Tamerlane Timeline

The success of Timur's second military expedition led to further operations, among them the subjugation of Khwarazm and Urgench in the Siege of Urgench (1379), expanding his power across Central Asia.

In 1383, Timur started his lengthy military conquest of Persia, though he already ruled over much of Persian Khorasan by 1381, after Khwaja Mas'ud of the Sarbadar dynasty surrendered to him.

Image source: Timurid Empire

In 1384, Timur laid siege to Soltaniyeh as part of his ongoing conquest of Persia, tightening his grip on northwestern Iran.

Image source: Soltaniyeh

When Herat did not surrender, Timur reduced the city to rubble and massacred most of its citizens; it remained in ruins until Shah Rukh ordered its reconstruction around 1415. With its capture, the Kartid kingdom surrendered and became vassals of Timur, later annexed outright in 1389 by his son Miran Shah.

Image source: Herat

When Timur arrived with his army at Isfahan in 1387, the city immediately surrendered; he treated it with relative mercy, unlike cities such as Herat that resisted him. That same year he passed through Mazandaran while trying to capture the Zagros region.

Image source: Isfahan

Timur then began a five-year campaign to the west in 1392, attacking Persian Kurdistan and extending his dominance deeper into western Persia and beyond.

In 1393, Shiraz was captured after surrendering, and the Muzaffarids became vassals of Timur. Prince Shah Mansur rebelled but was defeated at the Battle of Shiraz (1393), and the Muzaffarids were annexed outright.

Image source: Muzaffarids (Iran)

In May 1393, Timur's army invaded the Anjudan, crippling the Ismaili village only a year after his assault on the Ismailis in Mazandaran, demonstrating his harsh treatment of communities he viewed as heretical.

Russian Orthodox tradition states that in 1395, having reached the frontier of the Principality of Ryazan, Timur had taken Yelets and started advancing towards Moscow before turning back.

Image source: Principality of Ryazan

The decline of the Tughlaq dynasty drew Timur's attention, and in 1398 he invaded the Indian subcontinent during the reign of Sultan Mahmud Shah II. After crossing the Indus River on 30 September 1398 with a force of 90,000, he sacked Tulamba and massacred its inhabitants, encountering resistance under Malik Jasrat at the Sutlej.

The battle took place on 17 December 1398, resulting in Timur's decisive victory over the Tughlaq forces. His invasion and destruction of Delhi continued the chaos consuming India, and the city would not recover from the great loss it suffered for almost a century.

In 1400, Timur invaded Armenia and Georgia as part of his raids on Transcaucasia. Between 1386 and 1404, his Turco-Mongol forces raided the region repeatedly from bases in northern Iran, and in 1404 Tiflis was finally conquered, forcing King George VII to recognize Timurid suzerainty.

Timur invaded Baghdad in June 1401, dealing a devastating blow to the city. While he was still in Anatolia, Qara Yusuf assaulted and captured Baghdad in 1402, showing how contested the region remained.

Image source: Baghdad

In December 1402, Timur besieged and conquered Smyrna, a stronghold of the Christian Knights Hospitalers; thus he referred to himself as ghazi or 'Warrior of Islam'.

Image source: Smyrna

Jahangir, Timur's son, died of illness in 1376. His death removed an intended heir and affected the succession plans of the emerging Timurid dynasty.

Image source: Jahangir Mirza (Timurid prince)

Timur's grandson Muhammad Sultan, his second intended heir, died from battle wounds in 1403, complicating the succession of the Timurid Empire.

Image source: Sultan Muhammad (Timurid)

In December 1404, Timur began military campaigns against Ming China and detained a Ming envoy. He became ill while encamped on the farther side of the Syr Daria and died at Farab on 17 or 18 February 1405, before ever reaching the Chinese border.

It was not until 1409 that Timur's youngest son, Shah Rukh, was able to overcome his rivals and take the throne as Timur's successor, stabilizing the Timurid Empire. Herat would later be rebuilt under his orders around 1415.

Image source: Shah Rukh Khan

Timur was the grandfather of the Timurid sultan, astronomer and mathematician Ulugh Beg, who ruled Central Asia from 1411 to 1449, continuing the dynasty's cultural and scientific legacy.

Image source: Ulugh Beg

Babur (1483–1530), Timur's great-great-great-grandfather-descendant through the Timurid line, founded the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent, extending Timur's legacy into South Asia.

Image source: Babur

Despite their growing rivalry, Timur still supported Tokhtamysh against the Russians, and in 1382 Tokhtamysh invaded the Muscovite dominion and burned Moscow.

Image source: Moscow

Tokhtamysh, now khan of the Golden Horde, turned against his patron Timur and in 1385 invaded Azerbaijan, beginning the long struggle between the two rulers.

Image source: Tokhtamysh–Timur war

Tokhtamysh's army was boxed in against the east bank of the Volga River in the Orenburg region and destroyed at the Battle of the Kondurcha River in 1391, marking a major victory for Timur in his war with the Golden Horde.

Image source: Battle of the Kondurcha River

In 1395, Timur defeated Tokhtamysh at the Battle of the Terek River, concluding the struggle between the two monarchs. The Golden Horde never recovered from its losses and disintegrated into smaller khanates within the next half-century, allowing Moscow to emerge as the dominant Russian state.

Image source: Battle of the Terek River

Before the end of 1399, Timur started a war with Bayezid I, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Nasir-ad-Din Faraj, setting up the great confrontations of the early 1400s. Ahmad Jalayir fled again in 1399 to the Ottomans, aided by Qara Yusuf of the Kara Koyunlu.

Image source: Bayezid I

Timur invaded Anatolia and decisively defeated Bayezid I at the Battle of Ankara on 20 July 1402, one of the most significant battles of his career, shattering Ottoman power for years.

Image source: Battle of Ankara

Writing in 1403, John III, Archbishop of Sultaniyya, claimed that Timur's mother was of lowly origin. The 18th century Books of Timur identify her as the daughter of 'Sadr al-Sharia', believed to refer to the Hanafi scholar Ubayd Allah al-Mahbubi of Bukhara.

Between 1424 and 1428, Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi wrote a second Zafarnama drawing heavily on Shami's earlier work. In the Zafarnama, Mongols living in modern-day Mongolia are referred to as Qalmaq, not Mughul.

Arabshah's history of Timur was translated into Latin by the Dutch Orientalist Jacobus Golius in 1636, bringing contemporary Muslim accounts of Timur to European scholars.

Image source: Ibn Arabshah

The scholar Abu Taleb Hosayni presented the Malfuzat-i Timuri and Tuzuk-i Timuri to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, a distant descendant of Timur, supposedly after discovering the Chagatai originals in Yemen. They are almost certainly 17th-century fabrications.

Image source: Shah Jahan