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The origin of the Timurid dynasty goes back to the Mongolian nomadic confederation known as Barlas, who were remnants of the original Mongol army of Genghis Khan.⁵⁸⁹ After the Mongol conquest of Central Asia, the Barlas settled in Turkistan (which then became also known as Moghulistan - "Land of Mongols") and intermingled to a considerable degree with the local Turkic and Turkic-speaking population, so that at the time of Timur's reign the Barlas had become thoroughly Turkicized in terms of language and habits. Additionally, by adopting Islam, the Central Asian Turks and Mongols also adopted the Persian literary and high culture¹⁰ which has dominated Central Asia since the early days of Islamic influence. Persian literature was instrumental in the assimilation of the Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamic courtly culture.¹¹ Timur was also steeped in Persian culture¹² and in most of the territories which he incorporated, Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. Thus the language of the settled "diwan" was Persian, and its scribes had to be thoroughly adept in Persian culture, whatever their ethnic origin.¹³

Founding the dynasty

Timur conquered large parts of Transoxiana (in modern day Central Asia) and Khorasan (parts of modern day Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) from 1363 onwards with various alliances (Samarkand in 1366, and Balkh in 1369), and was recognized as ruler over them in 1370. Acting officially in the name of the Mongolian Chagatai ulus, he subjugated Transoxania and Khwarazm in the years that followed and began a campaign westwards in 1380. By 1389 he had removed the Kartids from Herat and advanced into mainland Persia from 1382 (capture of Isfahan in 1387, removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, and expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad). In 1394/95 he triumphed over the Golden Horde and enforced his sovereignty in the Caucasus, in 1398 subjugated Multan and Dipalpur in modern day Pakistan and in modern day India left Delhi in such ruin that it is said for two months "not a bird moved wing in the city"¹⁴. In 1400/01 conquered Aleppo, Damascus and eastern Anatolia, in 1401 destroyed Baghdad and in 1402 triumphed over the Ottomans at Ankara. In addition, he transformed Samarqand into the Center of the World. An estimated 17 million people may have died from his conquests.¹⁵

After the end of the Timurid Empire in 1506, the Mughal Empire was later established in India by Babur in 1526, who was a descendant of Timur through his father and possibly a descendant of Genghis Khan through his mother. The dynasty he established is commonly known as the Mughal Dynasty. By the 17th century, the Mughal Empire ruled most of India, but later declined during the 18th century. The Timurid Dynasty came to an end in 1857 after the Mughal Empire was dissolved by the British Empire and Bahadur Shah II was exiled to Burma.

Due to the fact that the Persian cities were desolated by previous wars, the seat of Persian culture was now in Samarkand and Herat. These cities became the center of the Timurid renaissance⁶.

Culture

Although the Timurids hailed from the Barlas tribe which was of Mongol origin, they had embraced Persian culture¹⁶ and Persian art (distinguished by extensive adaptations from the Chinese⁶), and also Chagatay Literature⁶, converted to Islam and resided in Turkestan and Khorasan. Thus, the Timurid era had a dual character,⁶ which reflected both the Turco-Mongol origins and the Persian culture as well the Persian language. The Persian language was also the state language (also known as Diwan language) ¹⁷¹⁰ of the dynasty.

Literature

Timurid Literature in Persian Language

Persian literature, especially Persian poetry occupied a central place in the process of assimilation of the Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamic courtly culture.¹⁸ The Timurid sultans, especially Šāhrukh Mīrzā and his son Mohammad Taragai Oloğ Beg, patronized Persian culture.¹⁰ Among the most important literary works of the Timurid era is the Persian biography of Timur, known as "Zafarnāma" (Persian: ظفرنامه), written by Sharaf ud-Dīn Alī Yazdī, which itself is based on an older "Zafarnāma" by Nizām al-Dīn Shāmī, the official biographer of Timur during his lifetime. The most famous poet of the Timurid era was Nūr ud-Dīn Jāmī, the last great medieval Sufi mystic of Persia and one of the greatest in Persian poetry. The most famous painter of the Timurid court, as well as the most famous of the Persian miniature painters in general, was Ustād Kamāl ud-Dīin Behzād. In addition, the Timurid sultan Ulugh Beg is known as a great astronomer.

