The empire was founded byTimur (Tamerlane), awarlord ofTurco-Mongol lineage, who established the empire in 1370 and ruled it until his death in 1405. He saw himself as the great restorer of theMongol Empire ofGenghis Khan, regarding himself as Genghis'sheir, and closely associated with theBorjigin. Timur continued to have strong trade relations withMing China and theGolden Horde, with Chinese diplomats likeMa Huan andChen Cheng regularly traveling west toSamarkand to conduct trade. The empire led to theTimurid Renaissance, particularly during the reign of astronomer and mathematicianUlugh Begh.
By 1467, the rulingTimurid dynasty, or Timurids, had lost most of Persia to theAq Qoyunlu confederation. However, members of the Timurid dynasty continued to rule smaller states, sometimes known as Timurid emirates, in Central Asia and parts of India. In the 16th century,Babur, theTimurid prince of Ferghana (modernUzbekistan), invadedKabulistan (modernAfghanistan) and established a small kingdom there. Twenty years later, he used this kingdom as a staging ground to invade theDelhi Sultanate inIndia and established theMughal Empire.
Timurid historianSharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi states in his workZafarnama (Book of victories) that the name of the Timur's state wasTuran (Persian:توران).[13] Timur personally ordered the name of his state asTuran be carved onto a rock fragment in Ulu Tagh mountainside (present-dayKazakhstan), known today asKarsakpay inscription.[14] The original text, in particular, states:
"... Sultan of Turan, Timur bey went up with three hundred thousand troops forIslam on theBulgarian Khan,Tokhtamysh Khan..."[15]
In the literature of the Timurid era, the realm was formally referred to asIran-o-Turan (Persian:ایران و توران[16][17]) in the same manner that the words 'Turk' and 'Tajik' were paired together.[18] The border between the two areas was considered to be at theOxus River.[19] Both terms were concerned with imperial traditions, Iran being Persian and Perso-Islamic, and Turan with the steppe empires of the Turks and the Mongols.[18]Mawarannahr (Arabic:ما وراء النهر) also appears as the name of the realm.[20]
According toShia authors, the ruling dynasty of the Timurids was calledGurkani (Persian:گورکانیان, Gurkāniyān).[21][22] Gurkani means 'son-in-law', a title applied by Timur to help legitimise his rule as he could not claimGenghisid descent. To this end, he married a Genghisid princess,Saray Mulk Khanum.[23][24]
Ulugh Beg's work on genealogy classified Mongols asTurks, while also praising their warrior spirit.[29] Ulugh Beg included Yāfas (Japheth), Turk, Mughūl, Tātār andUghūz in the genealogical record of theGenghisids and Timurids.[29]
The Timurid Empire and contemporary polities,c. 1400
Timur conquered large parts of the ancient greater Persian territories in Central Asia, primarilyTransoxiana andKhorasan, from 1363 onwards with various alliances. He tookSamarkand in 1366 andBalkh in 1369. He was recognized as ruler over them in 1370. Acting officially in the name ofSuurgatmish, theChagatai khan, he subjugatedTransoxiana andKhwarazm in the years that followed. Already in the 1360s, he had gained control of the westernChagatai Khanate. While as emir he was nominally subordinate to the khan, in reality it was now Timur who picked the khans. These became mere puppet rulers. The western Chagatai khans were continually dominated by Timurid princes in the 15th and 16th centuries, and their figurehead importance was eventually reduced into total insignificance.
Timur began a campaign westwards in 1380, invading the various successor states of theIlkhanate. By 1389, he had removed theKartids fromHerat and advanced into mainland Persia where he enjoyed many successes. This included the capture ofIsfahan in 1387, the removal of theMuzaffarids fromShiraz in 1393, and the expulsion of theJalayirids fromBaghdad.Tokhtamysh, the khan of theGolden Horde, was a major rival to Timur in the region. In 1394–1395, he triumphed over the Golden Horde, following his successfulcampaign in Georgia, after which he enforced his sovereignty in theCaucasus.
