Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World. Justin Marozzi

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СКАЧАТЬ his death they should be both laid in the same tomb, and that his face should be turned sideways, that at the day of judgement, when every one should lift up their hands to heaven to implore assistance of some intercessor, he might lay hold on the robe of this child of the prophet Mahomet.’ (On his death, Temur was laid to rest in a tomb at the feet of his spiritual guide, a position of unprecedented modesty for the mightiest of monarchs.^* )

      Assured of Allah’s protection, Temur pressed on south, where his army surrounded Husayn’s capital of Balkh. Fighting raged between the followers of the two protagonists. Eventually, the city walls were forced and Temur’s marauding troops cut loose. Isolated inside his citadel, Husayn watched his enemy advance until at last he appreciated the imminence of his own ruin. Throwing himself on Temur’s mercy, he promised to leave Mawarannahr for the haj (pilgrimage) to Mecca if his former brother in arms spared his life. But it was too late for contrition.

      Husayn’s death, when it came, bordered on the farcical. Doubting Temur’s promises of quarter, he first hid inside a minaret until he was discovered by a soldier who had climbed the tower in an effort to find his lost horse. The officer encountered a trembling Husayn, who tried to bribe him with pearls. The soldier reported his discovery but Husayn escaped again, this time hiding in a hut. Happened upon by watchful soldiers once more, he was finally handed over to his arch-rival. Pontius Pilate-like, Temur refused to condone his killing – he had given his word that Husayn’s life be spared – but did nothing to stop Kay-Khusrau, one of his chiefs who had a blood feud with the ruler of Balkh, from carrying out the deed.

      The reckoning had come. Temur was triumphant. His greatest rival had been eliminated. Balkh was robbed of its treasures and razed to the ground, prefiguring the rapine, slaughter and destruction that awaited the rest of Asia.

      Not least among Temur’s victory spoils was Husayn’s widow, Saray Mulk-khanum. Daughter of Qazan, the last Chaghatay khan of Mawarannahr, she was also a princess of the Genghis line. It was customary for a victorious leader to help himself to the harem of his defeated opponent. Temur wasted little time in availing himself of the privilege. Taking Saray Mulk-khanum as his wife bolstered his legitimacy (the three other wives he inherited were a pleasant bonus). Henceforth, and for the rest of his life, he styled himself Temur Gurgan – son-in-law – of the Great Khan, on the coins which bore his name, in the Friday prayers and in all ceremonial functions.

      Temur was as avid a collector of wives as he was of treasures and trophies from his many campaigns. Although little is known about how many he had, and when he married them, from time to time they surface in the chronicles and then just as abruptly sink back into the depths of obscurity. We know that Saray Mulk-khanum was his chief wife, the Great Queen, a position she owed to her distinguished blood. Others followed. In 1375 he married Dilshad-agha, daughter of the Moghul amir Qamar ad-din, only to see her die prematurely eight years later. In 1378 he married the twelve-year-old Tuman-agha, daughter of a Chaghatay noble. Temur’s voracious appetite for wives and concubines did not lessen noticeably during his lifetime. In 1397, towards the end of his life, he married Tukal-khanum, daughter of the Moghul khan Khizr Khoja, who became the Lesser Queen. By this time, according to the hostile Arabshah, the ageing emperor ‘was wont to deflower virgins’. In terms of numbers of wives, Clavijo’s account is probably the most accurate. He counted eight in 1404, including Jawhar-agha, the youthful Queen of Hearts whom Temur had just married well into his seventieth year. An unknown number of others had predeceased him.

      In the wake of Husayn’s defeat and execution, and in deference to the traditions of Genghis, by which only a man of royal blood could aspire to supreme command, Temur installed a puppet Chaghatay khan, Suyurghatmish, as nominal ruler. This was no more than a formality. All knew that power lay with Temur alone. ‘Under his sway were ruler and subject alike,’ Arabshah recorded, ‘and the Khan was in his bondage, like a centipede in mud, and he was like the Khalifs at this time in the regard of the Sultans.’

The realities of the power-sharing arrangement were underlined in a dramatic ceremony of enthronement. With the blessing of the qurultay of Balkh, Temur crowned himself imperial ruler of Chaghatay on 9 April 1370.^* Majestic in his new crown of gold, surrounded by royal princes, his lords and amirs, together with the puppet khan, the new monarch sat solemnly as one by one his subjects humbly advanced, then threw themselves on the ground in front of him before rising to sprinkle precious jewels over his head, according to tradition. Thus began the litany of names he enjoyed until his death. At the age of thirty-four he was the Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction, Emperor of the Age, Conqueror of the World.

      His greatness, said Yazdi, was written in the stars:

      When God designs a thing, he disposes the causes, that whatever he hath resolved on may come to pass: thus he destined the empire of Asia to Temur and his posterity because he foresaw the mildness of his government, which would be the means of making his people happy … And as sovereignty, according to Mahomet, is the shadow of God, who is one, it cannot be divided, no more than there could have been two moons in the same heaven; so, to fulfil this truth, God destroys those who oppose him whom providence would fix upon the throne.

      Had they been consulted, the countless millions who lost their lives over the course of the next four decades – buried alive, cemented into walls, massacred on the battlefield, sliced in two at the waist, trampled to death by horses, beheaded, hanged – would surely have differed on the subject of the emperor’s mildness. But they were beneath notice. No one, be he innocent civilian or the most fearsome adversary, was allowed to stand in the way of his destiny. The world would tremble soon enough. Temur’s rampage was only just beginning.

^* A reference to Book 48 of the Koran, Al Fath (Victory): ‘We have given you a glorious victory, so that God may forgive you your past and future sins, and perfect His goodness to you; that He may guide you to a straight path and bestow on you His mighty help … God has promised you rich booty, and has given you this with all promptness. He has stayed your enemies’ hands, so that He may make your victory a sign to true believers and guide you along a straight path.’

^* Founded in the eleventh century as the Knights of the Hospital of St John at Jerusalem, the military religious order in Smyrna was, by 1402, the last Christian stronghold in Asia Minor.

^† Academics tend to dispute Temur’s actual birthday. Beatrice Forbes Manz, for example, author of a scholarly study of Temur, says this date was ‘clearly invented. He was probably at least five years older than the date suggests.’

^* The Tatars were originally a powerful horde which held sway in north-east Mongolia as early as the fifth century. As with many of the other ethnic groups drawn from the melting-pot of Central Asia, a region which for thousands of years has been a crossroads for great movements of populations, the term is neither exact nor exclusive. The word itself may have originated from the name of an early chieftain, Tatur. In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan’s westward rampages with his Mongols brought about a cross-fertilisation of cultures and peoples throughout the continent. Despite the fact that he had already virtually eliminated the Tatars as a tribe, these Turkicised Mongols became known as Tatars. Europeans, however, used the term indiscriminately for all nomadic peoples and, because they regarded these rough barbarians with fear and loathing, spelt it Tartar, from Tartarus, the darkest hell of Greek mythology. Today, the words Mongol and Tatar are often used interchangeably.

^† ‘To speak of him as Tamerlane is indeed СКАЧАТЬ