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

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ despot, treacherous impostor, wicked fool, owl of ill omen and the like do little for Arabshah’s credibility as an objective biographer.

      Yet Arabshah is a critical character witness precisely because of this profound enmity. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the final chapter of his book, the very heading of which pulls the reader up short. It is entitled ‘Of the Wonderful Gifts of Temur and his Nature and Character’. Unlike the preceding chapters, which rarely exceed five pages, and are frequently only one, this runs to thirty-five pages. Its opening passage leaves us with a picture of the conqueror at the end of his life, and is worth quoting from at length. It begins with a physical description:

       Temur was tall and lofty of stature as though he belonged to the remnants of the Amalekites, big in brow and head, mighty in strength and courage, wonderful in nature, white in colour, mixed with red, but not dark, stout of limb, with broad shoulders, thick fingers, long legs, perfect build, long beard, dry hands, lame on the right side, with eyes like candles, without brilliance; powerful in voice; he did not fear death; and though he was near his [seventieth] year yet he was firm in mind, strong and robust in body, brave and fearless, like a hard rock.

      The Soviet archaeological team which opened Temur’s tomb in 1941 found that he was a well-built man of about five feet seven inches, ‘tall and lofty of stature’ for that time. His lameness was likewise established. An injury to his right leg, where the thighbone had merged with his kneecap, left it shorter than the left, hence the pronounced limp referred to in his pejorative nickname. When walking he dragged his right leg, and his left shoulder was found to be unnaturally higher than the right. Further wounds were discovered to his right hand and elbow. The red colour Arabshah mentions in Temur’s colouring may well be a reference to his moustache and beard, traces of which were found still attached to the skull.

      ‘He did not care for jesting or lying,’ Arabshah continues. ‘Wit and trifling pleased him not; truth, even if it were painful, delighted him; he was not sad in adversity nor joyful in prosperity … He did not allow in his company any obscene talk or talk of bloodshed or captivity, rapine, plunder and violation of the harem. He was spirited and brave and inspired awe and obedience. He loved bold and valiant soldiers, by whose aid he opened the locks of terror, tore men to pieces like lions, and through them and their battles overturned mountains …’

      It is as though the dignity and grandeur of Temur’s character, suppressed by the Syrian for nine-tenths of the book, is finally too much for him to contain. After the long summaries, and vituperative denunciations, of Temur’s campaigns, it is time for Arabshah to deliver his verdict on Temur the man. And suddenly, the language has changed. The conqueror is ‘wonderful in nature’, his fearlessness is mentioned twice within a few sentences, rather like Yazdi’s emphasis of his courage. He is the object of his soldiers’ awe. The man who Arabshah has been telling us for three hundred pages revels in wanton cruelty and spilling blood does not, it transpires, tolerate any talk of bloodshed, rape or plunder in his presence. As Arabshah continues, you sense that after all these pages filled with hatred he finds himself, despite his intentions, re-evaluating his subject in a vastly more favourable light. It is a marvellous and highly revealing moment. Temur, he goes on, was:

       A debater, who by one look and glance comprehended the matter aright, trained, watchful for the slightest sign; he was not deceived by intricate fallacy nor did hidden flattery pass him; he discerned keenly between truth and fiction, and caught the sincere counsellor and the pretender by the skill of his cunning, like a hawk trained for the chase, so that for his thoughts he was judged a shining star.

      No longer the coarse viper, Temur is the consummate diplomat and politician, masterful in the business of empire, attuned to deceit and subterfuge, a ‘shining star’ in the intellectual firmament. In his first chapter, Arabshah poured scorn on Temur’s lineage. He was born, said the Syrian, into ‘a mixed horde, lacking either reason or religion’. Brought up in the nomadic traditions of the steppe, the Tatar spoke both Turkic and Persian fluently, but was illiterate. By the end of his book, Arabshah has arrived at a rather different judgement on Temur’s intelligence and his respect for learning.

       Temur loved learned men, and admitted to his inner reception nobles of the family of Mahomed; he gave the highest honour to the learned and doctors and preferred them to all others and received each of them according to his rank and granted them honour and respect; he used towards them familiarity and an abatement of his majesty; in his arguments with them he mingled moderation with splendour, clemency with rigour and covered his severity with kindness.

      Temur’s harshest critic, the man who had seen his great city reduced to ashes, its men and women raped and butchered, is at pains to stress that the Tatar was no mindless, uncouth, heathen tyrant. Temur liked to gather the most illustrious minds about him. Few could expect mercy when he torched a city, but scholars, poets, men of letters, Muslim clerics, shaykhs, dervishes and divines, artists and architects, miniaturists, masons and skilled craftsmen of all descriptions were invariably spared.

      If soldiers were his first love as an emperor, Temur’s admiration for holy men and men of letters came a close second. Under his rule Samarkand attracted – voluntarily and otherwise – Asia’s most distinguished minds, and this at a time when high culture in that continent shone more brightly than in benighted Europe. From Baghdad came Nizam ad-din Shami, author of the original Zafarnama, the inspiration for Sharaf ad-din Ali Yazdi’s later work of the same name. Persian scholars thronged to the conqueror’s court. There was Sa’d ad-din Mas’ud at Taftazani, one of the celebrated polymaths of his era, a theologian, grammarian, lawyer and exegetical teacher. He was joined by Ali ibn Mohammed as Sayyid ash Sharif al Jurjanj, the mystic and logician, and Abu Tahrir ibn Yaqub ash Shirazi al Firuzabadi, the renowned lexicographer. Lutfallah Nishapuri, the poet laureate and panegyrist of Temur’s son Miranshah, was highly regarded by Temur. Another poet, Ahmed Kermani, author of the Temurnama (Book of Temur), was on intimate terms with the emperor, while eminent scholars like Djezeri, compiler of one of the most respected Arabic dictionaries, were frequently granted high office. There were many foundations and endowments for colleges and mosques, schools and hospitals. And at the centre of this extended academic and cultural web sat Temur, distributing patronage like a spider spinning its web.

      In 1401 there occurred one of the most fascinating meetings of minds of the age when the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun was presented to the Tatar during the siege of Damascus. After staying in Temur’s camp for a month, he left with a profound respect for ‘one of the greatest and mightiest of kings’, not to mention a commission to write a history of North Africa. Temur impressed him with his knowledge of the history of the Tatars, Arabs and Persians: ‘He is highly intelligent and very perspicacious, addicted to debate and argumentation about what he knows and also about what he does not know.’ Arabshah also took note of Temur’s interest in history: ‘He was constant in reading annals and histories of the prophets of blessed memory and the exploits of kings,’ he wrote. The emperor even established a new position of Story-Reader in his court. Practical disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy and medicine were particularly favoured.

      Prefiguring Yazdi’s uncritical comments, Arabshah goes on to express his admiration for Temur’s persistence and determination: ‘When he had ordered anything or given a sign that it should be done, he never recalled it or turned thence the reins of his purpose, that he might not be found in inconstancy and weakness of plan or deed.’ Yazdi puts it rather more flatteringly: ‘As Temur’s ambition was boundless, and the least of his designs surpassed the greatest actions in the world, he never abandoned any one of his enterprises till he had completely finished it.’

Famously brilliant at manoeuvring his armies to victory on the battlefield, Temur was no less skilful at marshalling his forces on the chessboard, where his cool calculation, audacity and control undid the grand masters of his day. Even here he was exceptional, observed Arabshah. ‘He was constant in the game of chess, that with it he might sharpen his intellect; but his mind was too lofty СКАЧАТЬ