Reflections - Tamerlane

1. Reflections - Tamerlane

2. Article: ““Tamerlane’s Career and Its Uses” by Beatrice Forbes Manz • Journal of World History 13, no. 1 (2002), 1–25 • Online Source: Bridging World History - Tamerlane has remained an important figure in world history, both because of the impact of his career on the world of his time and because he remains fascinating and useful to many people - This article explores the facts of Temür’s career and the uses made of his image following his death, showing how his actions together with the stories circulated during his lifetime served to create a charisma that survives into the present time

3. The Turco-Mongolian conqueror Tamerlane, or Temür, who ruled from 1370 to 1405, had a significant impact on the world of his time • He founded a state covering the present Iran and Central Asia, crushed the army of the Ottoman sultan Yildirim Beyezit, and destroyed the power of the Mongol Golden Horde • To the Europeans and Byzantines, Temür’s destruction of the Ottoman menace was a reprieve from danger, and for the emerging Muscovite state, the weakening of the Golden Horde proved a useful opportunity

4. Within the Middle East Temür reestablished the frontier between the steppe and the agricultural regions, and founded a dynasty famous for its cultural brilliance • After his death, Temür continued to be useful and fascinating, both in the East and in the West, and it is not too surprising to find him appearing at the end of the millennium as the founding father of a new Uzbek nation

5. Two aspects of Temür’s lifetime achievement set him apart from most men and put him into the ranks of legendary commanders: his success in acquiring wealth and territory, and the theatrical nature of his exploits • There is a striking contrast between his lowly beginnings and the extraordinary power he achieved, his modest formal claims and his extravagant symbolic ones, his illiteracy and his scholarly understanding, his penchant for building and for destruction

6. Temür came to power in Transoxiana, on the border between the nomad steppes and the agricultural Middle East • As a Muslim and a descendant of Mongols, bilingual in Turkic and Persian, he belonged to both worlds • His native region had been part of the Chaghadayid Khanate, which was one of the less powerful and organized sections of the Mongol Empire, controlled by the descendants of Chinggis Khan’s second son Chaghadai • Temür himself, although he was a member of the tribal aristocracy, was not a descendant of Chinggis Khan, nor chief of his own tribe

7. Nonetheless, through ceaseless political and military activity, he came to dominate first Transoxiana and then much of Iran • This was not sufficient for him; he aimed to recreate the Mongol Empire—at least symbolically—under his suzerainty, and to achieve recognized primacy over the Islamic world as well • In the military and political sphere Temür achieved his ambition through an interesting combination of restraint and extravagance

8. He claimed preeminence over essentially the whole of the Mongol Empire, but constructed an administration in only a small portion of it, in Iran and Central Asia • Almost the whole of his long life was spent on campaign • Starting as a member of the Barlas tribe in Transoxiana, he won his way to power over the region in 1370 • By 1380 he had achieved supremacy as far as Kashghar in the east and Khorezm in the west, and he then began to lay claim to the Iranian region

9. Temür set out to assert his symbolic power over the Islamic and Mongol worlds • By helping the Chinggisid pretender Tokhtamysh take the throne of the Blue or White Horde north of the Jaxartes, he positioned himself as protector of a member of the senior Chinggisid line, that of Chinggis Khan’s eldest son, Jochi • His conquest of northern Iran in the winter of 1384 -85 allowed him to invoke the heritage of the Mongol Ilkhans who had centered their rule in that area

10. But Temür’s victories abroad were achieved at considerable cost to his armies, and if he had tried to assert full control over the lands of his defeated rivals—a region stretching from the Russian steppes to Delhi, from Anatolia to the Issyk Kul—he would have seriously strained even his rich resources • What he did instead was to establish a government over a much smaller area—Iran, Iraq, and Central Asia • These territories he could administer successfully, and they provided him with a rich tax base and a reserve of manpower which made possible the showy campaigns that established his fame throughout almost the whole of Eurasia

11. Even though Temür led the largest and most successful army of his time and dominated both of the political worlds he belonged to—the Islamic and the Mongol—he was not eligible for supreme office within either of the imperial traditions he honored • Since he was not directly descended from Chinggis Khan, he could not claim the title of khan, the mark of sovereignty within the world of the steppe nomads • He could likewise not call himself caliph, the supreme title of the Islamic world, since that office was limited to the Quraysh, the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad • Since he was not himself eligible for supreme office, he allowed to his puppet khan the major titles of both worlds while contenting himself with the modest title amir, or commander

12. Therefore, Temür’s chroniclers did not exalt the official position he held, but rather his person • The massacres for which Temür is famous were not frequent • They were reserved for cities that rebelled, and they were organized for impressiveness, echoing in scale and method those of the Mongol invasion • They were theatrical demonstrations of power, used as a tool to inspire not only fear, but also respect

