Temür has been many things to many people. He was nomad and city-builder, Turk and promoter of Persian culture, restorer of the Mongol order and warrior for the spread of Islam. One thing he was to all: a conqueror of unequalled scope, able to subdue both the vast areas of nomad power to the north and the centres of agrarian Islamic culture to the south. The history of his successors was one of increasing political fragmentation and economic stress. Yet they too won fame, as patrons over a period of brilliant cultural achievement in Persian and Turkic. Temür's career raises a number of questions. Why did he find it necessary to pile conquest upon conquest, each more ambitious than the last? Having conceived dreams of dominion, where did he get the power and money to fulfill them? When he died, what legacy did Temür leave to his successors and to the world which they tried to control? Finally, what was this world of Turk and Persian, and where did Temür and the Timurids belong within it?

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⁵ The duel fought out between Tokhtamïsh and Temür from 1385 to 1396 is relatively poorly chronicled in the histories of Temür's reign, written by Persian authors. This historiographical tradition may have skewed our perception; it is interesting to compare the court histories to the short account of Temür's reign written for his grandson Iskandar Sultan, in which his rivalry with Tokhtamiïsh holds a central place “Synoptic Account of the House of Timur”, inThackston,Wheeler M., ed. and trans.,A Century of Princes (Cambridge, Mass.,1989), pp.237–9.Google Scholar

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¹⁴de Clavijo,Ruy González, trans.,Le Strange,G.,Narrative of the Spanish Embassy to the Court of Timur at Samarkand in the years 1403–1406 (London,1928), p.221.Google Scholar

¹⁵Ibn ‘Arabshāh,, p.125Google Scholar;Dughlat,Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥaydar,A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia, being the Tarikh-i Rashidi of Mirza Muhammad Haydar, Dughlát, trans.,Ross,E.Denison, ed.,Elias,N. (London and New York,1898), p.53,Google ScholarZNY,ii, p.450.Google Scholar

¹⁶Ibn ‘Arabshāh,, p.125.Google Scholar Some accounts of the period after Temür's death point to regular pay:Abrū,Ḥāfiẓ-i,Majma’ al-tawārīkh, ms. Istanbul, Fatih 4371/1 (hereafter Majma’), ff. 372b–73a,419a.Google Scholar

¹⁷Ibn ‘Arabshāh,, pp.117–18;Google ScholarManz,,Rise and Rule, pp.90–106.Google Scholar

¹⁸Manz,,Rise and Rule, pp.37–8.Google Scholar

¹⁹Manz,,Rise and Rule, pp.109–18,167–75.Google Scholar

²⁰Manz,,Rise and Rule, p.116.Google Scholar

²¹Safargaliev,,Raspad, pp.144–58;Google ScholarZNY,i, pp.392–6.Google Scholar

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²³ZNY,i, p.472;Google ScholarZNS,ii, p.170;Google Scholar also seeManz,,Rise and Rule, p.116 and note 48, p.195.Google Scholar

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²⁷ The sources report rebellions by Iranians straightforwardly, while disloyal behaviour by amirs and princes after about 1389 is often disguised, or blamed on the evil influence of Persian advisors, from whom such behaviour presumably could be expected. See for instance the accounts of Amiranshah's, Pir Muhammad b. ‘Umar Shaykh's and Sultan Husayn's disloyalty. (ZNY,ii, pp.48–50,168,228Google Scholar). Several rebellions by amirs under Temür, mentioned in the later genealogy, theMu'izz al-ansāb, never appear in the histories. (Mu'izz al-ansāb fi shajārat al-ansāb, ms. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale 67, ff. 96b–97a.)

²⁸Manz,,Rise and Rule, pp.114–15;Google ScholarAubin,Jean, “Le khanat de Čagatai et le Khorassan (1334–1380)”,Turcica,VIII/2 (1976), pp.51–3;Google ScholarPaul,Jürgen, “Scheiche und Herrscher im Khanat Cagatay”,Der Islam,LXVII/2 (1990), pp.304–8.Google Scholar

²⁹ It was T. I. Sultanov of the Institute of Oriental Studies in St Petersburg who brought this characteristic to my attention.

