Timur

: For the chess engine Tamerlane, see Tamerlane.

Last campaigns and death

In April 1399, some three months after quitting the capital of Mahmüd Toghluk, Timur was back in his own capital beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya). It need scarcely be added that an immense quantity of spoil was conveyed away. According to Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo, ninety captured elephants were employed merely to carry stones from certain quarries to enable the conqueror to erect a mosque at Samarkand.

Related Topics:
1399 - Mahmüd Toghluk - Oxus - Ruy Gonzáles de Clavijo - Elephant - Samarkand

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The war with the Turks and Egyptians, which followed the return from India, was rendered notable by the capture of Aleppo and Damascus. He invaded Baghdad in June of 1401; after the capture of the city, 20,000 of its citizens were massacred. Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show. In 1402, Timur invaded Anatolia and defeated Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I in the Battle of Ankara; Bayezid was captured and subsequently died in captivity. Timur also captured Smyrna from the Knights of Rhodes. This was his last campaign.

Related Topics:
Turks - Egyptians - Aleppo - Damascus - Baghdad - 1402 - Anatolia - Ottoman - Bayezid I - Battle of Ankara - Smyrna - Knights of Rhodes

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In 1368 the Ming had driven the Mongols out of China. The first Ming Emperor demanded, and got, many Central Asian states to pay homage to China as the political heirs to the former House of Kublai. Timur more than once sent to the Chinese Government gifts which could have passed as tribute. But Timur hankered to restore the Mongol Empire, and eventually planned to conquer China. In December 1404 Timur started military expeditions against the Ming Dynasty of China, but the old warrior was attacked by fever and plague when encamped on the farther side of the Sihon (Syr-Daria) and died at Atrar (Otrar) in mid-February 1405.

Related Topics:
Ming - Kublai - 1404 - Ming Dynasty - China - Syr-Daria - Otrar - 1405

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Of Timur's four sons, two (Jahangir and Umar Shaykh) predeceased him. His third son, Miran Shah, died soon after Timur, leaving the youngest son, Shah Rukh. Although his designated successor was his grandson Pir Muhammad b. Jahangir, Timur was ultimately succeeded in power by his son Shah Rukh. His descendant Babur became emperor of India.

Related Topics:
Shah Rukh - Pir Muhammad - Babur - India

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Markham, in his introduction to the narrative of Clavijo's embassy, states that his body "was embalmed with musk and rose water, wrapped in linen, laid in an ebony coffin and sent to Samarkand, where it was buried." Timur had carried his victorious arms on one side from the Irtish and the Volga to the Persian Gulf and on the other from the Hellespont to the Ganges River.

Related Topics:
Samarkand - Irtish - Volga - Persian Gulf - Hellespont - Ganges River

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