My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of an elderly caretaker. He was poorly dressed, with a tatty skullcap and a ragged suit. Two bright eyes peered at me from a wrinkled face. He pointed at his watch, told me the mausoleum was closing, and started turning off the lights. Then, as he was about to leave, beckoning for me to follow, he paused.
‘I show you real grave of Amir Temur. Two dollars.’
His eyes, wide with excitement, suggested that he alone held the key to a forbidden world. I nodded quickly. The tombstones I had seen on ground level were merely decorative. I knew from Yazdi’s chronicle that somewhere underground a vault existed where Temur and his princes were buried, but I had been told this area was closed to visitors.
Together we made our way down a hidden flight of stairs. The elderly guide fished out a key from a pocket, opened a heavy door, and we stepped into a glacial crypt. It was pitch black. There was nothing to see. Then he flicked a switch and the lights revealed a plain vault of brick and stone.
Temur’s burial place was a simple slab of carved stone engraved with Koranic inscriptions. After the pomp and colour of the mausoleum above, the drab, dark chamber was a sombre sight. This was the grave of the man who had blazed across Asia like a comet across the heavens. For a few years his descendants had watched over the glowing embers falling through the sky until the Temurid empire and dynasty had crashed to earth, extinguished altogether. In the West Temur has been all but forgotten. Those who know his name perhaps remember the fire and brimstone of Marlowe’s play about a tyrant who styled himself ‘the Scourge and Wrath of God/The only fear and terror of the world’. But to all but a few, the greatest Islamic empire-builder in history, the man who joined Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan in the trio of the world’s greatest conquerors, remains little more than that: a name. The city he had built so brilliantly and decorated so lovingly, once the envy of the world, lies in a neglected southern outpost of the old Soviet empire. Only here does his memory burn brightly. Above the door was a short inscription.
This is the resting place of the illustrious and merciful monarch, the most great Sultan, the most mighty warrior, Lord Temur, Conqueror of the World.
APPENDIX A
Chronology of Temur’s Life
1336 9 April: The official date of Temur’s birth near Shakhrisabz, south of Samarkand. Scholars outside Uzbekistan believe he was born in the late 1320s or early 1330s.
1347 Amir Qazaghan deposes and kills Amir Qazan, the Chaghatay khan.
1355 Temur’s first-born, Jahangir, is born around this time. His second son Omar Shaykh follows soon afterwards.
1358 Assassination of Amir Qazaghan.
1360 Tughluk Temur, the Moghul khan, invades Mawarannahr. Temur pledges his loyalty to him, positioning himself to lead the Barlas tribe. After Tughluk Temur appoints his son Ilyas Khoja leader of Mawarannahr, Temur breaks from the Moghul leader and contracts an alliance with Amir Husayn, the aristocratic leader of Balkh. Their mission is to rid Mawarannahr of the Moghuls.
1362 Temur seals the alliance by marrying Aljai Turkhan-agha, Husayn’s sister. This is the nadir of his career. The would-be world conqueror and his wife are imprisoned for two months in a vermin-infested cowshed.
1365 The ‘battle of the Mire’. Ilyas Khoja sends Temur and Husayn into flight.
1366 Temur and Husayn seize control of Samarkand. Ilyas Khoja, by now the Moghul khan, is assassinated. Qamar ad-din is the new Moghul ruler. Birth of Miranshah around this time.
1366–70 Temur’s alliance with Husayn turns to rivalry.
1368 The Mongol Yuan dynasty in China is overthrown by the new Ming dynasty.
1370 Husayn is defeated at Balkh, captured and executed. Temur is crowned imperial ruler of Chaghatay, Lord of the Fortunate Conjunction. He marries Husayn’s widow, Saray Mulk-khanum, daughter of the Chaghatay khan Qazan and a princess from the line of Genghis Khan. The marriage allows him to style himself Temur Gurgan, son-in-law of the Great Khan. He installs Suyurghatmish as Chaghatay khan. Temur launches his first campaign against the Moghuls. More follow throughout the 1370s.
1372 Temur leads his army north against the Sufi dynasty of Khorezm, taking the city of Kat. As part of a peace treaty, the princess Khan-zada, also of the Genghisid line, is promised as a wife for Temur’s son Jahangir.
1373 Since no princess is forthcoming, Temur leads a second expedition. Khorezm comes to terms, Khan-zada arrives and the territory passes into Temur’s fledgling empire.
1375–76 Temur campaigns against Moghulistan.
1376 Jahangir dies. Tokhtamish, a prince of the Genghisid line who is aiming for control of the White Horde, takes refuge with Temur, who arms and supports him. Tokhtamish’s first attempt to seize the throne is unsuccessful.
1377 Birth of Temur’s son Shahrukh. Tokhtamish is defeated again.
1378 On his third attempt, Tokhtamish, with Temur’s assistance, is crowned khan of the White Horde.
1379 Temur summons the Kart prince of Herat to pay homage to him. Expedition against rebellious Khorezm. Temur sacks the city of Urganch.