In 1398, the anarchy prevailing in theDelhi Sultanate had drawn Timur's attention. At the beginning of 1398, Timur sent an army led by his grandsonPir Muhammad to cross theIndus and attackMultan; the successful siege lasted six months. Later in the same year, Timur himself marched the main army across the Indus, and after destroyingTulamba joined Pir Muhammad. AtSutlej, he defeated the Khokhar chiefJasrat and then took theLoni andBhatnair forts, seven miles northeast ofDelhi. In December 1398, Timur engaged with the armies of SultanMahmud Shah and won. This led to his triumphal entry into Delhi, where he conducted a massacre but spared the craftsmen to be sent to Samarkand. He left Delhi in January 1399. During Timur's entry into India, he was faced by a sultanate that was already in decline due to the secession of its richest provinces.[30]
Later in 1400–1401 he conqueredAleppo,Damascus and easternAnatolia. In 1401 he destroyed Baghdad, and in 1402 he defeated the Ottomans in theBattle of Ankara. This made Timur the most preeminent Muslim ruler of the time, as theOttoman Empireplunged into civil war. Meanwhile, he transformed Samarkand into a major capital and seat of his realm.
Timur appointed his sons and grandsons to the main governorships of the different parts of his empire, and outsiders to some others. After his death in 1405, the family quickly fell into disputes and civil wars, effectively weakening themselves, and many of the governors became conclusively independent. Due to the fact that the Persian cities were desolated by wars, the seats of Persian culture were now in Samarkand and Herat, cities that became the centre of theTimurid renaissance.[32] The costs of Timur's conquests included the deaths of possibly 17 million people.[33]
Shahrukh Mirza, the fourth ruler of the Timurids, dealt with theQara Qoyunlu, who aimed to expand into Iran. But in the wake of Shahrukh's death, the Qara Qoyunlu underJahan Shah drove the Timurids out to eastern Iran after 1447 and also briefly occupied Herat in 1458. After the death of Jahan Shah,Uzun Hasan,bey of theAq Qoyunlu, conquered the holdings of the Qara Qoyunlu in Iran between 1469 and 1471.
The power of Timurids declined rapidly during the second half of the 15th century, largely due to the Timurid/Mongol tradition of partitioning the empire as well as several civil wars. TheAq Qoyunlu conquered most of Iran from the Timurids, and by 1500, the divided and war-torn Timurid Empire had lost control of most of its territory, and in the following years it was effectively pushed back on all fronts. Persia, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Anatolia fell quickly to theShiiteSafavid Empire, secured by ShahIsmail I in the following decade. Much of the Central Asian lands was overrun by the Uzbeks ofMuhammad Shaybani who conquered the key cities ofSamarkand andHerat in 1505 and 1507, and who founded theKhanate of Bukhara.
From Kabul, theMughal Empire was established in 1526 byBabur, a Timurid prince, son of the Timurid governor ofFerganaUmar Shaikh Mirza II, who was descendant ofTimur through his father and possibly a descendant ofGenghis Khan through his mother. The dynasty he established is commonly known as the Mughal dynasty though it was directly inherited from the Timurids. By the 17th century, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India but eventually declined during the following century. The Timurid dynasty finally came to an end when the remaining nominal rule of the Mughals was abolished by theBritish Empire following the1857 rebellion.
Although the Timurids hailed from theBarlas tribe, which was of Turkicized Mongol origin,[35] they converted to Islam, and resided inTurkestan andKhorasan. Thus, the Timurid era had a dual character,[32] reflecting both its Turco-Mongol origins and the Persian literary, artistic, and courtly high culture of the dynasty.[36][37]
During the Timurid era, Central Asian society was bifurcated, with the responsibilities of government and rule divided into military and civilian spheres along ethnic lines. At least in the early stages, the military was almost exclusively Turco-Mongolian, while the civilian and administrative element was almost exclusively Persian. The spoken language shared by all the Turko-Mongolians throughout the area wasChaghatay. The political organization hearkened back to the steppe-nomadic system of patronage introduced byGenghis Khan.[38] The major language of the period, however, wasPersian, the native language of theTājīk (Persian) component of society and the language of learning acquired by all literate or urban people. Timur was already steeped in Persian culture[39] and in most of the territories he incorporated, Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. Thus the language of the settled "diwan" was Persian, and its scribes had to be thoroughly adept in Persian culture, whatever their ethnic origin.[40] Persian became the official state language of the Timurid Empire[37][41] and served as the language of administration, history, belles lettres, and poetry.[42] The Chaghatay language was the native and "home language" of the Timurid family,[2] while Arabic served as the languagepar excellence of science, philosophy, theology and the religious sciences.[3]
Shah Rukh (right) makes a triumphal entrance in Samarkand in September 1394, after Timur names him Governor of the city,Zafarnama (1436)
