Central Asia and the Steppe (14th – mid-15th c.)Wars and battles

Rise and campaigns of Timur

In April 1370 Timur, an amir of the Barlas tribe from Kesh, took Balkh, rid himself of his rival Amir Husayn and was proclaimed supreme ruler of the western Chagatai ulus, with Samarkand as his capital. For the next 35 years he campaigned almost without pause — from Khwarazm and Moghulistan to Iran and the Caucasus, the Golden Horde, Delhi, Syria and Anatolia — sacking cities with great brutality while bringing their craftsmen and wealth to Samarkand.

Date: April 1370 – between 17 February and 19 February 1405start: month known; end: exact date unknown: an interval is given · duration: ≈ 35 years
Place: Samarkandtoday: Samarkand, Uzbekistan · Central and Northern Asia
Route: Balkh → Herat → Tabriz → Isfahan → Urgench → Kondurcha River → Baghdad → Terek River → Delhi → Damascus → Ankara → Samarkand → Otrar
Participants: Timur, Timurid Empire
Threads: Central Asia and the Steppe (14th – mid-15th c.)
Also known as: Tamerlane; Timur Lenk; Temür; Amir Timur; Timurid conquests; Тамерлан; Тимур-ленг; Амир Темур; Походы Тамерлана

Timur was born near Kesh (Shahrisabz) into the Barlas, a Mongol tribe long settled and Turkicized in Transoxiana; later Timurid histories give 8 April 1336 as his birthday, but the ages his contemporaries record point to the late 1320s. He rose amid the collapse of the Chagatai ulus: when Tughlugh Timur of Moghulistan invaded Transoxiana in 1360, Timur went over to the khan and received Kesh, then joined his brother-in-law Amir Husayn against the Moghuls. Wounds in the right leg and hand, received around 1363, earned him the name Temür-i Lang, ‘Timur the Lame’ — the Tamerlane of European writers. The allies became rivals; in April 1370 Timur took Balkh, Husayn was killed, and an assembly of the amirs proclaimed Timur their supreme ruler. Not being a descendant of Genghis Khan, he never took the title of khan, ruling in the name of puppet Chinggisid khans and calling himself güregen, the khan's son-in-law, after marrying Husayn's widow Saray Mulk Khanum, a Chinggisid princess.

From Samarkand, his capital, Timur campaigned against Moghulistan at least five times and subdued Khwarazm, whose capital Urgench he sacked and destroyed in 1388; took Herat in 1381; and from 1383 conquered the states that had divided Iran after the Ilkhanate, taking Tabriz in 1386 and massacring the rebellious people of Isfahan in 1387, where an eyewitness counted more than 28 towers of heads. His former protégé Tokhtamysh, khan of the Golden Horde, turned against him and raided Azerbaijan and Transoxiana; Timur crushed him on the Kondurcha in 1391 and on the Terek in 1395 and laid waste the cities of the Volga. In 1393 he took Baghdad, in 1398 he invaded India and sacked Delhi, in 1400–1401 he ravaged Syria, and in 1402 at Ankara he defeated and captured the Ottoman sultan Bayezid I. At the end of 1404 he set out against Ming China and died at Otrar in February 1405.

Timur's wars cost the lives of a vast number of people — scholars speak of millions — and he used terror against cities that resisted as a deliberate method; yet he spared craftsmen and scholars, deporting masters from conquered lands to embellish Samarkand and his native Kesh, where he built the Ak-Saray palace. He met Ibn Khaldun outside Damascus in 1401, and the Castilian envoy Ruy González de Clavijo described his court in 1404. The empire, held together by his person, fragmented soon after his death, but his descendants, the Timurids, ruled Transoxiana and Khorasan for another century, and one of them, Babur, founded the Mughal empire.

