Amir Timur. Rise to power

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

1. Name

Temur means "iron" in the Chagatai language. According to the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland (1972) the term temur is possibly derived from a Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit word *cimara ("iron"). As an adult he was better known as Timыr Gurkвnо (КнгжС ђжСЯЗдм), Gurkвn being the Persianized form of the original Mongolian word kurugan, "son-in-law". One of Timur's ancestors who was known by the name "kara-sharnoban" converted to Islam and married the daughter of Chagatai Khan (son of Genghis Khan).

Timur was thus referred to as the son-in-law of Chagatai Khan. Various Persian sources use a byname, Tоmыr-e Lang (К?гжС бдђ) which translates to "Timur the Lame", as he was lame after sustaining an injury to his foot in battle. During his lifetime his enemies taunted him with this name, much to Timur's discomfort. In the West, he is commonly known as Tamerlane or Timur Lenk, which derives from his Persian by name. In most of the Asian, especially Muslim literature, he is regarded as Amir Temur (Amir, often transliterated as Emir, is a title translating as "Leader" or "Commander").

2. Early history

Timur was born in Transoxiana, in the City of Kesh (an area now better known as Shahrisabz, "the green city"), some 50 miles south of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan, then part of the Chagatai Khanate. His father, Taraqai, was a small-scale landowner and belonged to the Barlas tribe. The Barlas was a Turko-Mongol tribe which was originally a Mongol tribe and was Turkified and/or became Turkic-speaking or intermingling with the Turkic peoples. According to Gerard Chaliand, Timur was a Muslim Turk but he saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir. Though not a Chinggisid, he clearly sought to evoke the legacy of Genghis Khan's conquests during his lifetime.

Timur was a Muslim, but while his chief official religious counsellor & advisor was the Hanafite scholar 'Abdu 'l-Jabbar Khwarazmi, his particular persuasion is not known. In Tirmidh, he had come under the influence of his spiritual mentor Sayyid Barakah, a Shiite leader from Balkh who is buried alongside Timur in Gur-e Amir. Despite his Hanafi background, Timur was known to hold Ali and the Shia Imams in high regard and has been noted by various scholars for his "pro-Alid" stance. Despite this, Timur was noted for attacking Shi'is on Sunni grounds and therefore his own religious inclinations remain unclear.

3. Rise to power

Timur commanding the Siege of Balkh.

Tughlugh's death facilitated the work of reconquest, and a few years of perseverance and energy sufficed for its accomplishment, as well as for the addition of a vast extent of territory. It was in this period that Timur reduced the Chagatai khans to the position of figureheads, who were deferred to in theory but in reality ignored, while Timur ruled in their name. During this period Timur and his brother-in-law Husayn, at first fellow fugitives and wanderers in joint adventures full of interest and romance, became rivals and antagonists. At the close of 1369 Husayn was assassinated and Timur, having been formally proclaimed sovereign at Balkh, mounted the throne at Samarkand, the capital of his dominions. This event was recorded by Marlowe in his famous work Tamburlaine the Great:

A legendary account of Timur's rise to leadership, recorded among the Tatar descendants of the Qэpchaq Khanate in Tobol, goes as follows:One day Aksak Temur spoke thusly: amir timur tamerlane

"Khan Zudei (in China) rules over the city. We now number fifty to sixty men, so let us elect a leader." So they drove a stake into the ground and said: "We shall run thither and he who among us is the first to reach the stake, may he become our leader". So they ran and Aksak Timur (since he was lame) lagged behind, but before the others reached the stake he threw his cap onto it. Those who arrived first said: "We are the leaders". (But) Aksak Timur said: "My head came in first, I am the leader". In the meanwhile an old man arrived and said: "The leadership should belong to Aksak Timur; your feet have arrived but, before then, his head reached the goal". So they made Aksak Timur their prince.

It is notable that Timur never claimed for himself the title of khan, styling himself amir and acting in the name of the Chagatai ruler of Transoxania. Timur was a military genius, but was sometimes lacking in political sense. He tended not to leave a government apparatus behind in lands he conquered and was often faced with the need to reconquer such lands after inevitable rebellions had taken place.

4. Indian campaign

His campaign was officially justified by claims that the Muslim Delhi Sultanate was too tolerant toward its Hindu subjects, but was motivated greatly by the considerable wealth to be gained. By all accounts, Timur's campaigns in India were marked by systematic slaughter and other atrocities on a truly massive scale inflicted mainly on the subcontinent's Hindu population.

Timur crossed the Indus River at Attock (now Pakistan) on September 24, 1398, but Timur's invasion did not go unopposed and he did meet some resistance during his march to Delhi, by the Governor of Meerut. Timur was able to continue his relentless approach to Delhi, arriving in 1398 to combat the armies of Sultan Mehmud, already weakened by a succession struggle within the royal family.