Persian literature, especially Persian poetry, occupied a central place in the process of assimilation of the Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamic courtly culture.[43] The Timurid sultans, especiallyShāh Rukh Mīrzā and his sonMohammad Taragai Oloğ Beg, patronized Persian culture.[36] Among the most important literary works of the Timurid era is the Persian biography ofTimur, known asZafarnāmeh (Persian:ظفرنامه), written bySharaf al-Din Ali Yazdi, which itself is based on an olderZafarnāmeh byNizam al-Din Shami, the official biographer of Timur during his lifetime. The most famous poet of the Timurid era wasNūr ud-Dīn Jāmī, the last great medievalSufimystic of Persia and one of the greatest figures inPersian poetry.[44] Hearing of the Persian culture of the Timurid empire, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II encouraged those under his patronage to engage with the models provided by Persian cultural centers like Shiraz and Tabriz, and in particular by the Timurid court ofSultan Husayn Bayqara (r. 1469–1506) in Herat.[45] Mehmed II was determined to foster the creation of a new language and literary-artistic culture for his burgeoning court in Istanbul.[45]
In addition, some of theastronomical works of the Timurid sultanUlugh Beg were written in Persian, although the bulk of it was published in Arabic.[46] The Timurid princeBaysunghur also commissioned a new edition of the Persian national epicShāhnāmeh, known asShāhnāmeh of Baysunghur, and wrote an introduction to it. The Persian poet 'Ismat Allah Bukhari taught poetry toKhalil Sultan, grandson of Timur.[47] According to T. Lenz:[48]
It can be viewed as a specific reaction in the wake of Timur's death in 807/1405 to the new cultural demands facing Shahhrokh and his sons, a Turkic military elite no longer deriving their power and influence solely from a charismatic steppe leader with a carefully cultivated linkage to Mongol aristocracy. Now centered in Khorasan, the ruling house regarded the increased assimilation and patronage of Persian culture as an integral component of efforts to secure the legitimacy and authority of the dynasty within the context of the Islamic Iranian monarchical tradition, and the Baysanghur Shahnameh, as much a precious object as it is a manuscript to be read, powerfully symbolizes the Timurid conception of their own place in that tradition. A valuable documentary source for Timurid decorative arts that have all but disappeared for the period, the manuscript still awaits a comprehensive monographic study.
Following the publication ofMukhtar al-Ikhtiyar, a legal manual that was used until the twentieth century, by the head magistrate of Bayqara in Herat, Persian was used as a language of jurisprudence (fiqh) under the late Timurids.[49]
During the reign of sultan Husayn Bayqara, theIrshad al-zira'a, a Persian agricultural treatise, was written by Qasim b. Yusuf Abu Nasiri.[50][51] Based on in-depth, first-hand conversations with farmers, theIrshad al-zira'a, covered the agricultural development of Herat and included minor architectural suggestions for gardens.[51]
The Timurids also played a very important role in the history ofTurkic literature. Based on the established Persian literary tradition, a national Turkic literature was developed in theChagatai language. Chagatai poets such asMīr Alī Sher Nawā'ī,Sultan Husayn Bāyqarā, andZāhiruddīn Bābur encouraged other Turkic-speaking poets to write in their own vernacular in addition to Arabic and Persian.[32] Nawa’i's work, predominantly based on Persian designs, was an attempt to create a culture that was specific to the Turkophone audience.[53] TheBāburnāma, the autobiography of Bābur (although being highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology, and vocabulary),[54] as well as Mīr Alī Sher Nawā'ī's Chagatai poetry are among the best-known Turkic literary works and have influenced many others.
Despite being spread throughout Central and South Asia, Chaghatai Turkic remained the junior partner to Persian, and was not promoted systemically in the Timurid Empire to replace Persian.[49] Chaghatai texts were found at Sultan Husayn Bayqara's court, but the Timurid chancery and court continued to use Persian.[55] Although the body of Turkic literature produced in Central Asia increased during the Timurid era of the fifteenth century—partially as a result of Mir 'Ali Shir Nawa'i's independent efforts toward the end of the Timurid century—it was still dwarfed by the Persian literary output that the Timurid elite supported.[56] There are no surviving Turkic historical work from the Timurids, although two Turkic histories seem to have been written during the Timurid period before the flowering of the Timurid historiography in Persian.[56]
The golden age of Persian painting began during the reign of the Timurids.[57] During this period – and analogous to the developments inSafavid Iran –Chinese art and artists had a significant influence on Persian art.[32] Timurid artists refined the Persian art of the book, which combines paper, calligraphy, illumination, illustration and binding in a brilliant and colourful whole.[58] The Mongol ethnicity of theChaghatayid and Timuridkhans was the source of the stylistic depiction ofPersian art during the Middle Ages. These same Mongols intermarried with the Persians and Turks of Central Asia, even adopting their religion and languages. Yet their simple control of the world at that time, particularly in the 13th–15th centuries, reflected itself in the idealised appearance of Persians as Mongols. Though the ethnic make-up gradually blended into theIranian andMesopotamian local populations, the Mongol stylism continued well after and crossed intoAsia Minor and evenNorth Africa.