BaySanghur Shahnameh

Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi and wrote an introduction to it. According to T. Lenz¹⁹:

National Literature in Chagatay Language

The early Timurids played a very important role in the history of Turkic literature. Based on the established Persian literary tradition, a national Turkic literature was developed, written in the Chagatay language, the native tongue of the Timurid family. Chagatay poets such as Mīr Alī Sher Nawā'ī, Sultan Husayn Bāyqarā, and Zāher ud-Dīn Bābur encouraged other Turkic-speaking poets to write in their own vernacular in addition to Arabic and Persian.

The Bāburnāma, the autobiography of Bābur, as well as Mīr Alī Sher Nawā'ī's Chagatay poetry are among the best-known Turkic literary works and have fascinated and influenced many others world wide. The Baburnama was highly Persianized in its sentence structure, morphology or word formation and vocabulary²⁰.

Art

During the reign of Timurid rule, the golden age of Persian painting was ushered.²¹ During this period as well as the Safavid dynasty, Chinese art and artists had a significant influence on Persian art.²²²³²⁴ Timurid artists refined the Persian art of the book, which combines paper, calligraphy, illumination, illustration and binding in a brilliant and colourful whole.²⁵ It was the Mongol ethnicity of the Chaghatayid and Timurid Khans that is the source of the stylistic depiction Persian art during the Middle Ages. These same Mongols intermarried with the Persians and Turks of Central Asia, even adopting their religion and languages. Yet their simple control of the world at that time, particularly in the 13-15th Centuries, reflected itself in the idealised appearance of Persians as Mongols. Though the ethnic make-up gradually blended into the Iranian and Mesopotamian local populations, the Mongol stylism continued well after, and crossed into Asia Minor and even North Africa.

Architecture

Timurid architecture

In the realm of architecture, the Timurids drew on and developed many Seljuq traditions. Turquoise and blue tiles forming intricate linear and geometric patterns decorated the facades of buildings. Sometimes the interior was decorated similarly, with painting and stucco relief further enriching the effect.⁴ Timurid architecture is the pinnacle of Islamic art in Central Asia. Spectacular and stately edifices erected by Timur and his successors in Samarkand and Herat helped to disseminate the influence of the Ilkhanid school of art in India, thus giving rise to the celebrated Mughal (or Mongol) school of architecture. Timurid architecture started with the sanctuary of Ahmed Yasawi in present-day Kazakhstan and culminated in Timur's mausoleum Gur-e Amir in Samarkand. Timur’s Gur-I Mir, the 14th century mausoleum of the conqueror is covered with ‘’turquoise Persian tiles’’²⁶ Nearby, in the center of the ancient town, a Persian style Madrassa (religious school) ²⁷ and a Persian style Mosque²⁸ by Ulugh Beg is observed. The mausoleum of Timurid princes, with their turquoise and blue-tiled domes remain among the most refined and exquisite Persian architecture²⁹. Axial symmetry is a characteristic of all major Timurid structures, notably the Shāh-e Zenda in Samarkand, the Musallah complex in Herat, and the mosque of Gowhar Shād in Mashhad. Double domes of various shapes abound, and the outsides are perfused with brilliantly colors. Timurs dominance of the region strengthened the influence of his capital and Persian architecture upon India. ³⁰

Mughal architecture

After the foundation of the Mughal Empire, the Timurids successfully expanded the Persian cultural influence from Khorasan to India, where the Persian language, literature, architecture, and art dominated the Indian subcontinent until the British conquest.¹⁶. The Mughals, Persianized Turks who invaded from Central Asia and claimed descent from both Timur and Genghis - strengthened the Persianate culture of Muslim India³¹.

The Mughal period marked a striking revival of Islamic architecture in northern India. Under the patronage of the Mughal emperors, Indian, Persian, and various provincial styles were fused to produce works of unusual quality and refinement.³²

The Mughal emperor Akbar constructed the royal city of Fatehpur Sikri, located 26 miles west of Agra, in the late 1500s. The most famous example of Mughal architecture is the Taj Mahal, the "teardrop on eternity," completed in 1648 by the emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal who died while giving birth to their 14th child. The extensive use of precious and semiprecious stones as inlay and the vast quantity of white marble required nearly bankrupted the empire. The Taj Mahal is completely symmetric other than the sarcophagus of Shah Jahan which is placed off center in the crypt room below the main floor. This symmetry extended to the building of an entire mirror mosque in red sandstone to complement the Mecca-facing mosque place to the west of the main structure. Another structure built that showed great depth of Mughal influence was the Shalimar Gardens.

