exchange these two cities for a mole." Hafez, undaunted, replied, "It is by similar generosity
that I have been reduced, as you see, to my present state of poverty." It is reported that the King was pleased
by the witty answer and the poet departed with magnificent gifts.[109][110]

A persistent nature of Timur's character is said to have appeared after an unsuccessful raid into nearby
village, thought to have taken place at the early stages of his illustrious life. The legend has it that Timur,
wounded by an enemy arrow, found shelter at the abandoned ruins of an old fortress in the desert.
Lamenting his fate, Timur saw a little ant carrying a grain up the side of a collapsed wall. Thinking that the
end was close, Timur directed all his attention to that ant and watched how troubled by the wind or the size
of her cargo, the ant fell back down to the ground each time she climbed the wall. Timur counted overall 69
attempts and finally, on the 70th try, the little ant succeeded and made her way into the nest with a precious
prize. If an ant can persevere like this, Timur thought, then surely a man can do the same. Inspired by the
diligent ant, he decided that he would never again lose hope, and eventually the chain of events, coupled
with his persistence and military genius led to him becoming arguably the most powerful monarch of his
era.[111]

There is a shared view that Timur's real motive for his campaigns was his imperialistic ambition. However,
Timur's following words: "The whole expanse of the inhabited part of the world is not large enough to have
two kings" explains that his true desire was "to amaze the world", and through his destructive campaigns, to
produce an impression rather than to achieve enduring results. This is supported by the fact that besides
Iran, Timur simply plundered the states he invaded with a purpose of enriching his native Samarqand and
neglected the conquered areas, which may have resulted in a relatively quick disintegration of his Empire
after his death.[112]

Timur used Persian expressions in his conversations often, and his motto was the Persian phrase rāstī rustī
‫است ی‬
(,‫رست‬ ‫ ر ی‬meaning "truth is safety" or "veritas salus").[107] He is credited with the invention of the Tamerlane
chess variant, played on a 10×11 board.[113]

Exchanges with Europe

Letter of Timur to Charles VI of France, 1402, a witness to Timurid relations with Europe. Archives Nationales, Paris.

Timur had numerous epistolary and diplomatic exchanges with various European states, especially Spain and
France. Relations between the court of Henry III of Castile and that of Timur played an important part in
medieval Castilian diplomacy. In 1402, the time of the Battle of Ankara, two Spanish ambassadors were
already with Timur: Pelayo de Sotomayor and Fernando de Palazuelos. Later, Timur sent to the court of the
Kingdom of León and Castile a Chagatai ambassador named Hajji Muhammad al-Qazi with letters and gifts.

In return, Henry III of Castile sent a famous embassy to Timur's court in Samarkand in 1403–06, led by Ruy
González de Clavijo, with two other ambassadors, Alfonso Paez and Gomez de Salazar. On their return, Timur
affirmed that he regarded the king of Castile "as his very own son".

According to Clavijo, Timur's good treatment of the Spanish delegation contrasted with the disdain shown by
his host toward the envoys of the "lord of Cathay" (i.e., the Yongle Emperor), the Chinese ruler. Clavijo's visit
to Samarkand allowed him to report to the European audience on the news from Cathay (China), which few
Europeans had been able to visit directly in the century that had passed since the travels of Marco Polo.

The French archives preserve:

• A 30 July 1402 letter from Timur to Charles VI of France, suggesting that he send traders to Asia. It is
written in Persian.[114]
• A May 1403 letter. This is a Latin transcription of a letter from Timur to Charles VI, and another from
Miran Shah, his son, to the Christian princes, announcing their victory over Bayezid I at Smyrna.[115]

A copy has been kept of the answer of Charles VI to Timur, dated 15 June 1403. [116]

In addition, Byzantine John VII Palaiologos who was a regent during his uncle's absence in the West, sent a
Dominican friar in August 1401 to Timur, to pay his respect and propose paying tribute to him instead of the
Turks, once he managed to defeat them. [74]