The Sultan's army was easily defeated on December 17, 1398. On this day the army of Sultan Mahmud Khan had prepared 120 war elephants armored with chain mail. He had put poison on the tusks, which put fright into the Tatar lines. Timur took action and the Tatars dug out a trench in front of their positions. Timur then took his camels and placed all the wood and hay he could on their backs. When the war elephants charged he lit the camels on fire and then prodded them with iron sticks. They charged at the elephants howling in pain: Timur had understood that elephants were easily panicked. Faced with the strange spectacle of the burning camels flying straight at them with flames leaping from their backs, the elephants turned around and stampeded back toward their own lines. Timur entered Delhi and the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins. Before the battle for Delhi, Timur executed 100,000 captives:

On the previous day, when the enemy's forces made the attack upon us, the prisoners made signs of rejoicing, uttered imprecations against us, and were ready, as soon as they heard of the enemy's success, to form themselves into a body, break their bonds, plunder our tents, and then to go and join the enemy, and so increase his numbers and strength. I asked their advice about the prisoners, and they said that on the great day of battle these 100,000 prisoners could not be left with the baggage, and that it would be entirely opposed to the rules of war to set these idolaters and foes of Islam at liberty. In fact, no other course remained but that of making them all food for the sword. When I heard these words I found them in accordance with the rules of war, and I directly gave my command for the Tawachis to proclaim throughout the camp that every man who had infidel prisoners was to put them to death, and whoever neglected to do so should himself be executed and his property given to the informer. When this order became known to the ghazis of Islam, they drew their swords and put their prisoners to death. 100,000 infidels, impious idolaters, were on that day slain. Maulana Nasiru-d din 'Umar, a counsellor and man of learning, who, in all his life, had never killed a sparrow, now, in execution of my order, slew with his sword fifteen idolatrous Hindus, who were his captives."

The alleged "Memoirs" of Timur, or Tuzk-e-Taimuri, relate the sack of Delhi:

"On the 16th of the month some incidents occurred which led to the sack of the city of Delhi, and to the slaughter of many of the infidel inhabitants. One was this. A party of fierce Turk soldiers had assembled at one of the gates of the city to look about them and enjoy themselves, and some of them laid violent hands upon the goods of the inhabitants. When I heard of this violence, I sent some amirs, who were present in the city, to restrain the Turks. A party of soldiers accompanied these amirs into the city. Another reason was that some of the ladies of my harem expressed a wish to go into the city and see the palace of Hazar-sutun (thousand columns) which Malik Jauna built in the fort called Jahan-panah. I granted this request, and I sent a party of soldiers to escort the litters of the ladies. Another reason was that Jalal Islam and other diwans had gone into the city with a party of soldiers to collect the contribution laid upon the city. Another reason was that some thousand troopers with orders for grain, oil, sugar, and flour, had gone into the city to collect these supplies. Another reason was that it had come to my knowledge that great numbers of gabrs, with their wives and children, and goods, and valuables, had come into the city from all the country round, and consequently I had sent some amirs with their regiments (kushun) into the city and directed them to pay no attention to the remonstrances of the inhabitants, but to seize and bring out these fugitives. For these several reasons a great number of fierce Turki soldiers were in the city. When the soldiers proceeded to apprehend the Hindus and gabrs who had fled to the city, many of them drew their swords and offered resistance.

The flames of strife were thus lighted and spread through the whole city from Jahan-panah and Siri to Old Dehli, burning up all it reached. The savage Turks fell to killing and plundering. The amirs who were in charge of the gates prevented any more soldiers from going into the place, but the flames of war had risen too high for this precaution to be of any avail in extinguishing them. On that day, Thursday, and all the night of Friday, nearly 15,000 Turks were engaged in slaying, plundering, and destroying. When morning broke on the Friday, all my army, no longer under control, went off to the city and thought of nothing but killing, plundering, and making prisoners. All that day the sack was general. The following day, Saturday, the 17th, all passed in the same way, and the spoil was so great that each man secured from fifty to a hundred prisoners, men, women, and children.

There was no man who took less than twenty. The other booty was immense in rubies, diamonds, garnets, pearls, and other gems; jewels of gold and silver; ashrafis, tankas of gold and silver of the celebrated 'Alai coinage; vessels of gold and silver; and brocades and silks of great value. Gold and silver ornaments of the Hindu women were obtained in such quantities as to exceed all account. Excepting the quarter of the saiyids, the 'ulama, and the other Musulmans, the whole city was sacked. The pen of fate had written down this destiny for the people of this city. Although I was desirous of sparing them I could not succeed, for it was the will of Allah that this calamity should fall upon the city."

Timur left Delhi in December 1398 and marched on Meerut. Then he rode up to Haridwar and sacked the holy city on January 23, 1399. Before he crossed the Ganges, he faced stiff resistance from natives at Bhokarhedi. In April he had returned to his own capital beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya). Immense quantities of spoils and slaves were taken from India. According to Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo, 90 captured elephants were employed merely to carry precious stones looted from his conquest, so as to erect a mosque at Samarkand- what historians today believe is the enormous Bibi-Khanym Mosque.

Размещено на Allbest.ru