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Temür and the problem of a conqueror's legacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Extract

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?

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1998

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References

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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) (hereafter Muntakhab), p. 222, and Morgan, 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.

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

41 Majma’, 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.

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

47 Baitol'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, the tora.)Google Scholar

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61 Bombaci, , Histoire de la litérature turque, trans. Melikoff, (Paris, 1968), pp. 109, 111–12;Google Scholar Esin, “Bakshi” in Arts of the Book, p. 288; Kutadgu Bilig, dated 845/1439, Nationalbibliotek, Austria, ms. NH 13; Seguy, M-R, The Miraculous Journey of Mahomet: Mirâj nâmeh (New York, 1977).Google Scholar

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