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Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World
To dismiss him in simplistic terms as a ruthless conqueror would, as this large and beautifully illustrated tome amply demonstrates, do him less than justice. For to be sure, he was a complex character who combined in his person the qualities of a cunning politician—Temur made an excellent chess player—and a formidable military strategist. Nor was that all, there was a creative streak in him and he was to reveal himself as a man of high culture. It would only be fair to sketch however briefly his military exploits which began not long after his accession to the throne (1370). To start with, he targeted the Mughals to the east and the ruler of Khorzem to the north (1381-4). There followed his hurricane progress through Persia and the Caucasus (1386-8), the worsting of the Golden Horde (1391-2) and the campaign in the West that stretched for almost five years (1392-6). Later, in 1400, Temur launched his long-drawn onslaught on Qarabagh. And on the eve of his death, he was planning to march on the Ming ruler of China. Temur’s Indian campaign and conquest of Delhi (1398) calls for no comment. Sweeping through the Panjab, he closed in on the imperial capital. Inasmuch as there were signs of resistance from the majority Hindu population and of rebellion in his rearguard, he ruled that anyone coming in the way would be killed right on the spot. This unexpected butchering of captives added to the sense of foreboding within his ranks. The battle was joined on December 17 and despite fierce opposition the Indians were routed. This was a signal for his soldiers who had earlier staged a general massacre—"so terrible that some streets were blocked by heaps of the dead"—rampaging through the town "like hungry wolves falling on a flock of sheep". Nor was this untypical. His sole objective being fame as a conqueror, Temur was far from concerned if a noble city was laid to waste or the inhabitants of a province massacred as long as it was clear that the dreadful impression would facilitate the purpose of his ambition. The wily conqueror had nonetheless an appreciation of artistic excellence and architectural beauty—so entirely foreign to Ghenghiz. This was strikingly revealed in the planning and architecture of his beloved Samarqand, with its splendid mosques and madrassas, parks and palaces. Fired by a self-serving interest in history, Temur decreed an official record of all his conquests. He was also fond of debate and gathered together an assembly of illustrious scholars at his court. It is on record that he showed utmost regard for the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun whom he granted a series of audiences during the month he camped outside the city walls of Damascus (1401). If soldiers were his first love as an emperor, his great admiration for holy men and men of letters came a close second. Temur was no infidel, for Islam governed his military career. And the crescent always surmounted his royal standard. More, all his conquests were prosecuted under its banner. That Islam and wholesale slaughter were incompatible bedfellows was beside the point. So were Christian faith and the Crusaders! Its minutiae of detail notwithstanding, the volume reads well. And is embellished by numerous illustrations of Samarqand and Bukhara, and some excellent maps showing inter alia Temur’s campaigns, the Silk Road, other trade routes through Asia and the Golden Horde. The youthful Justin Marozzi, barely 35, who read history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is a former correspondent of the Financial Times. His first book, South from Barbary, an account of a 1,200-mile journey by camel along the old slave routes of the Libyan Sahara, was well received. |
Whatever
way one renders him—Temur, Timur, Tamburlaine, Tamerlane—the Tatar
ruler ranks alongside the Greek Alexander and the Mongol Ghenghis Khan
as the world’s most devastating war king. Heading a ferocious army, he
blazed through Asia in the closing decades of the 14th century, razing
cities to the ground, mercilessly torturing their inhabitants and
ruthlessly decapitating his enemies. His conquests stretching all the
way from Damascus to Delhi, and from Siberia to the Mediterranean.