13. In this context it is telling that the historian Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali Yazdi, writing for the Timurid court, estimated the number of Indian captives that Temür’s army put to the sword on the Delhi campaign at 100,000, while a hostile account by the Indian historian Yahya Sirhindi in the Tarikh-I Mubarakshahi gave Temür credit for only 50,000 victims

14. Temür accompanied his greatest shows of destructive force with displays of learning, piety, and care for the arts • Craftsmen he spared and deported, as Chinggis Khan had done • He further invited out the learned classes—the ulama — and debated with them; the masters of chess he challenged and defeated • His ability to hold his own in learned conversation was attested by the famous historian Ibn Khaldun, with whom he talked outside Damascus

15. For his descendants, a different system had to be worked out; what was required now was a dynastic rather than a personal legitimation • Temür bequeathed to his successors three useful bases for continued legitimacy • First, he had established his position as a promoter of Islam through patronage of scholars, construction of religious buildings, and campaigns for the spread of the faith • Second, he had connected himself with Chinggis Khan through marriage and the maintenance of a figurehead khan • Third, and in the long run most importantly, he had established himself as a person of extraordinary stature, whose figure could be used in its own right to lend stature to his descendants

16. Now that Temür had become a source of legitimacy in his own right, the modesty of his formal titles became less acceptable • Historians have noted that Temür’s son and successor Shahrukh ceased to maintain a puppet khan • Along with the emphasis on Temür as dynastic founder in his own right came a tendency to exalt his personality

17. The poet Sakkaki, writing shortly after Temür’s death, included in his mystical verse poem a story about Temür who, seeing the struggles of a crippled ant, learned to persevere despite his own damaged leg and arm • Princes, authors, and miniaturists of the Timurid period contributed to Temür’s fame in a less direct way as well—by creating a brilliant cultural milieu which made the Timurid period a model of intellectual and artistic achievement

18. The Timurids gained their lasting reputation not only through the refinement of the works they produced, but also because the dynasty fell at the height of its cultural brilliance, leaving behind scholars and artists in need of new patrons • These men became valued prizes for the dynasties succeeding the Timurids: Uzbeks, Mughals, Safavids, and even Ottomans • The dynasties which followed the Timurids shared many traits with them, including a mixed nomad and sedentary population and a respect for Islamic Iranian, and Turkic or Turco-Mongolian traditions • The figure of Temür and the Timurid heritage were attractive to several of them

19. The dynasty which relied most directly on Timurid legitimacy was the Mughal dynasty of India, founded by Temür’s descendant Babur, who, unable to overcome the invading Uzbeks, left Transoxiana and in 932/1526 established himself in India • The early Mughal rulers emphasized both their descent from Temür and their Chinggisid lineage through Babur’s mother; they were known equally as the Mughals and the Later Timurids • Just as Temür’s descendants claimed that Temür had outdone Chinggis Khan, so Babur and his descendants recorded those aspects of Babur’s career which had surpassed the achievements of Temür

20. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the central Timurid lands fell to two dynasties: the Safavids and the Uzbeks • For both of these it was the cultural legacy of the Timurids which held the greatest appeal • The Uzbek khans, who took over Transoxiana, were directly descended from Chinggis Khan through his son Jochi and advertised their rule as a restoration of the true Chinggisid tradition • They thus exalted their khans over the Timurid rulers, whose line was inferior by Mongol standards • On the other hand, coming from outside the central Islamic lands, the Uzbeks were not adept in Perso-Islamic cultural traditions and thus depended heavily on former Timurid personnel for the establishment of a courtly milieu

21. The Safavids, who came to power under a charismatic Shi’ite leader and conquered the central Iranian lands, were more independent of the Timurid heritage • They did, however, take over Herat and they inherited several famous Timurid historians and miniaturists • Temür himself was not prominent in early Safavid historiography, but in the middle of the sixteenth century, historians began to incorporate him into accounts of the earlier Safavid Sufi order from which the shahs descended, using a story reminiscent of those found in the histories of other Sufis • Temür, they claimed, had visited the head of the order on his campaign to Anatolia, and had shown him honor

22. For powerful individuals as well as for dynasties, Temür’s figure held appeal • His interest in international trade and his defeat of the Ottoman Sultan Beyezit brought him to the attention of Europe, where his fame lasted and grew through the Renaissance • He became for the Europeans a symbol of the power of will • The interest he aroused was more literary than scholarly; Tamerlane was prominent in literature as the conqueror of extraordinary might, who drove a chariot drawn by defeated kings and dragged the Ottoman Sultan Beyezit around in a cage