³⁰Bartol'd,,Ulugbek, pp.45,58,96–8;Google ScholarRoemer,H. R., “The Successors of Timur”, inCambridge History of Iran,VI (Cambridge,1986), pp.103–5.Google Scholar

³¹al-Salmānī,Tāj, ed. and trans.Roemer,H. R.,Šams al-Ḥitsn: eine Chronik vom Tode Timurs bis zum jahre 1409 von Ta al-Salmānī (Wiesbaden,1956) (hereafterShams), pp.121–2;Google ScholarManz,,Rise and Rule, pp.131–7.Google Scholar

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³⁴Roemer,H. R. inCambridge History of Iran,VI, p.104;Google ScholarBartol'd,,Ulugbbek, p.97.Google Scholar Ismail Aka gives greater credit to Shahrukh, though he also stresses the importance of his subordinates:Aka,Ismail,Mirza Şahruh ve zamarii (1405–1447) (Ankara,1994), p.218.Google Scholar

³⁵ SeeManz,B. A. F., “Administration and the delegation of authority in Temür's dominions”,Central Asiatic Journal,XX/3 (1976), pp.191–207.Google Scholar

³⁶ For the responsibilities of ‘Alika, Firuzshah and Baysunghur in thedīwān seeMajma’ f. 532b,Samarqandi,‘Abd al-Razzaq,Matṭia’ al-sa'dayn wa Majma‘ al-baḥrayn, ed.Shan,Muḥammad” (Lahore, 1360–8/1941–9)Google Scholar (hereafter Maṭla’), ii/2, pp. 656, 665, 690, 747, 752–5, 793, 837–42. For sharing of power indīwān among viziers, and for dismissals, see Ghiyāth al-Dīn Khwāndamīr, Dastūr al-wuzarā’, ed. Sa'īd Nafisī (Tehran, 1317/1938–9), pp. 352–3, 357–61; Ahmad b. Jalāl al-Dīn Fasiḥ Khwāfi,Mujmal-i faṣihi, ed. Muḥammad Farrukh (Mashhad, 1339/1960–1), pp. 230, 235, 257, 259, 275, 292; and Maṭla’, ii/2, pp. 670, 673.

³⁷ Manz, “Tamerlane and the symbolism of sovereignty”, p. 113.

³⁸ Sultaniyya itself was often threatened and sometimes taken, but not allowed to remain long outside Timurid control.Majma’, ff. 493, 498, 502b, 521b–22b, 553a–54a, 591a;Maṭla’, pt. 2, pp. 320–3, 899–902.

³⁹ For the will of a dead sovereign, see Mu'in al-Dīn Naṭanzī, ed. Jean Aubin,Extraits du Muntakhab al-tauarikh-i Mu'ini (Anonym d'Iskandar) (Tehran, 1336/1957) (hereafterMuntakhab), p. 222, andMorgan,D. O., “The ‘Great Yāsā of Chingiz Khān’ and Mongol law in the Īlkhānate”,Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies,XLIX/i (1986), p.171.Google Scholar For discussion of Temür's testament,Majma’, ff. 372a–b, 430b, 431b; Muḥammad b. Faḍl Allāh al-Musawī,Tarīkh-i Khayrāt, ms. Istanbul, Turhan Hadica Sultan 224, f. 433b, 435b–37a.

⁴⁰Majma’, f. 365a; Musawī,Tārīkh-i khayrāt, ff. 436–73.

⁴¹Majma’, ff. 372a-b. Pir Muhammad, according to the histories, believed that this accorded with Temür's wishes since Temür had handed his mother to Shahrukh, and thus intended Pir Muhammad to look to Shahrukh as his superior.

⁴² Hāfiẓ-i Abrū,Majmu'a al-tawārīkh, ms. Istanbul, Damad Ibrahim Pasha 919, ff. 927a–b, 929a–b;Shams, pp. 15–16. For Shahrukh's invocation of Temür's will in correspondence see Navā'ī,Asnād, pp. 141–2.

⁴³ Aka,Mirza Şahruh, pp. 178, 180–1;Maṭla’, ii/2, pp. 792, 834.

⁴⁴ Komaroff, “Epigraphy”, pp. 216–17.

