Who was Tamerlane?

Timur, historically known as Tamerlane, "Timur the Lame", was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty.

Born into the Barlas confederation in Transoxiana during the 1320s or 1330s, Timur gained control of the western Chagatai Khanate by 1370. From that base, he led military campaigns across Western, South and Central Asia, Caucasus and southern Russia, and emerged as the most powerful ruler in the Muslim world after defeating the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria, the emerging Ottoman Empire, and the declining Delhi Sultanate. From these conquests he founded the Timurid Empire, but this empire fragmented shortly after his death.

Timur is considered the last of the great nomadic conquerors of the Eurasian Steppe, and his empire set the stage for the rise of the more structured and lasting Gunpowder Empires in the 1500s and 1600s.

Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. "In his formal correspondence Timur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers. To legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as the "Sword of Islam" and patronized educational and religious institutions.