Timur — Conqueror of Central Asia and Founder of the Timurid Empire
The life of Timur (Tamerlane), the Turco-Mongol conqueror who built an empire from the ruins of the Chagatai Khanate, defeated the Golden Horde and the Ottoman Empire, and founded a dynasty whose descendants ruled from Samarkand to Delhi.
Events
Birth near Kesh in the Chagatai Khanate
Timur was born in the 1320s near Kesh into the Barlas clan, a Mongolized Turkic family of minor regional standing; 8 April 1336 is the traditional date. A wound suffered as a young man left him lame in his right side, earning him the Persian nickname "Timur-e Lang" (Timur the Lame), rendered in Europe as Tamerlane.
Location: Kesh (Shahriseabz), Transoxiana
Proclaimed Amir at Balkh
After years of tribal power struggles following the collapse of Chagatai authority in Transoxiana, Timur was proclaimed sovereign amir at a kurultai in Balkh, taking the title Sahib-e-Qiran ("Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction"). He ruled formally through puppet Chagatai khans while holding real power himself, founding what became the Timurid Empire.
Location: Balkh, Khorasan
The Sack of Isfahan
During his multi-year conquest of Persia, Timur took Isfahan, which had revolted after initially surrendering. Chroniclers report a mass killing of the city's inhabitants; contemporary estimates cited in later sources run as high as tens of thousands, and the city's skull towers became part of Timurid terror propaganda. The conquest of Persia, Khorasan, and Azerbaijan followed similar patterns of siege and massacre.
Location: Isfahan, Persia
Defeat of Tokhtamysh at the Terek River
After defeating the Golden Horde khan Tokhtamysh at Kunduzcha in 1391, Timur crushed him again on the Terek River. He then sacked the Golden Horde capitals Sarai and Astrakhan, breaking the power of the western Mongol successor state and crippling the overland trade networks of the Russian steppe for a generation.
Location: Terek River, North Caucasus
The Sack of Delhi
Timur crossed the Indus in September 1398 and defeated the army of the Tughluq Sultan Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah outside Delhi. Before the battle his forces massacred their Indian prisoners, reportedly around 100,000, and the city was then plundered and its population slaughtered over several days. The expedition destroyed the Delhi Sultanate's standing in north India for a century.
Location: Delhi, India
The Battle of Ankara
Timur invaded Anatolia and met the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I near Ankara. Ottoman forces, weakened by desertions from Bayezid's vassals who had been alienated by his rapid centralization, were defeated and Bayezid was captured. The battle opened the eleven-year Ottoman Interregnum, a succession crisis that halted Ottoman expansion in the Balkans for two decades and altered the balance of power between the Ottomans and Byzantine Constantinople.
Location: Ankara, Anatolia
Death at Otrar During the Ming Campaign
While leading a vast army in winter toward Ming China to punish the Ming emperor for his treatment of Timurid envoys, Timur fell ill and died at Otrar aged about 70. He was buried in the Gur-e Amir mausoleum in Samarkand, the city he had made his capital and adorned with plunder and artisans from across Asia.
Location: Otrar, Central Asia
The Timurid and Mughal Legacy
Timur's descendants shaped post-Timurid Asia. His son Shah Rukh and grandson Ulugh Beg made Herat and Samarkand centers of the Timurid Renaissance in art, architecture, and astronomy, while his great-great-great-grandson Babur won the First Battle of Panipat and founded the Mughal Empire, which ruled most of India until 1857. Babur's dynasty consciously invoked Timurid lineage as its source of legitimacy.
Location: Panipat, India