⁴⁵Subtelny,M., “The Sunni revival under Shāh-Rukh and its promoters: a study of the connection between ideology and higher learning in Timurid Iran”,Proceedings of the 27th Meeting ofHaneda Memorial Hall Symposium on Central Asia and Iran, August 30, 1993 (Kyoto,1993(?)), pp.14–23;Google Scholar Jalāl al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad al-Qāyini,Naṣa'iḥ-i Shāhrukhi, ms. Vienna, Nationalbibliotek, Cod. A.F. 112, ff. 1b–2b;Majma’, f. 486b; Woods, “Genealogy”, pp. 115–16.

⁴⁶ Subtelny, “The Sunni revival”, pp. 15–19; Woods, “Genealogy”, pp. 115–16.

⁴⁷Baitol'd, “Khalifa i Sultan”,Sochinenüa,VI (Moscow,1966), pp.46–8;Mu'izz, f. 133b; Subtelny, “Sunni revival”, p. 20; Aka,Mirza Şahruh, pp. 183–4;Matia’, p. 729 (the yasa is here referred to by another name, thetora.)Google Scholar

⁴⁸ See for instance the Orkhon inscriptions:Thomsen,V.,Inscriptions de l'Orkhon dechifrées (Helsingsfors,1896), pp.97–106,114–17.Google Scholar Maḥmūd al-Kashgharī echoes this concern for purity:Dītwān Lughāt al-Turk: Maḥmūd Kasĝarī, Compendium of Turkic Dialects, ed. and trans.Dankoff,R. in collaboration withKelly,James,Turkish Sources,vii (Cambridge, Mass.,1982), pp.83,115,124–5.Google Scholar

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⁵⁰Mujmal, iii, throughout;Majma’, throughout;Shams al-ḥusn, pp. 17, 23.

⁵¹ Komaroff, “Epigraphy”, pp. 210–13.

⁵² Woods, “Genealogy”, p. 121, note 75; see alsoHaider,Mansura, “The sovereign in the Timurid state”,Turcica,VIII/2 (1976), p.70,Google Scholar citingRodgers,C.J.,Catalogue of the Coins (Calcutta,1894), pp.140–1.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ Nav'ī,Asnād, pp. 164–5, 180–1, 187, 215–16.

⁵⁵ For a survey of early Timurid historiography seeWoods,John E., “The rise of Timūrīd historiography”,Journal of Near Eastern Studies,XLVI (1987), pp.81–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar John Woods, in his article, “Timur's genealogy”, has convincingly shown that the construction of Temür's genealogy began under Temür, and has suggested that later sources based themselves on lost works commissioned by him (pp. 109–16). Nonetheless, all the fullest elaborations of the myth which we now have date from works of Shahrukh's time. For the coverage of Chinggisids and Qarachar Barlas see‘Alī Yazdī,Sharaf al-Dīn,Muqaddima to theZafamama, ed.Urunbaev,A. S. (Tashkent,1972);Google ScholarMajma‘, ff. 11a–b;Mu'izz al-ansāb, which is a genealogy of both the four Chinggisid houses and the descendants of Qarachar, introduction ff. 81b–82a; Naṭanzī,Muntakhab, pp. 68–156; and for the lost work written for Ulugh Beg during Shahrukh's reign, entitledTārīkh-i arba’ ulus, see Iu. Bregel/Storey,Persidskaia literatura, bio-bibliograficheskií obzor (Moscow,1972),ii, p.777;Google Scholar Khwāndamīr, trans., Thackston, pp. 4, 42, 43, 76. The later anonymous Persian work,Shajārat al-atrāk which claims to be an abridgement of theArba’ ulus, is translated byMiles,Colonel,The Shajrat ul Atrak, or Genealogical Tree of the Turks and Tatars (London,1838). The Harvard University manuscript of this work (Houghton Library P. oo6), agrees in its outlines with the Miles translation.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Woods, “Genealogy”, pp. 87–8.

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⁶⁰Mu'izz, ff. 97b, 103a, 110b-111a, ii9b–120a, 127a, 133b, 138a, 142a, 152b, 154a, 159a–b.

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