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Connections

Causes and preconditions

Tughlugh Timur and the rise of Moghulistanbetween 1347 and 1348 – between 1362 and 1363 · Central and Northern Asiawhen Tughlugh Timur invaded Transoxiana in 1360, the young Timur went over to him and was given his uncle Hajji Beg's lands around Kesh — the first step in his rise

Includes

Battle of the Kondurcha Riverbetween 18 June and 19 June 1391 · Eastern EuropeTimur's first great campaign against Tokhtamysh
Battle of the Terek Riverbetween 14 April and 15 April 1395 · Eastern EuropeTimur's second and decisive campaign against Tokhtamysh
Timur sacks Delhibetween 16 December and 17 December 1398 – between 31 December 1398 and 1 January 1399 · South AsiaThe sack of Delhi was the main event of Timur’s Indian campaign of 1398–1399

Related events

Mongol invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire1219–1221 · Central and Northern AsiaTimur's tribe, the Barlas, had settled in Transoxiana after Genghis Khan's conquest of Central Asia, and Timur saw himself as the restorer of Genghis Khan's empire
Zhu Yuanzhang proclaims the Ming dynasty23 January 1368 · East AsiaTimur’s last campaign, begun at the end of 1404, was aimed at Ming China; he died at Otrar on the way in February 1405
Tokhtamysh sacks Moscow23–26 August 1382 · Eastern EuropeTokhtamysh had won the throne of the Horde with Timur's support, before turning against his former protector
Timur builds the Friday mosque of Samarkand (Bibi-Khanym)May 1399 – between 1404 and 1405 · Central and Northern AsiaTimur began the mosque after his Indian campaign, using elephants brought from India, and altered it on his return from the west in 1404

Same place

Qutayba ibn Muslim conquers Transoxiana705–715 · Central and Northern Asia
The rise of the Samanids in Transoxiana819–900 · Central and Northern Asia
The Kara-Khanid Khanate splits into western and eastern khanatesbetween 1040 and 1042 · Central and Northern Asia
Battle of Qatwan9 September 1141 · Central and Northern Asia
Siege of SamarkandMarch 1220 · Central and Northern Asia
Shaybani Khan destroys the Timurid Empire1500 – 27 May 1507 · Central and Northern Asia

Meanwhile in the world

Other regions, within a year of this event

Western and Central Europe

Treaty of Windsor9 May 1386
Battle of Aljubarrota14 August 1385
Peasants’ Revolt30 May 1381 – November 1381
Hundred Years’ War24 May 1337 – 19 October 1453
Western Schism20 September 1378 – 11 November 1417

+ 1 event

Eastern Europe

Union of Krewo14 August 1385
Battle of the Kondurcha Riverbetween 18 June and 19 June 1391
Tokhtamysh sacks Moscow23–26 August 1382
Battle of Kulikovo8 September 1380
Battle of the Terek Riverbetween 14 April and 15 April 1395

+ 1 event

South Asia

Timur sacks Delhibetween 16 December and 17 December 1398 – between 31 December 1398 and 1 January 1399
Reign of Firuz Shah Tughlaq: canals and new towns23 March 1351 – 20 September 1388
Lal Ded and her vakhs: the beginnings of Kashmiri poetrybetween 1320 and 1392

East Asia

Yi Seong-gye founds the Joseon dynasty5 August 1392
The Hongwu Emperor orders the Yellow Registers1381
The Jikji is printed with movable metal type at Heungdeoksabetween August and September 1377
Kan'ami and Zeami perform for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu: the rise of Nohbetween 1374 and 1375
Northern and Southern Courtsbetween 20 September 1336 and 23 January 1337 – 19 November 1392

Southeast Asia and Oceania

Che Bong Nga's wars against Đại Việt1361 – February 1390
Majapahit at its height under Gajah Mada and Hayam Wurukbetween 1331 and 1336 – 1389

North America

Hohokam great houses and the collapse of the canal townsc. 1300 – c. 1450
Cahokia is abandonedc. 1300 – c. 1400
Mississippian centres after Cahokia: Moundville, Etowah and the Southeastern Ceremonial Complexc. 1200 – c. 1450

Latin America

Paquimé (Casas Grandes) at its heightc. 1300 – c. 1450
Chimor conquers the Lambayeque regionbetween 1350 and 1380
Mayapan, capital of Postclassic Yucatán1220s – between 1441 and 1461
The Kingdom of Cusco: the Inca state before the empirec. 1200 – c. 1438
Chimor: the Chimú kingdom and its capital Chan Chanc. 900 – c. 1470

The same period

14th century