Legacy
Timur's legacy is a mixed one. While Central Asia blossomed under his reign, other places, such as Baghdad,
Damascus, Delhi and other Arab, Georgian, Persian, and Indian cities were sacked and destroyed and their
populations massacred. He was responsible for the effective destruction of the Nestorian Christian Church of
the East in much of Asia. Thus, while Timur still retains a positive image in Muslim Central Asia, he is vilified
by many in Arabia, Iraq, Persia, and India, where some of his greatest atrocities were carried out. However,
Ibn Khaldun praises Timur for having unified much of the Muslim world when other conquerors of the time
could not.[117] The next great conqueror of the Middle East, Nader Shah, was greatly influenced by Timur and
almost re-enacted Timur's conquests and battle strategies in his own campaigns. Like Timur, Nader Shah
conquered most of Caucasia, Persia, and Central Asia along with also sacking Delhi.

Timur's short-lived empire also melded the Turko-Persian tradition in Transoxiana, and in most of the
territories that he incorporated into his fiefdom, Persian became the primary language of administration and
literary culture (diwan), regardless of ethnicity.[118] In addition, during his reign, some contributions to Turkic
literature were penned, with Turkic cultural influence expanding and flourishing as a result. A literary form of
Chagatai Turkic came into use alongside Persian as both a cultural and an official language. [119]
Emir Timur and his forces advance against the Golden Horde, Khan Tokhtamysh.

Tamerlane virtually exterminated the Church of the East, which had previously been a major branch of
Christianity but afterwards became largely confined to a small area now known as the Assyrian Triangle.[120]

Timur became a relatively popular figure in Europe for centuries after his death, mainly because of his victory
over the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid. The Ottoman armies were at the time invading Eastern Europe and Timur
was ironically seen as an ally.

Statue of Tamerlane in Uzbekistan. In the background are the ruins of his summer palace in Shahrisabz.

Timur has now been officially recognized as a national hero in Uzbekistan. His monument in Tashkent now
occupies the place where Karl Marx's statue once stood.

Muhammad Iqbal, a philosopher, poet and politician in British India who is widely regarded as having inspired
the Pakistan Movement,[121] composed a notable poem entitled Dream of Timur, the poem itself was inspired
by a prayer of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah II:[citation needed]
The Sharif of the Hijaz suffers due to the divisive sectarian schisms of his faith, And lo! that young Tatar
(Timur) has boldly re-envisioned magnanimous victories of overwhelming conquest.

In 1794, Sake Dean Mahomed published his travel book, The Travels of Dean Mahomet. The book begins with
the praise of Genghis Khan, Timur, and particularly the first Mughal emperor, Babur. He also gives important
details on the then incumbent Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II.

Historical sources

Ahmad ibn Arabshah's work on the Life of Timur

The earliest known history of his reign was Nizam ad-Din Shami's Zafarnama, which was written during
Timur's lifetime. Between 1424 and 1428, Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi wrote a second Zafarnama drawing heavily
on Shami's earlier work. Ahmad ibn Arabshah wrote a much less favorable history in Arabic. Arabshah's
history was translated into Latin by the Dutch Orientalist Jacobus Golius in 1636.

As Timurid-sponsored histories, the two Zafarnamas present a dramatically different picture from Arabshah's
chronicle. William Jones remarked that the former presented Timur as a "liberal, benevolent and illustrious
prince" while the latter painted him as "deformed and impious, of a low birth and detestable principles".[citation
needed]

Malfuzat-i Timuri
The Malfuzat-i Timurī and the appended Tuzūk-i Tīmūrī, supposedly Timur's own autobiography, are almost
certainly 17th-century fabrications.[23][122] The scholar Abu Taleb Hosayni presented the texts to the Mughal
emperor Shah Jahan, a distant descendant of Timur, in 1637–38, supposedly after discovering the Chagatai
language originals in the library of a Yemeni ruler. Due to the distance between Yemen and Timur's base in
Transoxiana and the lack of any other evidence of the originals, most historians consider the story highly
implausible, and suspect Hosayni of inventing both the text and its origin story. [122]