Period of rule as Emir of Timur Barlas, in Turki-Chagatai تیمور, temur, “iron”, also Temur-i lang, in Turki-Persian تیمور لنگ, i.e. Temur “the lame”, Italianized to Tamerlano also “Temurbeg” from “Temur Bek” (Tatar: бөх , transl. lord) (Shahrisabz, 8 April 1336 – Otrar, 19 January 1405). He is the founder of the Timurid dynasty, active in Central Asia and Eastern Persia between 1370 and 1507. From him will descend Babur (1483 – 1530), founder of the Mughal dynasty in India. His origins are Mongol-Turkish, although his cultural tradition certainly contains elements of Persian and Mongol culture. He aspired to rebuild the Mongol Empire, but in reality he would inflict the heaviest blows on the so-called Golden Horde, which he would never recover from. He considered himself a ghazi, or “Fighter for the Faith,” but he would wage his most formidable campaigns against Muslim states. He ruled solely in the name of the Great Khan of the Mongols. He would conquer a vast empire that encompassed the present-day Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan, part of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, and Georgia. He subjugated Tughlaq India (1398-99), the Mamluk Sultanate (1400) and Ottoman Anatolia, eventually defeating the Knights of Rhodes (1402-1403), although these latter conquests remained in the hands of the Timurids for only a few years, returning to their former owners soon after Timur’s death in 1405.