Rulers of the Timurid Empire

Rulers of Herat

Rulers of Samarkand

Abu Sa'id's sons divided his territories upon his death, into Samarkand, Badakhshan and Farghana

Other rulers

Rulers of Mughal Empire

Heads of the Timurid Dynasty

References and notes

^ Zahir ud-Din Mohammad (2002-09-10). in Thackston, Wheeler M.: The Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. Modern Library Classics. ISBN 0375761373. "Note: Gurkānī is the Persianized form of the Mongolian word "kürügän" ("son-in-law"), the title given to the dynasty's founder after his marriage into Genghis Khan's family."
^ Note: Gurgān, Gurkhān, or Kurkhān; The meaning of Kurkhan is given in Clements Markham's publication of the reports of the contemporary witness Ruy González de Clavijo as "of the lineage of sovereign princes".
^ Edward Balfour The Encyclopaedia Asiatica, Comprising Indian Subcontinent, Eastern and Southern Asia, Cosmo Publications 1976, S. 460, S. 488, S. 897
^ ^a ^b Encyclopædia Britannica, "Timurid Dynasty", Online Academic Edition, 2007. (Quotation:...Turkic dynasty descended from the conqueror Timur (Tamerlane), renowned for its brilliant revival of artistic and intellectual life in Iran and Central Asia....Trading and artistic communities were brought into the capital city of Herat, where a library was founded, and the capital became the centre of a renewed and artistically brilliant Persian culture...)
^ ^a ^b B.F. Manz, "Tīmūr Lang", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition, 2006
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "Timurids". The Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth). New York City: Columbia University. Retrieved on 2006-11-08.
^ Encyclopaedia Britannica article: Consolidation & expansion of the Indo-Timurids, Online Edition, 2007.
^ "Timur", The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001-05 Columbia University Press, (LINK)
^ "Consolidation & expansion of the Indo-Timurids", in Encyclopaedia Britannica, (LINK)
^ ^a ^b ^c B. Spuler, "Central Asia in the Mongol and Timurid periods", published in Encyclopaedia Iranica, Online Edition, 2006/7, (LINK): "... Like his father, Olōğ Beg was entirely integrated into the Persian Islamic cultural circles, and during his reign Persian predominated as the language of high culture, a status that it retained in the region of Samarqand until the Russian revolution 1917 [...] Ḥoseyn Bāyqarā encouraged the development of Persian literature and literary talent in every way possible ..."
^ David J. Roxburgh. The Persian Album, 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press, 2005. pg 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanama
^ Gérard Chaliand, Nomadic Empires: From Mongolia to the Danube translated by A. M. Berrett, Transaction Publishers, 2004. pg 75
^ Beatrice Forbes Manz. The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane. Cambridge University Press, 1999. pg 109: "...In Temür's government, as in those of most nomad dynasties, it is impossible to find a clear distinction between civil and military affairs, or to identify the Persian bureaucracy solely civil, and the Turko-Mongolian solely with military government. It is in fact difficult to define the sphere of either side of the administration and we find Persians and Chaghatays sharing many tasks. (In discussiong the settled bureaucracy and the people who worked within it I use the word Persian in a cultural rather than ethnological sense. In almost all the territories which Temür incorporated into his realm Persian was the primary language of administration and literary culture. Thus the language of the settled "diwan" was Persian, and its scribes had to be thoroughly adept in Persian culture, whatever their ethnic origin.) Temür's Chaghatay emirs were often involved in civil and provincial administration and even in financial affairs, traditionally the province of Persian bureaucracy...."