Timurid deocrative element, Central Asia or Iran, 1375-1400
In the Chagatay translation of Ali Yazdi'sZafarnama, Timur's army is called a "Chagatay army" (Čaġatāy čerigi).[66] Potentially a reference to theChagatai Khanate.
The Timurids relied on the conscription of troops from settled populations. They were unable to fully subjugate many other nomadic tribes. This was not because of lack of military power as Timur succeeded in defeating them, but rather because he was unwilling to integrate autonomous tribes into his power structure due to his centralised governance. The tribes were too mobile to effectively suppress and the loss of their autonomy was unattractive to them. Hence, Timur was unable to win the loyalty of the tribes, and his hold over them did not survive his death.[67]
The role of slave soldiers such as theghilman andmamluks was considerably smaller in Mongol-based armies like the Timurids, as compared to other Islamic societies.[68]
The Timurids had a contingent called the nambardar levy, which mostly consisted of native Iranians, and occasionally scholars and fiscal administrators. The nambardar were used to bolster the size of the army for large expeditions.[69]
The main symbol of the Timurids is thought to have been the so-called "sign of Timur", which is three equal circles (or rings) arranged in the form of an equilateral triangle ().Ruy de Clavijo (d. 1412), the ambassador of the king ofCastile to the court of Timur in 1403, and the Arab historian,Ibn Arabshah described the sign, which was encountered on the seal of the Amir, as well as on Timurid coins.[72] Timur himself issued several coins bearing the "three annulets"tamgha on the reverse.[71]
It is not known for certain what meaning the triangular sign had, but according to Clavijo, each circle meant a part of the world (of which there were three before 1492), and the owner of the symbol was their ruler. The sign consisting of circles perhaps tried to illustrate Timur's nickname of "Sahib-Qiran" (the ruler of three benevolent planets).[73] According toRuy de Clavijo, the emblem adopted by Timur was composed of "three circlets" arranged into the shape of a triangle:
"The special armorial bearing of Timur is the three circlets set thus to shape a triangle, which same it is said signifies that he Timur is lord of all three quarters of the world. This device Timur has ordered to be set on the coins that he has stuck, and on all buildings that he has erected (…) These three circlets which, as said, are like the letter O thrice repeated to form a triangle, further are the imprint of Timur's seal, and again by his special order are added so as to be seen patent on all the coins stuck by those princes who are become tributary to his government."
Often images of abstract symbols (tamga) on coins were accompanied by the Persian expression "Rāstī rustī" (Persian:راستى رستى), which can be translated as "In rectitude lies salvation".[76] It is also known that the same expression was used in flags as well.[77]
Flag in the name of Timurid princeMuhammad Juki, from a copy of theShahnama of Firdawsi, probably Herat, c. 1440.[78]
Standards with a golden crescent are mentioned in different historical sources. Some miniatures depict the red banners of Timur's army, and it is thought that Timur generally used red banners, probably for visibility, with variable cut-outs, to which may have been added the tail of a horse or yak (the Mongoltugh), topped with the crescent of Islam.[79] During theIndian campaign, a black banner with a silver dragon was used.[80] Before the campaign to China, however, Timur ordered the depiction of a golden dragon on the army's banners.[81]
There is little certainty about the actual flag of the Timurid Empire. Yuka Kadoi studied the possibility that the "brown or originally silver flag with three circles or balls" in theCatalan Atlas could be associated with the "earlier dominions of the Timurid Empire", specifically referencinga flag raised over the city ofCamull (the modern city ofKhamil inXinjiang).[74][82]
Yuka Kadoi also noted the existence of Timur'sumbrella detail with three-dots decorative motif, as well as some contemporary coins from Samarkand which also have the three circles as a motif.[74] Beyond that, the evidence remains scant and ambiguous, but according to Kadoi "one can reasonably conclude that the flag with a tri-partite motif had a certain iconographic association with the Timurid Empire".[83] For other authors, the flag with the three red crescent moons (), which is seen all over Mongol dominions in eastern Asia in the Catalan Atlas (dated to 1375), is simply intended as the flag of theEmpire of the Great Khan (Yuan China).[84]
Timur's umbrella, with three golden dots symbols. Zafarnama of Sharaf al-Din ‘Ali, Yazdi. Shiraz, AH 839, 1436 CE (detail)
Timurid flags in the Campaign against China after Timur's death in 1405.Zafarnama of Ibrahim Sultan (1436)
Banner type used by Timur during his campaigns, according to Pierre Lux-Wurm[85]
Manz, Beatrice Forbes (1999).The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane.Cambridge University Press, p.109.ISBN0-521-63384-2.Limited preview atGoogle Books.p.109. "In almost all the territories which Temür incorporated into his realm Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. Thus the language of the settled 'divan' was Persian."
