Amir Temur

Who is Amir Temur?

Amir Temur, known in the West as Tamerlane, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror born near Shahrisabz in present-day Uzbekistan. Rising from a minor noble of the Barlas tribe, he built a vast empire stretching from the Mediterranean to India and from the Aral Sea to the Persian Gulf, ruling from his magnificent capital at Samarkand. A brilliant and often ruthless military strategist, he fought campaigns against the Golden Horde, the Delhi Sultanate, the Mamluks, and the Ottoman Empire, notably defeating and capturing the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara in 1402. Despite the destruction his campaigns caused, Temur was also a great patron of architecture, art, and learning, transforming Samarkand into one of the most spectacular cities of the medieval world with monuments such as the Gur-e-Amir mausoleum and the Bibi-Khanym Mosque. He died in 1405 while preparing a campaign against Ming China. Today he is regarded in Uzbekistan as the national founding hero and symbol of statehood.

Sources: Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge University Press, 1989) · Justin Marozzi, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (2004) · UNESCO World Heritage listing for Samarkand — Crossroads of Cultures