1380 Tokhtamish becomes khan of the Golden Horde. Temur appoints Miranshah governor of Khorasan.
1381 Expedition against Khorasan. Temur takes Herat without a fight, before wintering around Bukhara.
1382 Campaigning in Mazandaran, Temur defeats the local ruler Amir Wali and seizes control of the Caspian territories. His army winters near Samarkand.
1383 Herat rebels. Temur returns to Khorasan where he takes two thousand prisoners in the city of Isfizar. To punish the rebellion, he has them cemented alive into towers.
1384–86 Temur takes Sistan and Kandahar. The capital of Zaranj is gutted. After the ignominious flight of its ruler, Sultan Ahmed Jalayir, the city of Sultaniya surrenders to Temur, who then returns to Samarkand. Tokhtamish sacks Tabriz.
The Three-Year Campaign against Persia begins. Tabriz is the first city to fall. First expedition against Georgia. Tiflis (Tbilisi), its capital, surrenders.
1387 Tokhtamish pillaging in the Caucasus. Temur campaigns in Armenia before moving west into Asia Minor. Isfahan surrenders but immediately rises up in rebellion. Temur orders a massacre. Shiraz falls without a fight. News reaches Temur that Tokhtamish has attacked Mawarannahr and put Bukhara under siege. He is laying waste to Temur’s homeland. Temur returns to Mawarannahr, forcing Tokhtamish north.
1388 Urganch is razed to the ground as punishment for its support of Tokhtamish’s raid.
1389–90 Temur suppresses a revolt in Khorasan. Campaigns against Moghulistan. Khizr Khoja, the Moghul khan, is defeated. Qamar ad-din attempts to replace him. Temur and Khizr Khoja come to terms.
1390–91 Temur winters in Tashkent, preparing for a major expedition against Tokhtamish. After a march of more than five months and almost two thousand miles, his horde encounters Tokhtamish’s army and defeats it at the battle of Kunduzcha in June. The Tatars celebrate their famous victory on the banks of the Volga.
1391–92 Temur winters in Tashkent before returning to Samarkand. He appoints his grandson Pir Mohammed, Jahangir’s son, to the governorship of Kabul.
1392 The Five-Year Campaign begins.
1393 Another expedition against Georgia. Temur marches through Mazandaran, destroying the rival Muzaffarid dynasties of Persia. The Muzaffarid princes are executed. He appoints his son Omar Shaykh ruler of Fars. Temur retakes Shiraz. Baghdad submits to him after its ruler, Sultan Ahmed Jalayir, flees again. Omar Shaykh dies. The Egyptian Sultan Barquq extends his protection to Sultan Ahmed and executes Temur’s ambassadors.
1394 Sultan Barquq contracts an alliance with Tokhtamish, who is assembling his forces for another expedition against Temur. Barquq readies his army and marches north to Damascus, thence to Aleppo, after reinstating Sultan Ahmed in Baghdad. Temur campaigns in Armenia and Georgia. Tokhtamish mounts another raid on the Caucasus, encroaching on Temur’s empire again.
1395 Temur defeats Tokhtamish for the second and last time at the battle
of Terek. His armies continue their push north, utterly ravaging the Golden Horde, destroying its principal cities Tana and Saray and its capital Astrakhan.
1396 Returning south, Temur lays waste to the embattled kingdom of Georgia. He makes a triumphant homecoming to Samarkand and embarks on his most ambitious building programme. He remains in his imperial capital for two years, the longest stay of his career. The Ottoman Sultan Bayazid I routs his European adversaries at the battle of Nicopolis, the last Crusade. Shahrukh appointed governor of Khorasan.
1397 Pir Mohammed, son of Jahangir, is sent south to the Punjabi city of Multan amid preparations for Temur’s next expedition.
1398 The Indian Campaign begins. Temur crosses the Hindu Kush mountains and takes Multan. He orders the execution of one hundred thousand prisoners prior to engaging the Indian army. Outdoing both Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, he destroys Delhi, sacking the city so completely it takes it a century to recover.
1399 Temur returns to Samarkand. Work begins on the Cathedral Mosque, his most monumental building project. Death of Sultan Barquq. He is replaced by ten-year-old Sultan Faraj. The Seven-Year Campaign begins. Temur’s debauched son Miranshah is deposed as Temur marches west. Sultan Ahmed flees for the third time, taking refuge with Sultan Bayazid. Temur’s forces winter in the Qarabagh.
1400 After taking Sivas, Temur has three thousand prisoners buried alive. Aleppo is put to the sword. Twenty thousand Syrian skulls are piled into mounds around the city.