B.F. Manz, W.M. Thackston, D.J. Roxburgh, L. Golombek, L. Komaroff, R.E. Darley-Doran. "Timurids"Encyclopaedia of IslamBrill Publishers 2007; "During the Timurid period, three languages, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic were in use. The major language of the period was Persian, the native language of the Tajik (Persian) component of society and the language of learning acquired by all literate and/or urban Turks. Persian served as the language of administration, history, belles lettres, and poetry."
Bertold Spuler."CENTRAL ASIA v. In the Mongol and Timurid Periodse".Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved2017-09-14. "Like his father, Olōğ Beg was entirely integrated into the Persian Islamic cultural circles, and during his reign Persian predominated as the language of high culture, a status that it retained in the region of Samarqand until the Russian revolution 1917 ... Ḥoseyn Bāyqarā encouraged the development of Persian literature and literary talent in every way possible ...
Robert Devereux (ed.) "Muhakamat Al-Lughatain (Judgment of Two Languages)" Mir 'Ali Shir Nawāi; Leiden,E.J. Brill 1966: "Nawa'i also employs the curious argument that most Turks also spoke Persian but only a few Persians ever achieved fluency in Turkic. It is difficult to understand why he was impressed by this phenomenon, since the most obvious explanation is that Turks found it necessary, or at least advisable, to learn Persian – it was, after all, the official state language – while Persians saw no reason to bother learning which was, in their eyes, merely the uncivilized tongue of uncivilized nomadic tribesmen.
David J. Roxburgh.The Persian Album, 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press, 2005. pg 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanama."
^abB. F. Manz; W. M. Thackston; D. J. Roxburgh; L. Golombek; L. Komaroff; R. E. Darley-Doran (2007). "Timurids".Encyclopaedia of Islam (Online ed.).Brill Publishers.What is now called Chaghatay Turkish, which was then called simply türki, was the native and 'home' language of the Timurids ...
^abB. F. Manz; W. M. Thackston; D. J. Roxburgh; L. Golombek; L. Komaroff; R. E. Darley-Doran (2007). "Timurids".Encyclopaedia of Islam (Online ed.).Brill Publishers.As it had been prior to the Timurids and continued to be after them,Arabic was the language par excellence of science, philosophy, theology and the religious sciences. Much of the astronomical work of Ulugh Beg and his co-workers ... is in Arabic, although they also wrote in Persian. Theological works ... are generally in Arabic.
^Subtelny 2007, pp. 40–41. "Nevertheless, in the complex process of transition, members of the Timurid dynasty and their Turko-Mongolian supporters became acculturated by the surrounding Persianate millieu adopting Persian cultural models and tastes and acting as patrons of Persian language, culture, painting, architecture and music. [...] The last members of the dynasty, notably Sultan-Abu Sa'id and Sultan-Husain, in fact came to be regarded as ideal Perso-Islamic rulers who devoted as much attention to agricultural development as they did to fostering Persianate court culture."
^Green, Nile (2019-04-09).The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. Univ of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-97210-0.
^Spengler, Robert N. (2020-09-22).Fruit from the Sands: The Silk Road Origins of the Foods We Eat. Univ of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-37926-8.
^Timurids, The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Columbia University Press.This cultural rebirth had a double character; on one hand, there was a renewal of Persian civilization and art (distinguished by extensive adaptations from the Chinese), and on the other, an original national literature in the Turk-Jagatai language, which borrowed from Persian sources.