23. Temür held particular appeal for rulers aspiring to personal power, and it is not surprising that his figure enjoyed a spurt of popularity in Europe and Asia from the end of the sixteenth century to about the middle of the seventeenth, a period associated with the reigns of exceptionally powerful monarchs • In Europe this was the period of Elizabeth 1 (1558–1603 ) • Further east, Shah ‘Abbas (1588–1629 ) in Iran and Akbar (1556–1605 ) in India both brought their realms to a new level of centralized power focused around their own persons

24. In India it was Akbar who initiated a resurgence of interest in the figure of Temür • Neither of his predecessors, Babur and Humayun, had fully secured power over India; this was the achievement of Akbar himself

25. From this time on Temür’s place within the pantheon of great rulers of popular and court culture was established, both in Europe and in Asia • In Europe he provided subject matter for the French philosophes and for composers Handel and Scarlatti in the eighteenth century, as well as for the American writer Poe in the nineteenth • In the central Islamic lands he was firmly embedded in folk culture, used as the embodiment of royal rule and a foil for the popular folk figure, Nasr al-Din Khwaja, while in the nomad steppes, he was a popular figure in folk epics

26. For five hundred years after his death Temür remained important in political and intellectual life both because of the dramatic appeal of his deeds, his personality, and the myths surrounding him, and because he belonged equally to two worlds—the Perso-Islamic and the Turco-Mongolian • The two sides of Temür—his appeal as a powerful personality and his usefulness in state legitimation—maintained for him a prominent place in history and made it certain that he would figure in any new interpretation of the history of Central Asia and its place in the world

27. When the Soviet state reconstituted the Russian Empire, the history of Central Asia and thus of Temür became a state concern and the subject of repeated revisions • The Soviet view of nationality, laid out in its classical form by Stalin in “Marxism and the Nationality Question,” linked territory, language, and history as the basis of nationality • Such a formulation requires some readjustment of the historical record for any region, and particularly for Uzbekistan, since the Uzbek tribes came into the territory of modern Uzbekistan only in the sixteenth century, and their entry is well documented

28. Furthermore the Uzbeks were nomadic, and nomads hold an inglorious place in the Marxist scheme of development • To make it worse, they were descendants of the Mongols, led by a khan directly descended from Chinggis Khan, consistently reviled in Soviet historiography • The solution was to emphasize the importance of the Turkic people earlier inhabiting Transoxiana, including the Timurids, and to downplay the number of new people brought in by the Uzbek invasion

29. The figure of Temür himself gained prominence with the change in Soviet historiography during the Second World War • The need to encourage patriotism and to allow glory to military leaders brought the rehabilitation of previously controversial Russian figures like Peter I and Ivan the Terrible • Non-Russian military heroes on the other hand remained a problem since many had won their spurs fighting against the Russians • Temür, however, was not among the most threatening; he was medieval, and unconcerned with the Russians • In addition, he had done much to destroy the Mongol Golden Horde, through his duel with his rival Tokhtamish

30. When it became possible to begin the rewriting of Uzbek history during the period of perestroika in the late 1980s, Temür was well positioned to become a beneficiary • National republics were eager to break loose from earlier Soviet strictures and to promote a more local and independent view of history • Soviet Russian historians had given Temür secure status as an important figure in world history and had criticized him sufficiently to allow an Uzbek revision and rehabilitation

31. Temür has not only been rehabilitated; he has been given the stature of father of the Uzbek nation • There are several reasons for this choice • First of all, there are few other suitable candidates • There is no major figure of national resistance from either the Russian or the Soviet period; Uzbekistan did not win its independence from Russia; rather, it had independence come to it • There are likewise few useful figures from earlier periods

32. Uzbekistan did not have to fight for its independence, but it does have to struggle for recognition as a power in its own right, now that it is no longer part of the Soviet Union • In the Soviet period, whatever the drawbacks of Uzbekistan’s position, it was part of a superpower; the history taught in its textbooks and the monuments gracing its squares testified to that fact • Now that the USSR is dissolved, it is necessary to find another source of prestige

33. In formulating his persona Temür echoed actions of past rulers, copying both the grandiose campaign and massacre style of Chinggis Khan and the patronage of learning and high culture approved within the Perso-Islamic tradition

34. The image of a man of will and destiny rising from low station to rule the world, which Temür and his entourage encouraged orally during his lifetime, appealed strongly to the writers of the European Renaissance, to wartime Soviet writers, and now to the rulers of independent Uzbekistan • The dynastic patriarch, great centralizer and promoter of order, the field commander who honors and even outshines the scholars of his day, has also had an enduring attraction for numerous ambitious rulers since, from Akbar to Karimov