Timur Bey

Hükümdar

Ölüm
00 Şubat, 1405
Diğer İsimler
Aksak Timur, Timurlenk

He was the founder of the Timurid dynasty (B. 1336, Kesh, Samarkand – D. February 1405, Otrar, Syr Darya). His father was Emir Muhammad Taraqai, chieftain of Gürkans of Barlas tribe, of Uzbek Turk origin and his mother was Tekine Hatun,the daughter of Cenkci Noyan, an emir of Chagatai Emirate.

Timur spent his childhood in Barlas tribe who lived in steppes of Samarkand and who was facing internal disturbances and the conflicts in Chagatai Emirate. Timur who had an irregular life in his young ages became permanently disabled due to a wound he took during a raid, thus he was called “Aksak Timur”, “Timurlenk” (Timur the Lame) in Turkish, Persian and Western sources. Upon his father’s death, the state began to be driven by the conflicts due to emirs’ incompatibilities and so he went into politics. Together with his brother-in-law Emir Hüseyin, the king of Transoxiana, he fought against Tughluk Timur, the king of the East Turkistan. During his reign, Turkish language and literature had shown a great progress, but Persian was set as an official language.

In the early 1360s, Timur earned a great reputation in Transoxiana due to his militancy. He achieved important successes in Chagatai Khanate and he founded his own empire. In 1369 Timur, who fell out with Emir Hüseyin, became the absolute ruler of Transoxiana after Hüseyin’s death and ascended the throne in Samarkand. After the dissolution of Ilkhanate, its lands were shared out with local dynasties like Jalayirids, Muzaffarids, Sardabars, Kartids. Timur conquered Persia within seven years; he conquered Azerbaijan, Persian Iraq and Iraqi Arabic and brought Khwarezm under his power with two campaigns in 1371 and 1379.

He sent his son Miran Shah to Kerman and he himself marched towards Herat, thus starting his great Campaign of Khorasan (1380). He crushed a rebellion against Timurid authority by the Kartids and massacred all Kartidians which ended its dynasty (1381). The following year, he marched towards Sardabars and took their capital city, Sabzevar (1382). Later he moved to Sistan, took Kandahar and he annihilated all emirs who opposed him (1383). He defeated Emir Veli in Gorgan, conquered Esferain and Esterabad which further resulted in conquest of all Gorgan Kingdom (1384). Thus, Timur, who conquered Eastern Persia, brought Uyghur under his rule with five campaigns until 1389. Timur helped Tokhtamysh, who was a prince of Golden Horde and a refugee in Timur's court, and he made Tokhtamysh the ruler of Golden Horde. However, the betrayal of Tokhtamysh against Timur resulted in the Tokhtamysh–Timur war. Emir Timur defeated him twice first in 1390 and then in 1391, thus conquering Eastern Volga River.

Timur, whose next target was India, conquered Northern India in 1399. He had victories in every battle he engaged and he conquered Armenia and Georgia in 1400 and Syria in 1401-02. He defeated Mamelukes and took Aleppo and Damascus. He conquered Baghdad in June 1401. Afterwards, in 1402 he crushed Yıldırım Bayezid in the Battle of Ankara, which resulted in The Ottoman Interregnum for twelve years and took some parts of Ottoman Empire. Thus, he controlled the whole Asia from China to Delhi, the whole Mesopotamia from Iraq to Syria and Izmir and Anatolia. He passed away in Otrar near Syr Darya in February 1405 while he was on a campaign against China with an army of 200.000 soldiers. Timur was re-buried with full Islamic ritual in November 1942.

Timur had many madrasahs and libraries constructed. He reconstructed Samarkand and left much art works there, thus making Samarkand a leading and rich town. He wrote his own biography and established his own laws called “Tüzükât-ı Timur”. Those works he wrote in Chagatai Turkish were later published in Persian and European languages. He was subjected many times in European literature and in 16th century many works about him was released. Most of those works describes him as a kind and great emperor. Timur drove the Christian Knights away from Izmir after the Battle of Ankara.

Before Timur, Turks in Turkistan were nomadic people. Timur urbanized Transoxiana and settled nomadic tribes there. He constructed water-channels and encouraged agriculture.  He attached big towns to trade routes. He gathered scholars in the Middle Asia through his conquests. Besides, Timur was never defeated in any battles he himself commanded in. He housed many polymaths in his court such as Teftazanî and took their advices. During his reign, “Hurufism” was established by Fadlıllah-I Hurûfi (T. N. Fazlallah Astarabadi (Naimi)) and began to spread around Middle Asia, and Middle East. He sentenced Fazlallah, who declared himself as god and refused all religions, to death and ordered his son Miran Shah to conduct the execution in 1393, and shut down Fazlallah’ lodges and drove many of his followers away from Islamic towns.

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