Amir Timur: Samarkand’s monuments and the start of the Timurid era

In the Central Asian city of Samarkand, beneath a turquoise ribbed dome, stands a mausoleum known as the Gur-e Amir. According to Britannica, it is one of the jewels of Islamic art. It holds the tomb of Amir Timur (Timur), who ruled from around 1370 until 1405. Timur spent much of his life on military campaigns. According to Britannica, he is remembered above all for the destruction those campaigns caused. Britannica also writes, however, that his most lasting memorial is the Timurid buildings of Samarkand. This article is limited to these aspects.

Early life

According to Britannica, Timur was born in 1336 in Kesh, near Samarkand. It is today the Uzbek city of Shakhrisabz. He belonged to the Barlas tribe, a group of Mongol descent that had adopted Turkic culture. It had settled in Transoxiana after the campaigns of Chagatai, a son of Genghis Khan. Timur was thus raised in the Chagatai Khanate.

According to Britannica, Timur began as the chief of a small band of nomads. Around 1366 his hold over Transoxiana became firm. In about 1370 he proclaimed his rule in Samarkand.

Expansion

According to Britannica, over the next three decades Timur’s armies reached lands from the borders of Mongolia to the Mediterranean, and from India to Russia. Many cities were ruined in these campaigns.

The court in a tent

Timur’s way of life remained rooted in the nomadic tradition. According to Britannica, he never took up a permanent residence. When he was not on campaign, he moved with his army according to the season and the pastures. His court travelled with him. According to Britannica, he wanted his capital, Samarkand, to become the most splendid city in Asia. Yet when he came to Samarkand he stayed in the city only a few days. He then returned to his tents in the plains outside.

The buildings of Samarkand

According to Britannica, Timur’s most lasting memorials are the Timurid buildings of Samarkand. They are decorated with mosaics in colours such as blue, turquoise, gold and marble tones. The largest of them is the city’s congregational mosque, known as the Bibi Khanym Mosque. According to Britannica, it was wrecked by an earthquake, but the remains of its great dome still stand high today. Citing the Spanish envoy Clavijo, Britannica writes that ninety elephants were used to bring stone from the quarries for the building of a mosque in Samarkand.

According to UNESCO, Samarkand has a history of more than 2,500 years. Its most important period of development was the Timurid era of the 14th and 15th centuries, when it was the capital of a powerful empire. According to UNESCO, buildings such as the Bibi Khanym Mosque and the Registan Square had a deep influence on Islamic architecture across the region, from the Mediterranean to the subcontinent. UNESCO has inscribed Samarkand on the World Heritage List as “Crossroad of Cultures”.

The Ak-Saray of Shakhrisabz

A major building was also raised in Timur’s home town. According to UNESCO, construction of the Ak-Saray (White Palace) began in Shakhrisabz in 1380. Craftsmen from Khwarazm were brought to decorate it. According to UNESCO, Samarkand has many monuments of the Timurid period, but none can rival the Ak-Saray. Today the foundations of the palace’s grand gateway survive. The historic centre of Shakhrisabz is also a World Heritage site.

Clavijo’s embassy

A European envoy wrote a valuable eyewitness account of Samarkand in Timur’s time. According to Britannica, Ruy González de Clavijo, a courtier of King Henry III of Castile (Spain), left Spain in May 1403. He travelled through Constantinople, Trebizond and Iran and reached Samarkand, where the embassy was well received. He returned to Spain in 1406. His travel account, which gives a very vivid description of Samarkand, survives in two manuscripts in the National Library in Madrid.

Death

According to Britannica, Timur returned to Samarkand in 1404 and began preparing for a campaign against China. He set out in December, but fell ill at Otrar on the banks of the Syr Darya. He died on 19 February 1405. His body was brought to Samarkand and buried in the Gur-e Amir. According to Britannica, a large broken slab of jade lies on his grave. In 1941 Soviet archaeologists opened the tomb. They found that Timur had a disability in his right leg and arm. For this reason his Iranian opponents called him “Timur the Lame” (Timur Lang), which became “Tamerlane” in Europe.

Legacy

According to Britannica, after Timur’s death a struggle for succession broke out among his sons and grandsons. His youngest son, Shah Rukh, then reunited the territories. The Timurid dynasty lasted in Central Asia for a century. In this period Samarkand became a centre of learning and science, where Timur’s grandson Ulugh Beg set up an observatory. Herat became the centre of a splendid school of Persian painting. According to Britannica, at the start of the 16th century Zahiruddin Babur, a descendant of Timur, reached Kabul and then Delhi and founded the Mughal Empire (see the first part of this series on him).