^Subtelny 2007, p. 40"Turko-Mongolian ideals necessarily blended with Perso-Islamic concepts of legitimation. This resulted, as mentioned already, in the coexistence of many Turko-Mongolian practices alongside Perso-Islamic ones (...) Nevertheless, in the complex process of transition, members of the Timurid dynasty and their Turko-Mongolian supporters became acculturated by the surrounding Persianate millieu adopting Persian cultural models and tastes and acting as patrons of Persian language, culture, painting, architecture and music. At the same time, to preserve their Turkic cultural heritage, they promoted the use of a Chagatay (Eastern Turkic) language and literature that was written in the Arabo-Persian script, and even retained the symbolic used of the Turkic Uighur script."
^Subtelny 2007, p. 41"The last members of the dynasty, notably Sultan-Abu Sa'id and Sultan-Husain, in fact came to be regarded as ideal Perso-Islamic rulers who devoted as much attention to agricultural development as they did to fostering Persianate court culture."
^Yazdi, Sharaf al-Din (2008).Zafarnama. Tashkent: San'at. p. 254.
^Grigor'ev, A.P (2004). "Timur's Inscription, 1391".Historiography and source study of the history of the countries of Asia and Africa (in Russian). Saint-Petersburg State University. p. 24.
^Fragner, Bert (2001). "The concept of regionalism in historical research on Central Asia and Iran :a macro - historical interpretation".Studies on Central Asian history in honor of Yuri Bregel. Bloomington, Ind. pp. 350–351.
^Ashraf, Ahmad (2006)."IRANIAN IDENTITY iii. MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD". InYarshater, Ehsan (ed.).Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. XIII/5: Iran X. Religions in Iran–Iraq V. Safavid period. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. pp. 507–522.ISBN978-0-933273-93-1.(...) the Mongol and Timurid phase, during which the name "Iran" was used for the dynastic realm and a pre-modern ethno-national history of Iranian dynasties was arranged.
^abcTimur; Stewart, Charles, eds. (2013),"CHAPTER III",The Mulfuzat Timury, or, Autobiographical Memoirs of the Moghul Emperor Timur: Written in the Jagtay Turky Language, Cambridge Library Collection - Perspectives from the Royal Asiatic Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27–31,doi:10.1017/CBO9781139507325.015,ISBN978-1-108-05602-1, retrieved2022-08-18
^Quinn, Sholeh (2020).Persian Historiography across Empires: The Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Cambridge University Press. p. 24.
^Soucek, Priscilla (2000)."The Theory and Practice of Portraiture in the Persian Tradition".Muqarnas.17: 105.doi:10.2307/1523292.ISSN0732-2992.The double-page battle scene in which Ibrahim Sultan, on the right, is shown confidently leading his troops toward a Turkman force, on the left, headed by Iskandar b. Kara Yusuf, who turns back biting his finger in consternation (figs. 3-4). This image is the frontispiece for a copy of Firdawsi's Shāhnāma and is thus not accompanied by any explanatory text, but it does correspond to descriptions of a battle that occurred in April 1429 which are contained in Timurid historical sources. Although neither of these key figures is labeled, each of them would have been recognized by a contemporary viewer because of this event's notoriety.
^Droese, Janine; Karolewski, Janina (4 December 2023).Manuscript Albums and their Cultural Contexts: Collectors, Objects, and Practices. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p. 135.ISBN978-3-11-132146-2.To the best of my knowledge, the earliest portrait of Timur can be found in a genealogical scroll (Istanbul, Topkapı Palace Museum, H. 2152, fols 32-43"), produced shortly after his death in Samarqand (probably under the reign of Khalil Sultan, r. 1405-1409)
^M. S. Asimov andC. E. Bosworth,History of Civilizations of Central Asia,UNESCO Regional Office, 1998,ISBN92-3-103467-7, p. 320: "One of his followers was ... Timur of the Barlas tribe. This Mongol tribe had settled ... in the valley of Kashka Darya, intermingling with the Turkish population, adopting their religion (Islam) and gradually giving up its own nomadic ways, like a number of other Mongol tribes in Transoxania ..."
