Timurid Empire (original) (raw)

Timurid Empire 1370-1506

Timur Forges a Dynasty 1370-1405
The Timurid Empire was formed when a number of areas conquered by Timur/Tamerlane came together around 1370 in an area that stretched from modern day Turkey to India. As a child Timur had suffered an arrow wound to his leg and was called Timer-i-Lenk in Persian, translating to Timur the Lame in English. This name later became corrupted into Tamerlane. The vast empire that he conquered was controlled from the capital at Samarkand (Uzbekistan) by Timur. A subsequent advance west in 1380 by the warlord resulted in major gains for the empire , while Herat (Afghanistan) fell to the onslaught in 1389. Further victories against the Golden Horde cemented the dynasty as the ruling power in the Caucasus. Timur was an extremely aggressive leader and did not hesitate to advance into the territory around Pakistan and India. He could also prove to be extremely brutal and allowed the sacking of Delhi to continue for over 2 months. During this time Samarkand was transformed by Tamerlane into a major city, bringing many artisans and craftsman from lands that he had conquered to the capital. As a result the population of the city grew to around 150,000 and was considered the center of the Transoxiana region.

The Timurid Empire in 1405, the Capital Samarkand is situated in the North-East. Often Timur would withdraw to his city after beating his enemies, rather than establishing bureaucracy's in his newly conquered territories. This would prove a problem for his squabbling descendent's.

Timur turned his attention towards Syria and used his newly acquired elephants from India to subdue the Mamlukes while capturing Aleppo and Damascus. By 1401 the empire had stretched into Baghdad and pushed East, beating the Ottomans at Ankara in 1402. After the successful campaign against the Ottoman Sultan, Bayazid I, Timur withdrew once again to his solitude in Samarkand where he planned an assault on Ming China. However in 1405, while en route to China, Timur fell Ill and died. He was 69 years old.

The Fall of the Dynasty

After Timur's death his sons and grandsons, whom he had made governors quickly fell into squabbles that resulted in internal conflict, dividing the once consolidated land. Many of the territories assumed autonomy from central control. As a result the divided regions quickly fell victim to surrounding powers and were slowly absorbed by the Safavids and Uzbeks. By 1507 the Timurid empire had lost both Samrakand and Herat, in 1526 the Timurid empire was disestablished with the founding of the Mughal Empire.

The Timurid Empire Lives On

The various lands of the Timurid empire were later absorbed into new empires. It was a descendant of Timur himself, Babur that established the small kingdom of Kabulistan and eventually formed the Mughal Empire in 1526 after the invasion of Hindustan. The Mughal Empire went on to dominate India before being subjugated by the British Empire in 1857.