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Books about Timur Lenk :
The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization)
The Age of Tamerlane : Warfare in the Middle East C.1350-1500 (Men-At-Arms, No. 222)
(1336-1405). Timur Lenk means "Timur, the lame." But the handicap did not stop Timur from becoming
one of the fiercest and most successful of the conquerors to come out of Central Asia. For almost four decades--from
the 1360s until his death--he and his nomad warriors conquered every territory from Mongolia in the east to the
Mediterranean lands in the west. The desolation caused by his campaigns gave rise to many legends, and his exploits
inspired such works as Christopher Marlowe's play 'Tamburlaine the Great', published in 1590.
Timur was born in Kesh, near Samarkand, Transoxania (today's Uzbekistan), in 1336. He was a member of the
Turkic Barlas clan of Mongols. He first led a small nomad band to establish control of the area between the Jaxartes
and Oxus rivers in his homeland. In the early 1380s he invaded Moscow and stopped a Russian rebellion against the
Mongol descendants of Genghis Khan. Eastern Persia fell to him by 1385, and by 1394
Fars, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Georgia were in his control. In 1398 he invaded India and sacked
Delhi. He then invaded Syria and Asia Minor.
In 1404 he was back in his capital of Samarkand making preparations for the conquest of China. At the end of December
the expedition set out, but he soon fell ill. He died near Chimkent (now in Kazakhstan) on Jan. 19, 1405.
His body was buried in the mausoleum Gur-e Amir.
His dynasty, the Timurid Dynasty, survived for about another century. One of his descendants, Baber, founded the
Mughal Dynasty of India (see Baber).
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