^abB. Spuler, "Central Asia in the Mongol and Timurid periods", inEncyclopædia Iranica. "Like his father, Olōğ Beg was entirely integrated into the Persian Islamic cultural circles, and during his reign Persian predominated as the language of high culture, a status that it retained in the region of Samarqand until the Russian revolution 1917 ... Ḥoseyn Bāyqarā encouraged the development of Persian literature and literary talent in every way possible ..."
^abMir 'Ali Shir Nawāi (1966).Muhakamat Al-Lughatain (Judgment of Two Languages). Robert Devereux (ed.). Leiden: E.J. Brill.OCLC3615905.LCCPL55.J31 A43.Any linguist of today who reads the essay will inevitably conclude that Nawa'i argued his case poorly, for his principal argument is that the Turkic lexicon contained many words for which the Persian had no exact equivalents and that Persian-speakers had therefore to use the Turkic words. This is a weak reed on which to lean, for it is a rare language indeed that contains no loan words. In any case, the beauty of a language and its merits as a literary medium depend less on size of vocabulary and purity of etymology that on the euphony, expressiveness and malleability of those words its lexicon does include. Moreover, even if Nawā'ī's thesis were to be accepted as valid, he destroyed his own case by the lavish use, no doubt unknowingly, of non-Turkic words even while ridiculing the Persians for their need to borrow Turkic words. The present writer has not made a word count of Nawa'i's text, but he would estimate conservatively that at least one half the words used by Nawa'i in the essay are Arabic or Persian in origin. To support his claim of the superiority of the Turkic language, Nawa'i also employs the curious argument that most Turks also spoke Persian but only a few Persians ever achieved fluency in Turkic. It is difficult to understand why he was impressed by this phenomenon, since the most obvious explanation is that Turks found it necessary, or at least advisable, to learn Persian – it was, after all, the official state language – while Persians saw no reason to bother learning Turkic which was, in their eyes, merely the uncivilized tongue of uncivilized nomadic tribesmen.
^The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. Translated, edited and annotated by W. M. Thackston (2002). Modern Library.
^Gérard Chaliand,Nomadic Empires: From Mongolia to the Danube, translated by A. M. Berrett, Transaction Publishers, 2004. p. 75
^Beatrice Forbes Manz. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge University Press, 1999. pg 109: "In Temür's government, as in those of most nomad dynasties, it is impossible to find a clear distinction between civil and military affairs, or to identify the Persian bureaucracy solely civil, and the Turko-Mongolian solely with military government. It is in fact difficult to define the sphere of either side of the administration and we find Persians and Chaghatays sharing many tasks. (In discussing the settled bureaucracy and the people who worked within it I use the word Persian in a cultural rather than ethnological sense. In almost all the territories which Temür incorporated into his realm Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. The language of the settled population and the chancery ("diwan") was Persian, and its scribes had to be thoroughly adept in Persian culture, whatever their ethnic origin.) Temür's Chaghatay emirs were often involved in civil and provincial administration and even in financial affairs, traditionally the province of Persian bureaucracy."
^Spuler, Bertold."Central Asia".Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved2008-04-02.[Part] v. In the Mongol and Timurid periods: ... Like his father, Olōğ Beg was entirely integrated into the Persian Islamic cultural circles, and during his reign Persian predominated as the language of high culture, a status that it retained in the region of Samarqand until the Russian revolution 1917 ... Ḥoseyn Bāyqarā encouraged the development of Persian literature and literary talent in every way possible ...
^B. F. Manz; W. M. Thackston; D. J. Roxburgh; L. Golombek; L. Komaroff; R. E. Darley-Doran (2007). "Timurids".Encyclopaedia of Islam (Online ed.).Brill Publishers.During the Timurid period, three languages, Persian, Turkish, and Arabic were in use. The major language of the period was Persian, the native language of the Tajik (Persian) component of society and the language of learning acquired by all literate and/or urban Turks. Persian served as the language of administration, history, belles lettres, and poetry.
^David J. Roxburgh.The Persian Album, 1400–1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press, 2005. p. 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanameh ..."
^B. F. Manz, W. M. Thackston, D. J. Roxburgh, L. Golombek, L. Komaroff, R. E. Darley-Doran. "Timurids". InEncyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition (2007), Brill. "As it had been prior to the Timurids and continued to be after them, Arabic was the language par excellence of science, philosophy, theology and the religious sciences. Much of the astronomical work of Ulugh Beg and his co-workers ... is in Arabic, although they also wrote in Persian. Theological works ... are generally in Arabic."