1401 Camped outside Damascus, Temur grants audiences to the great Arab historian Ibn Khaldun. Damascus falls and is torched. The peerless Umayyad Mosque is ruined. After retaking Baghdad, Temur orders another massacre. This time, 120 towers of ninety thousand skulls mark his latest conquest. His army is rested during another winter in the pastures of the Qarabagh.
1402 Temur marches west to seek out Bayazid. In July he defeats the Ottoman forces at the battle of Ankara, his greatest victory yet. This is the only time in Ottoman history that the sultan is captured in person. Temur sacks Smyrna, the last Christian outpost in Asia Minor.
1403 Sultan Bayazid dies in captivity. Death of Mohammed Sultan, Jahangir’s first-born and Temur’s heir. Temur campaigns again in Georgia before wintering in the Qarabagh.
1404 Temur returns to Samarkand and begins new building projects. In August, the Castilian envoy Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo arrives in the imperial capital for audiences with the Tatar emperor. Temur holds a qurultay in the Kani-gil meadows around Samarkand. The uproarious, wine-soaked festivities last two months. Temur rides east for his last campaign, against the Ming emperor of China.
1405 In January Temur arrives at Otrar (Kazakhstan) and falls ill. 18 February: Death of Temur.
1941 22 June: Soviet archaeologist Professor Mikhail Gerasimov exhumes Temur’s body, confirming the injuries to both right limbs.
1991 31 August: Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan declares independence under its leader Islam Karimov.
1993 1 September: During independence celebrations, President Karimov unveils a statue of Temur in Tashkent. The Tatar conqueror, long vilified by the Soviets, is the new national symbol of the motherland.
1996 As part of Uzbekistan’s celebrations of the 660th anniversary of Temur’s birth, a museum dedicated to the conqueror is opened in Tashkent. A new Order of Amir Temur is created to honour outstanding service to Uzbekistan.
APPENDIX B
Events in Europe in the Fourteenth Century
1272–1307 Reign of King Edward I of England, ‘Hammer of the Scots’.
1302 King Philip IV of France convenes the first Estates-General, forerunner of the French parliament, in a bid to impose his power over the Church. Responding to the challenge, Pope Boniface VIII issues his Papal Bull Unam Sanctam, an assertion of papal supremacy in all matters spiritual and temporal. He is imprisoned by Philip IV.
1303 The University of Rome is founded.
1305 Sir William Wallace, the Scottish hero, is hanged, drawn and quartered after raising an army against the English king.
1306 27 March: Robert the Bruce is crowned King of Scotland at Scone.
1307–27 Reign of King Edward II of England.
1309–77 Period of the Avignon papacy. With war in Italy, the papacy withdraws to southern France, where a series of French popes hold sway until the Great Schism of 1378–1417.
1314 23–24 June: Robert the Bruce defeats the English army at the battle of Bannockburn.
1321 Death of Dante Alighieri, author of The Divine Comedy.
1327–77 Reign of King Edward III of England.
1337 Death of Giotto, the Florentine artist and architect, creator of the celebrated Scrovegni frescoes in Padua.
1337–1453 Hundred Years’ War between France and England.
1338 Edward III proclaims himself King of France.
1342 ?Birth of Geoffrey Chaucer. He began writing The Canterbury Tales in the late 1380s, when Temur was at the height of his power.
1345 Completion of the Ponte Vecchio, Florence’s most famous bridge.
1346 26 August: King Edward III’s army defeats the French at the battle of Crécy.
1347 Spreading west from Asia, the Black Death reaches Constantinople, Rhodes, Cyprus, Sicily, Venice, Genoa and Marseilles. A year later, it ravages the rest of Italy and England, spreading into northern Europe in the early 1350s.
1350 Coronation of King John II of France.
1356 19 September: Edward the Black Prince leads the English army to victory over the French at the battle of Poitiers. King John II is taken prisoner and held for ransom.
1356 The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV issues the Golden Bull, establishing rules for the election of German kings.
1360 8 May: France and England come to terms at the Peace of Brétigny. John II pays three million gold crowns for his ransom. Edward III renounces his claim to the French throne and is granted swathes of French territory.
1370 Completion of the Palace of Comares and the Sala de la Barca within the Alhambra, Granada.
1377–99 Reign of King Richard II of England.
1378–1417 The Great Schism. The Church splits over the election of Pope Urban VI. For three decades one pope presides in Rome while another, the anti-pope, is based in Avignon.
1381 Wat Tyler leads the Peasants’ Revolt in England against the hated poll tax.
1386 The University of Heidelberg, the oldest in Germany, is founded by Rupert I, Elector of the Palatinate.
1389 The Ottoman Sultan Murad I crushes a combined European army under the Serbian King Lazarus at the battle of Kosovo.
1396 The flower of European chivalry is cut down by the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid I at the battle of Nicopolis, the last Crusade.
1399–1413 Reign of King Henry IV of England.
1400 Owen Glendower, last to claim the title of independent Prince of Wales, launches the Welsh Revolt against English rule.
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