[Hacksaw]

Sunday History bump

[Hacksaw]

Bump

[PzLdr]

Tamerlane claimed relationship with Chingghis Quan through his second wife, who was a descendant of the House of Chagatai. for much of his reign, he ruled through a legitimate Chagatid Quan, and took the titles Vizier and then Emir.

Although he ruled from a fixed capital [and why was Karakorum not considered a fixed capital?], Tamerlane went to war almost every year of his rule. If he wasn't conquering new lands, or fighting new enemies, he was putting down revolts. I believe he attacked Georgia six different times. His empire was much less orderly than that of the Great Quans of Mongolia.

Finally, Tamerlane's Empire was much more ephemeral. Three of Chingghis Quan's grandsons ruled as Kha Khan after his son Ogedai [Guyuk, Mongke and Qublai]. The major components lasted much longer. Tamerlane's Empire fell apart at his death.

What are his major contributions to history? He delayed the Ottoman Turks' rise to major power when he defeated Bayazid, buying Byzantium another half century. He destroyed the reconstituted Golden Horde by defeating Toktamesh[who he placed on the throne of the White Horde, and assisted in subduing the Golden Horde], shattering it into three separate powers [The Krim Tartars, the Khanate of Kazhan, and a third Khanate]; paving the way for the rise of Muscovy, and subsequently, Russia.He inspired a play by Christopher Marlowe. And he left pyramids of skulls littering the landscapes of western Asia, and Asia Minor. What he didn't do was restore the Silk Road, restore intercontinental trade between Europe and China [which had flourished under the Mongols], establish a functioning government and a period of peace and stability in the region, or create the cross cultural fermentation that Alexander's equally short-lived empire did. He had neither vision, long range goals, nor long range plans. What he did have was an army, and a series of endless looting campaigns that harkened back to the pre - Chingghisid steppe. Tamerlane was a chess playing thug with a talent for tactics. No more. No less.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Hacksaw.

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[sully777]

Tamerlane was a great Mongolian conqueror. "Timur placed much of his early legitimacy on his genealogical roots to the great Mongol conqueror, Chinggis or Genghis Khan. What is known is that he was descended from the Mongol invaders who initially pushed westwards after the establishment of the Mongol empire.

His father Taraghai was head of the tribe of Barlas, a nomadic Turkic-speaking tribe of Mongol origin that traced its origin to the Mongol commander Qarachar Barlas. Taraghai was the great-grandson of Qarachar Noyon and, distinguished among his fellow-clansmen as the first convert to Islam, Teragai might have assumed the high military rank which fell to him by right of inheritance; but like his father Burkul he preferred a life of retirement and study. Teragai would eventually retire to a Muslim monastery, telling his son that "the world is a beautiful vase filled with scorpions.""(Source:Wikipedia).

The Islamics wish he were related to Ali but he was pure Mongolian in geneology.

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On a similar note, the Knights Templar in Jerusalem thought a Mongolian with a pseudo-christian root was one of their own as well:

"...Far to the east, in Mongolia, was a man named Toghrul, cheif of the Kerait clan of the Mongols. A hundred years earlier, the Keraits had been converted to Nestorian Christianity. Toghrul was nominally Chirstian and his title, Ong-Khan, was altered by Nestorian missionaries to a more comprehensible form: Khan was translated (wrongly) as priest--pretre/prester -- and Ong became the French name Jean. Vague reports of the Mongols' deeds had been filtering through to Europe and the Holy Land...bloodthirsty slaughters in the distant steepes became victories won in the name of christ; and when Toghrul was killed in 1203 by the Great Khan-Jehghiz -- the supposed christian virtues of the Ong-Khan, Prester John, were transferred to Jenghiz [not a Nestorian by any stretch of the imagination]. People in Europe and Outremer sincerely believed that help for the Holy Land [Latin States] would come not only from the West, but from the East, from Jeghiz and his family, the founders of the Golden Horde..." (The Knights Templar, Howath 211).

The Mongols would later be called the scourge of christendom fearing no god by the papacy.

[bannie]

bump!

[Dustbunny]

Interesting !!

[Lorianne]

Thanks for posting this. Very interesting

[rmlew]

Tamerlane Chess is a rather complex game.

There is a myth regarding Khan/Emir Timur's tomb. It was said that whoever desecrated the tomb would unleash a terror greater than Timur.
Soviet archeologists opened the tomb in June 1941, two days before the Nazi invasion.

Timur's empire whithered after his death, but his great-grandson Babar did go on to take northern India and set up the Mughal dynasties.