^Turks: a journey of a thousand years, 600-1600. London : New York: Royal Academy of Arts ; Distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Harry N. Abrams. 2005. p. 199.ISBN978-1903973578.
^Stephen Frederic Dale (2004).The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire. Brill. p. 150
^Green 2019, p. 30"The appearance of Chaghatai texts at the court of Sultan Husayn Bayqara (r. 1469–70, 1470–1506) never amounted to anything approaching a systematic Timurid program to promote Turkic at the expense of Persian: both the Timurid court and chancery remained wedded to Persian."
^Malikov Azim, The cultural traditions of urban planning in Samarkand during the epoch of Timur. In: Baumer, C., Novák, M. and Rutishauser, S., Cultures in Contact. Central Asia as Focus of Trade, Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Transmission. Harrassowitz. 2022, p.343
^János Eckmann (1966). "Chagatay Manual". In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed.).Uralic and Altaic Series. Vol. 60. Indiana University Publications. p. 3.
^Forbes Manz, Beatrice (1999).The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge University Press. pp. 102–106.ISBN0521633842.
^University of Michigan. Center for Chinese Studies, Freer Gallery of Art, University of Michigan. Department of Fine Arts, University of Michigan. Department of the History of Art (1993).Ars Orientalis: The Arts of Islam and the East, Volume 23. Freer Gallery of Art. p. 320.
^abBloom, Jonathan; Blair, Sheila S. (2009).Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art & Architecture: Three-Volume Set. OUP USA. p. 426.ISBN978-0-19-530991-1.Coinage issued by the Timurid dynasty (r. 1370-1506) comprised various silver coins and several coppers, most often anonymous, although some coppers struck in the name of Timur 1370–1405; here called amīr) have a tamghā of three annulets prominently on the reverse.
^Misrbekova, M (2016). "Amir Timur's tamga".Young Scientist (in Russian).6:645–647.
^Bartold, Vasily (2020).Turks. 12 Lectures on the History of the Turks of Central Asia. Moscow: Yurayt Publishing house. p. 181.
^Balafrej, Lamia (2019).The making of the artist in late Timurid painting. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.ISBN978-1474437431.On folio 296a, the inscription 'the most mighty sultan Muhammad Juki' (al-Sultan al-a'zam Muhammad Juki) was threaded into a banner as a golden design (Figure 5.9)
^Lux-Wurm, Pierre C. (2001).Les Drapeaux de l'Islam : De Mahomet à nos jours (in French). France: Buchet Chastel. pp. 252–253.ISBN978-2283018132. French original: "Ses bannières suivaient un modèle unique avec des variantes dans leur découpages. D'après la tradition Mongole — de laquelle il se réclamait — la hampe portait la queue de cheval ou de yak (d'après cetains auteurs), appeléetough, surmontée du croissant de l'Islam. La couleur était rouge, cetainement à cause de la visibilité de cette couleur sur le champ de bataille." English (Google translation): "His banners followed a single model with variations in their cut-outs. According to the Mongolian tradition — to which he belonged — the pole bore the tail of a horse or yak (according to certain authors), calledtugh, topped with the crescent of Islam. The color was red, probably because of the visibility of this color on the battlefield.". For another Timurid red banner in miniatures, see:
^Ivlev, Vadim (2018).Timur's shield (in Russian). p. 23.
^Nersesov, Y (2013). "6".Timur the Great. The Master of the Universe (in Russian).
^Lux-Wurm, Pierre C. (2001).Les Drapeaux de l'Islam : De Mahomet à nos jours (in French). France: Buchet Chastel. pp. 252 (see illustration).ISBN978-2283018132.
Aka, Ismail (1996). "The Agricultural and Commercial Activities of the Timurids in the First Half of the 15th Century".Oriente Moderno.15 (76/2). Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino:9–21.doi:10.1163/22138617-07602003.JSTOR25817400.
Subtelny, Maria Eva (1988). "Centralizing Reform and Its Opponents in the Late Timurid Period".Iranian Studies.21 (1/2):123–51.doi:10.1080/00210868808701712.JSTOR4310597.
Paul, Juergen (2020)."Armies, lords, and subjects in medieval Iran".The Cambridge World History of Violence, Vol. 2, Edited by Matthew Gordon, Richard Kaeuper, Harriet Zurndorfer:58–78.
Subtelny, Maria E. (2007).Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. Brill.
Ruggles, D. Fairchild (2011).Islamic Gardens and Landscapes. University of Pennsylvania Press.
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