^ Volume III: To the Year A.D. 1398, Chapter: XVIII. Malfúzát-i Tímúrí, or Túzak-i Tímúrí: The Autobiography of Tímúr. Page: 389 (please press next and read all pages in the online copy) (1. Online copy, 2. Online copy) from: Elliot, Sir H. M., Edited by Dowson, John. The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period; published by London Trubner Company 1867–1877. (Online Copy: The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians. The Muhammadan Period; by Sir H. M. Elliot; Edited by John Dowson; London Trubner Company 1867–1877 - This online Copy has been posted by: The Packard Humanities Institute; Persian Texts in Translation; Also find other historical books: Author List and Title List)
^ Selected Death Tolls: Timur Lenk (1369–1405)
^ ^a ^b Lehmann, F. "Zaher ud-Din Babor - Founder of Mughal empire". Encyclopaedia Iranica (Online). New York City: Columbia University Center for Iranian (Persian) Studies. 320-323. Retrieved on 2006-11-07. “"... His origin, milieu, training, and culture were steeped in Persian culture and so Babor was largely responsible for the fostering of this culture by his descendants, the Mughals of India, and for the expansion of Persian cultural infleunce in the Indian subcontinent, with brilliant literary, artistic, and historiographical results ..."”
^ Robert Devereux (tr.), "Judgment of Two Languages; Muhakamat Al-Lughatain By Mir 'Ali Shir Nawāi"; Introduction, Translation and Notes: Leiden (E.J. Brill), 1966): Any linguist of today who reads the essay will inevitably conclude that Nawa'i argued his case poorly, for his principal argument is that the Turkic lexicon contained many words for which the Persian had no exact equivalents and that Persian-speakers had therefore to use the Turkic words. This is a weak reed on which to lean, for it is a rare language indeed that contains no loan words. In any case, the beauty of a language and its merits as a literary medium depend less on size of vocabulary and purity of etymology that on the euphony, expressiveness and malleability of those words its lexicon does include. Moreover, even if Nawa'i's thesis were to be accepted as valid, he destroyed his own case by the lavish use, no doubt unknowingly, of non-Turkic words even while ridiculing the Persians for their need to borrow Turkic words. The present writer has not made a word count of Nawa'i's text, but he would estimate conservatively that at least one half the words used by Nawa'i in the essay are Arabic or Persian in origin. To support his claim of the superiority of the Turkic language, Nawa'i also employs the curious argument that most Turks also spoke Persian but only a few Persians ever achieved fluency in Turkic. It is difficult to understand why he was impressed by this phenomenon, since the most obvious explanation is that Turks found it necessary, or at least advisable, to learn Persian - it was, after all, the official state language - while Persians saw no reason to bother learning Turkic which was, in their eyes, merely the uncivilized tongue of uncivilized nomadic tribesmen
^ David J. Roxburgh. The Persian Album, 1400-1600: From Dispersal to Collection. Yale University Press, 2005. pg 130: "Persian literature, especially poetry, occupied a central in the process of assimilation of Timurid elite to the Perso-Islamicate courtly culture, and so it is not surprising to find Baysanghur commissioned a new edition of Firdawsi's Shanama
^ "Baysonghori Shahnameh" in Encyclopedia Iranica by T. Lenz
^ Stephen Frederic DaleThe Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire. BRILL, 2004. pg 150
^ New Orient, By Czechoslovak Society for Eastern Studies, Czechoslovak Society for Eastern Studies, 1968. pg 139.
^ Persian Paintings
^ MSN Encarta. Islamic Art and Architecture.
^ Art Arena. Persian art - the Safavids
^ John Onians, Atlas of World Art, Laurence King Publishing, 2004. pg 132.
^ John Julius Norwich, Great Architecture of the World, Da Capo Press, 2001. pg 278.
^ John Julius Norwich, Great Architecture of the World, Da Capo Press, 2001. pg 278.
^ John Julius Norwich, Great Architecture of the World, Da Capo Press, 2001. pg 278.
^ Hugh Kennedy, “The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In”, Da Capo Press, 2007. pg 237
^ Banister Fletcher, Dan Cruickshan, "Sir Banister Fletcher's a History of Architecture ",Architectural Press, 1996. pg 606
^ Robert L. Canfield, Turko-Persia in historical perspective, Cambridge University Press, 1991. pg 20
^ Mughal architecture Encyclopædia Britannica

Timurid dynasty.html

Contents

Origins